Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

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valvesRus
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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

Unread post by valvesRus »

Thanks Nick, I knew you would know.

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Dr Bunsen Honeydew
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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

Unread post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

This needs to be in another thread.

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SteveTheShadow
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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

Unread post by SteveTheShadow »

Received the "scrap" LS5 cables this morning.
I have them in the system now and .... :grin:

Review later today.
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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

Unread post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

They are the original of 7 years ago, they have the main cores but the small number of fine cores added later are not there. You just lose a bit of HF finesse without the fine cores but the bass should be epic, and the rest will be better than LS2.

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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

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Dr Bunsen Honeydew wrote: Mon Mar 19, 2018 2:42 pm They are the original of 7 years ago, they have the main cores but the small number of fine cores added later are not there. You just lose a bit of HF finesse without the fine cores but the bass should be epic, and the rest will be better than LS2.
Aye,
These cables are great. The best description I can think of concerning how they make the system sound, is "liquid"
As you say bass is extended, detailed deep and controlled, without the bloom of the LS2. The absence of bloom makes it easier to follow complex bass lines. Walking double bass lines on "We Get Requests" by The Oscar Peterson Trio are a pleasure to listen to, as is Peterson's piano and Ed Thigpen's drums. The lower registers of all these disparate instruments come across beautifully, the LS5 being in complete command of the bottom end.

Further up the scale, the lack of coloration on midrange instrumentation, such as guitars and saxes, allows subtle harmonic shadings and textures to make their presence known on a far larger scale of delineation than the LS2 does. Put simply, the music is more 'live' and interesting via the LS5.

The top detail is excellent to my ears and the usual shimmering cymbals and subtle percussion details, that seem to be a trademark of NVA equipment come over with the sort of liquid luminescence that makes music a pleasure to listen to; completely natural and unfatiguing.

I'm not knocking the LS2 as it is a good start to the NVA experience, but as you say Richard, the real NVA experience comes when you start using the proper speaker cables.

I'm well pleased. Thanks for making up the cables.
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SteveTheShadow
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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

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From yesterday on AT where I posted about my omnis in concert with this NVA boarded box of delights:
So I'm sitting here listening to the album, "We Get Requests" from The Oscar Peterson Trio" and "Have You Met Miss Jones" is playing. I'm sitting in my usual listening seat, which is off to the side and outside the field of the left hand speaker. Hell, I'm not even facing the speakers. I'm at 90 degrees to them, not even a proper hi-fi lstening position!

And yet, we have the trio in the room, playing softly and there am I, as if I am sitting at a table, front left of the stage, having dinner with my favourite woman, who is sitting opposite.

There is Oscar, centre stage, Ed Thigpen on drums, behind and to the left of the piano, nearest to us.
Bassist Ray Brown is on the right and furthest away from our table.

It is quite an immersive experience, every buzz of string on fretboard, stutter of brush against snare skin, every utterance of Peterson as he quietly accompanies himself at the piano, quite clearly audible on this wonderful recording.

Such is the illusion, you can't help but be carried away on the music.

I sit where I like and the sound remains the same, I can leave the room to make a cup of tea, and the sound doesn't change apart from being a bit softer, but the illusion of a band playing in the next room is absolute; incredibly enjoyable and thoroughly addictive. It's the sound that was trapped in my head, released and unleashed.
I've had a sound in my head and for years I have been trying to create it. With this amp, in conjunction with my omnis, I'm hitting that sound. Niiiice.
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Dr Bunsen Honeydew
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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

Unread post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

Unless i am going daft I have seen nothing about the NVA board amps at AudioTalk.

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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

Unread post by SteveTheShadow »

No I haven't mentioned them. The above was in my AT thread about my Winslow Burhoe influenced, omni speaker.
I'd gotten into an exchange with DSJR, who appears to remain unconvinced by any argument I put forward as to why they are
a good thing, chiefly because I had adjusted the tweeter down a bit. I didn't really understand what he was trying to say, when he suggested I should hear a well regarded commercial speaker to get a reference and that I didn't really understand the sound of live musical instruments.

