An evening at Rethm

[prem]

Hi Hydra, Virens 2a3 modded amp with Slagle transformers is also a great match. So is First Watt and Berning. With Berning, you have to be a little careful. Everything has to be optimised. Else it can go wrong.

 

[Kushanava]

@Atharva - 18*24 is a pretty big room. You could have even considered a Saadhana.

 

[prem]

Hi Kushanava

Maarga is a very good speaker. If budget is tight, i would rather buy a Maarga over a Saadhana and put the savings on a good tube amp and a source. The benefits would be higher. If budget is not an issue, then Saadhanas. But Saadhanas because of their higher resolution and bandwidth will demand an even better source and amp..

Personally i would be happy with a Maarga with a good amp and source

 

[atharva]

@hydra, thanks for the kind words. Yes, I pull them in front for serious listening. Jacob is not sure when he will the amp ready. I hope I can borrow a tube just to listen to it

BTW, I was hoping to stop at your place during my visit but I didn't get in touch because of lack of time.

@Kushanava, the Saadhana were my first choice. But the Saadhana are suitable for rooms up to 800 sq ft while Maarga suit rooms up to 400 sq ft (mine is about that). I think the Saadhana needs more breathing space. Besides, the Maarga barely fit where I needed it

 

[hydra]

Hi Hydra, Virens 2a3 modded amp with Slagle transformers is also a great match. So is First Watt and Berning. With Berning, you have to be a little careful. Everything has to be optimised. Else it can go wrong.

Yes, Viren's 2A3 with mods would definitely be the best other option in about the same budget.

@Atharva - 18*24 is a pretty big room. You could have even considered a Saadhana.

I would agree with Prem and say that the Maarga is perhaps a better fit considering everything (budget for speaker AND amp). I think the Saadhana runs to over 10L now. Placed right and amped right, the Maarga is fairly close to the Saadhana. But without budget considerations, as you said, I think a Saadhana would definitely have worked well in a dedicated music room of that size.

@hydra, thanks for the kind words. Yes, I pull them in front for serious listening. Jacob is not sure when he will the amp ready. I hope I can borrow a tube just to listen to it

BTW, I was hoping to stop at your place during my visit but I didn't get in touch because of lack of time.

@Kushanava, the Saadhana were my first choice. But the Saadhana are suitable for rooms up to 800 sq ft while Maarga suit rooms up to 400 sq ft (mine is about that). I think the Saadhana needs more breathing space. Besides, the Maarga barely fit where I needed it

Do drop in at my place if you're around Kochi again!

I fell in love with the Rethm sound because of Maargas. I used to listen to the previous gen Maargas, and then the current gen Maargas at a friend's place.

I understand what you mean about the usable/demarcated area in the room. I have the Trishnas in a pretty small room. I'm fairly lucky to have no placement restrictions other than those brought in by the room itself, and my personal convenience. Without this, if I had to limit my listening space to just a part of the room, I would not have been able to accommodate the speakers at all.

 

[Kushanava]

@prem: I hear you. However on a different note , if you spend the max on speakers and do a little compromise in the beginning , you always have the room to improve continually with future upgrades in the source & amp, specially when everything is changing so fast in the digital world. Obviously like Hydra said , you have to have the space to utilize them. To my limited experience , i believe the placement is a deciding factor specially with the Rethms. If you can't give enough space behind them ,you will loose most of the magic.No amp or source can compensate that. I have played with placements and i started from 4 ft from the front wall ... and i am now almost at the middle of the room ( 10 ft from the front wall). The sound seem to open up significantly , when you leave space.

 

[prem]

True Kushanava. The Rethms need a lot of space around them.

But I always believe one should work within the budget and optimise everything. I always will put the maximum money on the source. Not on speakers. For me the speaker amp synergy is more critical. So optimising that is very important for me.

For example, if I was on a budget, I would rather buy the Maargas and a good source rather than the Saadhanas and an ordinary source. I have always had bigger improvements by improving my source.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Very interesting experience with speakers and sources.

IME i have gained marginally with the change in amp and maximum gains have been only with the speakers and placement in the room. The only exception with the amp was the Beta 22 class A diy amp which had a huge difference in sound stage and dynamics.

 

[prem]

Hari, try a simple experiment. Attach a mic to the amp. Ask someone to sing into the mic. Try a variety of well engineered amps and speakers. There will not be much difference. Most of the problems happen because in most cases our source is not upto the mark. To add to the problem the source material too is compressed in most cases.

When it comes to amps and speaker their synergy is most important. For example a Gaanam amp will sound superb with the Rethms. Replace the Rethms with a Electrostatic speaker and it will sound terrible. There is no way a Gaanam will be able to handle impedance swings. Use a Parasound JC 1 with the Electrostatics and it will sound fabulous. When you change your speaker, many times it becomes important to relook at the amp.

A well set up B&W 800 series, Soundlab electrostatics, Rethms, ATC and a whole lot of other speakers all sound fabulous. I could live with any of them. Yes there will be some differences but the fundamentals of all these speakers will be correct. Needless to say, each of these speakers will need a different amp to sound good. No one amp is likely to work with all. But if the source is ordinary or the source material is not upto the mark, none of these speakers are going to shine

 

[bhaskarcan]

A far as amp goes, apart from SET tube, also give a try to Pass F5 or F6 if possible. They suit really well with the Saadhanas.

