Magnepan LRS

[SteveFord]

Pardon the current state of affairs, a little disorganized at the moment.

I am really impressed, these little weasels sound great!
I was expecting a bit better than MMGs, but WRONG.
No wonder they're months behind in filling orders.

[admin]

Magnepan offers such amazing products for very reasonable costs. Very little "glam" but big performance.

Geez, how many models do you own?

[SteveFord]

Well...
MMGs up on hinges, MMG-W, CC5, LRS, two pairs of 1.7 and the 3.7s.

I purchased the LRS as a replacement for the MMGs and as a fill-in for the LRS which were on back order since February.
I should probably downsize or maybe set up another system with the spare 1.7s.
I did have 20.7s but they were just too large for the living room so off they went which was very painful!

Those little LRS really are excellent speakers. They sound much larger than they really are.
Nearfield listening or small room, small sub and you could put together a great system for not too much money.

[Big Dog RJ]

Very true! Probably the most effective goal towards absolute VFM.
There are many other fantastic speakers that do deliver quite a performance, given the right equipment with outstanding results, both in terms of value and performance. Maggie's are one of those speaker brands that have been around for decades and always seem to deliver exactly what they're supposed to, never out-doing itself. I really enjoyed my time with them all the way up to the MG20 series, which was real VFM! Able to compete with the big boys...

Then comes along the MG30.7 system, which is like the mothership of all Maggie's but then resembles the legendary Typani series, so were these Typani's reborn? Whatever the case may be, the 30.7's are a formidable design, fully revamped with better quality parts inside out. It does take a large dedicated room, and a hefty power amplifier to get them to perform optimally. Otherwise, it's not ever going to sound right, especially when you have four very large panels to deal with, not fun. No easy task to optimally position either, due to endless placement options with 4 panels. When adjusting the Highs & Mids panel, you may think you have it right but then there's this long thinking process of getting the bass panels right. That takes the cake!

Cheers to Maggies, and enjoy those fine tunes!
Best, RJ

[SteveFord]

Been making some progress on the LRS system and am using a deHavilland UltraVerve 3 preamp which I just love but was having a hell of a time getting it to sound right in a small room.
I finally tried this Sylvania tonight and just perfect!



This is why I had a buddy recondition a tube tester; I have a lot of old tubes and you can't tell if you've got a short by looking at them.
New tubes from a reputable vendor, you're probably okay.
Stuff from the 50s and 60s, well, you'd better check but that doesn't mean they won't fail in service in short order.
Had a Toshiba go bad in the 17LS after four hours so it now lives in the Dead Tube Display cabinet.

[AnotherJohnson]

When I was a child, in the mid 50s, we lived in the shadow of the WELI tower in Hamden, CT. There was no widespread use of solid state yet … transistors we’re used to make pocket radios, but tubes were king.

WELI apparently went through tubes pretty frequently because their 55 gallon drum waste container at the back door was often full of them.

I generally pitch mine … I don’t want to take the chance
that one I’ve replaced might find its way back into service.

[SteveFord]

Every year a bunch of audio enthusiasts spend a week hanging out with Bob Carver in the Smokey Mountains and they build one of his designs while he supervises the lot.
I went years ago, fully laden on a Buell Ulysses with the wife on the back, and it was a mile of tight, twisty gravel road going way the hell up on top of a mountain to get there. Got to the top and no clutch - 1000 miles from home, no clutch and I still have to go back down.
Hmmm...
At any rate, a fellow wound up with an extra amplifier so this weekend I'll be mating this up with the Magnepan LRS' which I'm really looking forward to.

[AnotherJohnson]

Bob Carver is a sort of folk hero/genius.

I don’t know if you know the full story of his reverse engineering escapades which reportedly allowed him to duplicate the sound of a CJ Premier 4. His method involved experimental determination of the transfer function of CJ amp and then comparison and nulling to complete his magic.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge

He startled a lot of people, and made many angry at what they perceived to be his theft of intellectual property.