His perogative of course, but I found the implication that I didn't know the sound of live music a bit patronising to be honest, and it ended up as a discussion about whether it was feasible to squeeze the live experience into a small room and that we accept that it is impossible and instead, should be aiming to reproduce the sound of the music itself, and forget about live sound levels rather try to attain the unattainable.

The point of good hi-fi to me, is to bring "real" music into the living room. I had a sound in my head that I was trying to create, in order to achieve this and admitted in public that I was an audio enthusiast, who was not into hi-fi in the conventional sense of the term.

I had cited the Bose 901 direct/reflector, I first heard heard around 1980, as one of the early "eureka" moments I had about how good a pair of speakers could interface with a room, and how, nearly forty years later, when I had gone down the Allison/Dunn/Burhoe route, I was at last, starting to get at that elusive 901 "sound" in my head and what getting there meant to me and how it was now creating that "joy of music" rather than hi-fi intruding on everything.

He came back later talking about how he hated the Bose 901 "with a passion" as he put it, and that the "omni" part of its philosophy was the major contribution to its unacceptability to his ears; the implication being "I wouldn't have started from there"

"Here we bloody go again I thought to myself, I'm banging my head against a brick wall here" so I posted the above, quoted bit, whilst I was listening to the system, as a kind of running commentary on what a great sound/musical experience I was getting. That experience IMO was being further enhanced by the addition if the DIY, NVA setup as well as the speakers. However I didn't mention that bit on AT.

If you look at the thread about the room flooder on there you will see the debate.

The NVA setup and the omni speaker experience, just seem to fit together seamlessly, and are producing the best sound I've had....ever, in my own room, and as a consequence, the music is better. That's basically what I'm trying to say.
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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

Unread post by _D_S_J_R_ »

Steve, I think you've rather misrepresented me in your post above and it has nothing to do with your amp project either, so why bring it up here.

I admire people who make their own speakers was worried that you're constantly playing with tweeter integration and levels and I was trying to suggest a cheapie well known speaker to use as some kind of reference 'grounding point' to help with your endeavours, that's all. I suggested a couple of cheapies that might have done, including the Bose 301 IV which I thought was really seriously good in a way you might agree with - it was a small speaker that could be listened to for hours without the desire to switch off after half an hour or so. We used them 'sideways' on 24" stands close to the wall and with the faceted edge inwards I remember.

I miss the wonderful big speakers I once had. I certainly didn't mean to be patronising, apart from your strongly held assertion that no audio system will come anywhere near to the live performance - maybe it never will in your eyes, but I was convinced it was closely possible with proper large studio gear and powerful large clean sounding speakers driven by powerful amps with a dynamic range few domestic stereo sets can come close to. As for Bose 901's. For me, they only worked at all ime because of the eq box necessarily added to them and I found them very unnatural and squawky in reproduction. The pair a pal had for a while long ago did funny almost ethereal 'phasey' things too in his room - very odd - but he loved the effect for the couple of years he had them and these things have been around for many decades now so obviously have many fans.

Different opinion, different ways of hearing and feeling music. The discussion on AT moved on and someone made an excellent summation of how you and perhaps I, listen - something like bring the listener to the performers on the one hand and bringing the performers to the listener on the other -or something like that.
Last edited by _D_S_J_R_ on Sat Mar 24, 2018 11:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Dr Bunsen Honeydew
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Re: Another DIY SS Amplifier with NVA Boards

Unread post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

Steve it just seems strange, you write about everything else, the NVA based amp is a DIY project, every other project of yours is written up there. I just wondered why, were you expecting to be attacked, because I am sure Nick wouldn't allow it.

I made a similar comment to Stu, why does it have to be only here, why are these projects not valid elsewhere.

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