My 2 cents.

 

[prem]

Agreed Bhaskarcan. First Watt series is a very good option with the Rethms. First watt will give you more linearity, resolution and speed. SET will give you better harmonics and texture. So it boils down to personal preferences.

 

[shafic]

Hari, try a simple experiment. Attach a mic to the amp. Ask someone to sing into the mic. Try a variety of well engineered amps and speakers. There will not be much difference. Most of the problems happen because in most cases our source is not upto the mark. To add to the problem the source material too is compressed in most cases.

When it comes to amps and speaker their synergy is most important. For example a Gaanam amp will sound superb with the Rethms. Replace the Rethms with a Electrostatic speaker and it will sound terrible. There is no way a Gaanam will be able to handle impedance swings. Use a Parasound JC 1 with the Electrostatics and it will sound fabulous. When you change your speaker, many times it becomes important to relook at the amp.

A well set up B&W 800 series, Soundlab electrostatics, Rethms, ATC and a whole lot of other speakers all sound fabulous. I could live with any of them. Yes there will be some differences but the fundamentals of all these speakers will be correct. Needless to say, each of these speakers will need a different amp to sound good. No one amp is likely to work with all. But if the source is ordinary or the source material is not upto the mark, none of these speakers are going to shine[/


+1 well said:thumbsup:

 

[Hari Iyer]

Does that mean the damping factor (internal resistance) of the output stage of the amp plays a vital role in which amp will suit which speakers.

In some solid state amplifier have a very low output resistance and have a large damping factor. In tubes due to the output transformer has a high internal resistance in the output stage. Hence with a low SPL speaker it struggles to drive them. The internal resistance also plays havoc with the Qts of the drivers as it increase with increased resistance.

For instance, i have measured my 300B SET tube's output resistance and it is around 3.1ohms. So if i consider the Fostex full range FE166en has an Qtc = 0.25 (published). Factoring the internal resistance of the amp output stage the Qtc becomes = 0.34. Increased Qtc actually lowers the SPL of the driver marginally. That could be one of the reasons tubes loves full-rangers as the SPL of a full-range like fostex is already in the 94dB 96dB range and this does not affect the output stage of the tube in driving them.

 

[arj]

When it comes to amps and speaker their synergy is most important. For example a Gaanam amp will sound superb with the Rethms. Replace the Rethms with a Electrostatic speaker and it will sound terrible. There is no way a Gaanam will be able to handle impedance swings. Use a Parasound JC 1 with the Electrostatics and it will sound fabulous. When you change your speaker, many times it becomes important to relook at the amp.

Completely agree on this. in fact instead of looking at the system (excluding the source) as individual components we can also look it it as synergies and this is especially true for the Room-Speaker synergy and Speaker Amp Synergy which are the most important to get right.

I am also of the source first school of thought. while it is true that one needs to look at the weakest link, unless the source is really good the weakest link is very often not even identified !. Eg if the CD player is soft sounding, no matter what you change and do you will not get the bass to be clean and deep enough. In the end one might just end up placing the speaker closer to the walls to get the reinforcement and end up ruining the midrange as well. ( or upgrade to a higher range speaker or bigger amp ..while the problem was somewhere else)

 

[prem]

Yes Hari, damping factor is definitely one of the reasons. But am sure there are more like ability to handle low impedance load if necessary, etc

Sorry atharva for going OT. Now back to the thread

 

[atharva]

@prem, not at all OT. A good discussion as was pointed earlier.

 

[prem]

Hi atharva, I am a bit curious since you mentioned you pull out the speakers at times when you do serious listening. So wouldn't that mean you need to readjust the bass vol level to compensate for the reduced bass by pulling out the speaker?

 

[sachu888]

A far as amp goes, apart from SET tube, also give a try to Pass F5 or F6 if possible. They suit really well with the Saadhanas.

My 2 cents.

+1, also Hiraga Le monstre should be good too.

Regards
Sachin

 

[prem]

Hi sachu888, if I am not mistaken the Hiraga has a damping factor of around 10. Rethms seem to prefer a damping factor of less than 3. On my amp I can change the damping factor from about 2.5 to 5. 5 does not sound good. Most First watt amps have a lower damping factor than Hiraga but having said that the Hiraga is definitely worth trying with the Rethms.

Chances are Jacob may have heard the combo but afaik he does not like any solid state amp with his speakers. Not even the first watt sit 1 which is probably the best first watt amp

 

[sachu888]

Hi sachu888, if I am not mistaken the Hiraga has a damping factor of around 10. Rethms seem to prefer a damping factor of less than 3. On my amp I can change the damping factor from about 2.5 to 5. 5 does not sound good. Most First watt amps have a lower damping factor than Hiraga but having said that the Hiraga is definitely worth trying with the Rethms.

Chances are Jacob may have heard the combo but afaik he does not like any solid state amp with his speakers. Not even the first watt sit 1 which is probably the best first watt amp

Hi Prem,
Yes its close to 10 I think, still very low from Aleph(50). Hiraga is much faster than F5. I don't know much about Retham, except read only good things about. It would be nice to pair them with Le Monstre. Few members at Mumbai has built the Monstre, they found it very good.

Regards
Sachin