My late friend Harvey Rosenberg wrote a scathing rebuke of Carver’s ethical standard, chastising him for plagiarizing the Mystery Amp’s sound rather than doing the research to find the best on his own bench.

CJ was not revealed as the amp for the project until long afterwards. They used a panel of listeners to judge the Carver result compared to the high end mystery amp.

I’m glad to see that in recent years Carver is building tube amps directly, and “of his own design.”

The truth is, there aren’t that many tube amp designs. CJ goes with the simplest designs and focuses on short paths and highest quality parts. Anyone could do this.

Maybe Carver does.

I’ll look forward to your report.

[SteveFord]

He certainly ruffled a few feathers over the years (starting with that amplifier in the coffee can). That must have been funny to see the reaction at the McIntosh booth.

I've never heard one of the Carver tube amps but the buddy who said I should try conrad-johnson for my next preamp has. His take was "they're excellent and I'd buy one in a New York minute".
FWIW he got sick of the tube heat in a small room and replaced his Joule gear with Marantz Reference components which he seems to like.

I don't know about the M1.0t sounding like a tube amp.
Mine would blow you out of the room but it was a two dimensional soundstage that would have me out of your chair and wandering around after a bit.

[AnotherJohnson]

The coffee can amp story may be mythical, but the McIntosh Amp Clinics were real.

https://forums.phxaudiotape.com/threads ... 623/page-3

McIntosh would bring their team to the local dealer (on tour so to speak). I went many times. They were multi day affairs. They would test your gear and give you a report for free.

Carver did participate, but the coffee can story is just urban legend.

[Big Dog RJ]

Good old B Carver, what a legend!
Just before the Prem8's were upgraded to the 8A's, a customer of ours brought in the mighty Silver 9T's monoblocks. They had so many tubes in each chassis it was more than a Christmas tree!

One thing I'll say though, it handled those big Apogee Diva's with ease, and when we got back to the chaps place, low & behold he had Carver's Amazing Ribbon panel speakers. Driven with the Silver 9's monoblocks it was certainly mighty fine!

However, when we finally took delivery of the Prem 8As oh boy! Was that a revelation, simply superb! Especially with the ART preamp, that was one heck of combination! Probably one of the finest during that decade. I remember our Spore dealers would visit home and won't leave till 3 or 4am in the morning... we were so engaged in the music!

Very very nice to see these Carver tube amplifiers. I'm sure they're upto serious spec and the cost is very reasonable too. I can see these items as vfm, if someone wanted to get into serious tube gear. Should be a very fine combination.

Do let us know how it all goes with the Maggie's.
Cheers, RJ

[SteveFord]

Bob actually helped one of the guys build a coffee can amp back around twenty years ago, he was all thrilled.
I finally have a coffee can amp, it's a dream come true!
I guess you could make a little hinged metal lid in case it catches on fire, ha ha. Just shut the lid and throw it out the window.

I should be getting it on Sunday and will see how it works with the LRS'.
I'll also get to compare it to the MF-2275 which has been sounding really good, it just took a while to get used to being put into service.

[SteveFord]

It's a bird.
It's a plane.
It's a toaster?

[AnotherJohnson]

Mmmmmmm … toast

[SteveFord]

While not actually directed at me, I'll just pretend it is and expect a Whitman's Sampler on Valentine's Day.


And here's the amp itself, a 275 (two x 75 WPC) assembled at a CarverFest a few years back.
As you may have guessed, he signs gear with a gold pen at this event. I have an old signed piece as a souvineer, some sort of CD player add-on to make the sound of the earlier players less horrible.


