One of the best additions to my system! Don’t mess around, get the ultimate powercord as well.

PLEASE…..please …..please…….someone test the Horizon kt150 , It makes a lot of sense seeing that so many modern tube amps use the kt150 , And …….we only HAD …..the tung-sol ones ,….contrary for example to kt88’s from which we still have a lot to choose !

By now you must have tested a few other chi-fi amps but let me tell you about the original SA-50. I bought it in 2015 and as soon as I began to listen something drove me to compare it side by side with my $600 NAD power amp. I went at it for two weeks and could never detect a difference.....so I sold the NAD while I still could get some money for it. I also have Aiyima and Fosi amps and I'm convinced I would have to spend fifteen times the cost of one of them (money i don't have) to begin to detect differences.

I bought a quad of 12AU7s. They are nothing special. Not at all.

laber, laber laber

Hi.. from Portugal. Two questions: I have Cayin A845 Pro 25th Anniversary Edition amplifier.. i read so many saying so well of the Willsenton R800i with 805 tubes.. i dont know what you think of it. About the Wathen 6SN7 WC tubes.. in your review, the base is black but in the site is brown.. they are the same?

how about amp. what would work well with these ?

Great vid. Thanks!

My only comment is that I feel audiophiles too often fail to take the room and their use case into consideration. Each room has its characteristics sonically. Add to that the flexibility (or lack thereof) in speaker placement. Finally, are the speakers strictly for 2 channel use or will they be doing double duty for HT as well. The answers to these questions may determine how far you can hope to go down the audio rabbit hole without wasting your money. A speaker can only go so far in overcoming a challenging placement which circumstances do not allow for changing.

Single ended 8 watt means you have thrown out about 80 percent of speakers made.

I believe you. 😊

I think big audiophile spenders would not be amused by this video but the absurdity of this hobby is right on point. Some of my most enjoyable audiophile moments were from 20 years ago when I had a tube integrated powering a pair of Paradigm Atoms on brackets against my loft in my 250 sq ft studio in Seattle. I'm not saying that sounded as good as my current system, but certainly just as enjoyable and less fuzzy setup. Very entertaining clip indeed.

good morning and thanks for the excellent video I don't want to sound provocative but the upper full range if used full range will surely have more IMD in the midrange A simple high pass filter can be very transparent if done well For sure what passes will sound cleaner even if the level is raised I would also put a low pass on the woofer especially if it has high frequency break up I would at least try

Have you built the ABX baffle since? Which setup is do you feel was better? Standing baffles but subs placed seperate or ladybug config either with coax / speaker+tweeter?

I ordered AL 4's before I saw your review. On 11/10, I received an email from China asking me if I would want their latest version at no extra charge. I agreed immediately and it makes me think this is some kind of fix for the piano black version. The small picture included showed a wood looking grain with a piano finish. Will let you know how it goes.

Nearing the end of my hifi journey into DIY speakers, I realized I should have added a 3A to my 4 levels. 3A is modifications to an established design. I am going to share parts of my journey with you, but the short version is think LONG and HARD about doing this. I started with a design by a well respected designer, the original design was a standard TMW in an OB design. The design had a good detailed review by someone who likely knew what he was talking about. The design had been commissioned by him and he was really happy with the results. The design had a lot a nice features, the one most important for this discussion is the angling back of the speaker for physical time alignment. I liked the design, but this is an OB speaker and you need big woofers moving a lot of air when you don’t have bass reinforcement from the cabinet. The original design has a single 15” woofer. I decided to add a second 15” woofer and bi-amp the separately power them. Simple change right? WRONG!!! First re-design was to change from a TMW to a WMTMW configuration. Physical time alignment is now out the window. Woodworking challenges of even considering this are too difficult (original design was made with a CNC machine carving into solid wood) and a low SAF design just descended into really huge and ugly. But there were other issues as well. The tweeter is far more efficient than the midrange. The designer built and tested the original design so he knew the attenuation needed for his design, but he could only estimate the attenuation needed for dual mids. There is also a wiring decision. Unless your mids are available as 4 ohm drivers, wiring them is going to either be tube friendly (16 ohms) or SS friendly (4 ohms). Finally, having a 15” woofer up top is not where you want your woofer and reflections of that top woofer off the ceiling could introduce problems. I finally decided on a MTWW design. The mid could not fit under the tweeter and be anywhere near the right height with dual 15” woofers underneath. This solved any question of attenuation and eliminated concerns about woofer ceiling reflections. Losing the extra mid was not a big deal for me because my modification was to extend the bass, not the midrange. Now you might ask, why not use dual 12” woofers by the same company or a single 18” by the same company. Maybe that would work, maybe it wouldn’t. The 15” woofers had been tested and used in the design and the 15” blended with the mid. Changing drivers, even within the same company introduces potential issues because you are now the first person to test your speaker with this driver combo. If you have a wood shop and love fiddling with speakers, go for it. If you want to do this once and be done, think twice about doing this. The final result, which I had to design, actually bears little physical resemblance to the original design. Look closer and you will see the similarities. My point is that, even relatively minor changes can introduce all kinds of unforeseen consequences. And here is the other consideration: is the change you want really worth it??? For example, someone I respect suggested tri-amping my speaker. And I could do that. But unless I have to have something like a 300B tube amp powering my tweeter, it’s just once heck of of a lot simpler to use a little higher powered push pull tube amp and leave everything the same. Any potential savings by using a 300B amp would be offset by the changes needed to my equipment and at the end of the day, would it sound that different??? I will probably have my speakers this weekend. I expect them to sound very much like the original design, just with better bass response. I like that bi-amping allows me to use a low power tube or Class A amp on top and a much more powerful, Class AB or Class D amp on the bottom. But was it worth it??? I am unlikely to ever hear the original design. So the answer is that I will tell myself it was worth it (I certainly learned a lot along the way), but honestly, your guess is as good as mine. The moral of this story is tread VERY carefully if you want to try level 3A. IMHO, modifications are rarely as simple as they may seem.