For a small room (10x13') it has more than enough power for Magnepan LRS' and it really responds to tube rolling.
TungSol KT120s in the back, two 12AT7s flanking one 12AX7 up front.
Those little guys are JJs (meh kind of thin sounding), it also came with some Amperex which were just too much of a good thing: in a small room everything was just overpowering although they were tonally accurate. It was the kind of turn it down sound, everything was just a bit too dynamic with the Amperex. They would probably work really well in a larger space, though.
Sylvania seems to work best in everything for me so I'm waiting to hear what my buddies have kicking around.

I can see how the tubes will last a long time in this, they're not putting out much heat at all and this amp is not a backbreaker by any stretch of the imagination. Bob put some real clever thinking into this one, it's not the old boat anchor and space heater like my VTLs are.
Biasing could not be any easier, one big brass trim pot on the back, meter up on the front, set for 100 Mv and see what you think. Under is more of a warm tube sound, a bit more and it's a more aggressive or perhaps modern sounding. You know how the tube guys are always moving towards more of a SS sound, the SS guys are trying to get a tube sound out of them. I don't think the SS guys will ever get there unless they add some tubes.
It does that 3D tube trick quite well where the sound just wraps around you and lulls you into a trance, it's just going to be a matter of finding the right tubes for it.
Once I do that it'll be a keeper.
Depth and width (and surprisingly, height) of soundstage is right there. Stuff was flying above the speakers on Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here.
I didn't know what to expect but I was told it was really good and they were right.
If my big VTLs ever crap out I think I'll look at some of Bob's larger amps. They should be cheap to maintain and I'm not hearing anything that makes me think I could do better than this other than doing some finding the right 3 tubes and then that messing with the bias adjustment a bit. Just doing that has a big impact on this amp's sound. Too much bass? Kick the bias up a little bit, that's all it takes. Sound's too thin? Try backing the bias down a little bit.
Aside from the weight and heat (which are the most obvious things), he designed a tube amp with a tone control. That trim pot is so big you can just use your fingers, you don't need a screw driver. Unlike my VTLs, you don't need a long thin shaft plastic screw driver to keep from electocuting yourself.
I don't think most people would mess with tube rolling, they'd just give that pot a small tweak and call it a day.

[SteveFord]

Correction, it's Amperex and Telefunken that's in there now.
A buddy is sending me some Sylvanias, RCA's and current Genelax Gold Lions to play around with so I'll source the missing Sylvania from somewhere else and should be able to get this dialed in to my satisfaction.
I forgot to mention, dead quiet, too. My VTLs sound like something out of Young Frankenstein.

I found a box of 12AX7s that I forgot I had, there's all sorts of old tubes in there.
A Raytheon Dumont 7025 really brought this amp to life. Maybe just a little bass heavy but I'm getting there.

[SteveFord]

Found the winning combo: Tung Sol KT120s in the back, three Sylvania's in the front.
The magic bullet is a Sylvania 12AX7 for the military packaged in 1958. That was the missing piece of the puzzle.

[Joe Appierto]

I have a pair of 1958 Sylvania 6CG7 that I used in my 11A. They were among my favorites.

http://x7c.xanga.com/f17f92f16003128217 ... 904490.jpg

http://x4c.xanga.com/821f96f76003028217 ... 904491.jpg

[SteveFord]

Oh, you have his taller brother, he was on the Varsity basketball team.
Here's the little midget I've got:


I'm waiting for some speaker stands to be powder coated and then I'll post some pics and wrap this up.

[AnotherJohnson]

How’s this coming?

I ran across these while thumbing through a catalog today.

https://www.musicdirect.com/power-amp/B ... Monoblocks

Like so many things associated with Bob Carver, it all sounds too good to be true.

The amps listen to the room through the speakers to add a touch of the room to the music.

The tubes last 50 years. You can touch them when in use.

350 Watts into 8 Ohms with only 6 Tung Sol KT120s. No bias necessary for individual tubes … you bias the set. Tubes don’t need to be matched.

Only 44 pounds each.

And all for only $9500 for a pair. Choice of crimson or raven.

Have you ever heard them? Unfortunately they’re out of stock so I can’t audition them.