Gustard R26 or Yggdrasil GS2 ?Right now, I'm using the iBasso D16 Taipan with iFi ICAN Pro and ZMF Caldera Closed headphones, I want to replace iBasso D16 Thanks

Thanks for the video. Was the description of the Jupiter caps with regard to the Vcap ODaMs? In other words, are the Jupiters really better than the ODAMs?

You’re a lucky man! A vintage Gibson guitar and Sibelius speakers, in the same room? 😮 We don’t get to see much French oak, here in the states. 👍👍

Wow! Awesome man!

Wow

Yamaha A-S1100.. would probably smash that power amp. But my friend is looking for a stereo-amp so i will tell him about this one.

I had a Willsenton R8 tube amplifier paired with a KEF LS50 and experienced the most holographic sound ever. It filled the entire room. In my opinion, it is best to combine analytical (maybe even bright) loudspeakers with tube amplifiers. There is some strange synergy between them.

I built these for about $500 10 years ago. The DIY community calls them the Pensil. It’s funny to hear you describe them. Yeah, they are the best set of speakers I built and I stopped building after them, but I did not transcend. Recently sold them for $500. I guess I should have asked for more.

Have you ever experimented by adding a tweeter or super tweeter to your open baffles. This design had me thinking,lol.

This is an expensive review ;)

BEST HIFI GUIDE EWAH!

Wait just a minute Loic. You are being rational and logical. There is no room in this hobby for rational and logical.

Hey there, thanks for this vid. I’m thinking of doing a similar build. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the plans for an open baffle build that lii was on their website for the F-15. I’m debating doing their design which is a bit wider at 1 ply vs your 2 foot wide with 2 ply design. In your experience do you think I have more to gain from a wider, thinner baffle or a thicker, less wide approach? Thanks!

You got a big jiggly belly and your home made speakers sound distorted and out of tune.

Great video, thank you. Connectivity vs conductivity. Splitting hair here but I think you meant conductivity. Analogy of purity & impurity vs pot holes. What a great analogy! Carving a path, exactly, (wow that analogy really works). You start with a 4 lane highway with one lane that has less impurity and that is where the electrons go and that is the "traffic". Cryotone, the way I see it, hardens the plates so, the electrons cannot carve a grove in the "material" and HAVE to use all 4 lanes wide of the highway "the space" available. (if that makes sense). Anyway I say often that I do not consider myself a hi-fi guy, in the sense that I am not chasing "better" sounds all the time. I just chase a sound that pleases me, and maybe one that compensates for my "flawed" earing, L. Nice to see you pop-up in my YT list. One of the best Hi-Fi honest channel I know of! Cheers, a

You are one of the very, very rare Audiophiles who STICKS with his philosophy and not every 2 weeks another next best thing! I watch you know for a long, long time and followed you since your 4th yt video and your journey was very nice! I do own two high quality hifi chains and fully agree with your statements: it is so stupid how so called hifi audiophiles try to convience not-so-much experienced just to get into this buy-new-gear every 6 months hamster-wheel! I was there as well, but since I follow people like you, I'm much more on the tuning side and I already reached a high level to be satisfied with my room situation! I AM SO TIRED when people tell me, room adjustment is 60% of our hobby, NO ITs not, if you have an average listening room its perfectly fine, I'm listening to music and NOT remastering songs! Than go for studio monitors in fully dampened room 😅 keep going!!! Your listener from Germany!😊 BTW: through you, I've ordered the complete Crytone tube selection, love it and really good and I do have a huge tube selection 😅