Decware. The Best Amp Ever? Andrew Robinson Seems To Think So

Yeah, good thing. I was a bad boy last night. Followed @Ron’s advice and turned down the volume and lights. Was mesmerized until 1:30 am. No sauce, just jazz. Lon, Ron and Badbeef seem to be a bad influence, just sayin’ not complaining. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Wow, 8 15" drivers. Those must be able to move some air. That looks like some Lowther-like full range driver in the middle. Is there a crossover in this loudspeaker?

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The amps produce a very emotionally involving sound, don’t they?

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The 15 incher woofers are custom specification Eminence OBA15NEO for PAP. The speaker is customized for on open baffle implementation.

The cross-over is a Thrier, series customizable with minimal components. It accommodates user upgrades to tailor the speaker’s sound. I have gone with a Mundorf cap and resustor upgrade. The speaker also allows for wiring harness upgrades.

The woofers are intended to provide definition and not necessarily go flat to 20 hz. More along the lines of 32 hz. The larger woofer will have less cone motion thus less distortion, think doppler effect as the input signal woofer input moves up in frequency. The Quintet targets a larger room the Trio a moderately sized room. I purchased the Trio.

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Clarity, coherence, continuity and the music’s gestalt which is precisely what I am after with this experiment. Simplicity seems to be paying big dividends. When I heard the amp with the Lii Crystal 10 single driver I knew I was on the right track. At low levels it matches supremely with my Gradient Revolution speakers. Pays off big dividends with the coaxial driver, (point source) and open back woofers. They play nice from 40-16khz.

BTW Steve Deckert posted a Torii IV yesterday as immediately available. Decware is moving up to the Torii V. The IV went immediately, no wait as Steve put it. It is going to be one he77-of-a-ride.

I would love the experiment to put this amp somewhere away from the stereo in a room, let the tubes glow and ask someone who never saw a tube amp or knows that such things exist, what he thinks it is.

My best guess is „a glove heater in winter for the whole family“. What do you think? Please put it in the bedroom and ask your next innocent guests! :wink:

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Turns out the manual is for the old v1, and the differences in the v2 are only on the website. Discovered I could put in some Sovtek 6550’s I had laying around. Better already. I don’t even use EH tubes in my guitar amp🤠

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Love the open baffle speakers!
I’d love to hear that setup!!!

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I haven’t paid close attention, so please bare with me. How does that amp drive those big speakers. Are the specs 12 watt, class A?

@1cdfoley, the Trio 15 speakers are 96dB efficient, the amplifier rated output is 2.3 WPC RMS into 8 Ohms Class A Theoretically, this set up should provide for a volume (sound pressure level) of 99-100dB at rated amplifier output.

Another way to look at it, while unscientific, is I was playing my current speakers which are 83 dB at 1 WPC RMS. I did some late night listening to some jazz quartets, some “chamber jazz”, and some more complex jazz at and average listening level of 62 dB with peaks at 83 dB. Sounded wonderful, and effortless.
At the peak level the amp was outputting 1 WPC, at 62 dB less than 0.1WPC, theoretically 0.0078125 WPC. Basically, the power to acoustical output relationship is logarithmic, 10 dB represents an increase in electrical power of ten-fold, which equates to a sound pressure level output increase by a factor of two. Other factors come into play such as our hearing sensitivity at low levels as it is not linear. The Fletcher-Munson loudness curve attempts to address this non-linearity as provided for on some preamplfiers that have a loudness “feature”. I may have over simplified all of this to a degree, but hopefully you do get the general idea. The key to implementing a low power amplifier into a home listening system is to mate the amplifier with high efficiency speakers that provide for linear in room response characteristics at reasonable SPLs.

In the early stages of audio playback amplifiers were typically low power and partnering speakers were typically high efficiency open baffle designs. Many speakers utilized horns to gain the highest possible frequency. Ed Vilchur (think AR), and others developed sealed acoustic suspension speakers to bring cabinet sizes down to a manageable level. While sounding quite good the trade-off was speaker efficiency. The BBC implemented the “Grundy Dip” to provide for a upper bass lower midrange boost that listeners generally found to be favorable (LS3/5a). The popular acoustic suspension design resulted in the need for increasing amplifier power output. Many books have been written on the topic.
Needless to say opinions vary as to different ways to achieve sonic satisfaction.

Generally thinking, larger open baffle speakers, and especially those with horns, tend to be most efficient, say 94 db/watt. Where as smaller sealed cabinet (acoustic suspension) speakers tend to be lower in efficiency, 83 db for instance. As an example for an 83 dB acoustic suspension speaker to match a 96dB open baffle speaker at one watt the acoustic suspension speaker requires 20 watts. Keep in mind ten times the power,10dB equates to 2 times the sound pressure level in an anechoic chamber.

Hopefully, you find this long winded answer helpful. You may wish to seek out some technical articles and books that further address the topic.

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@aangen, that can be arranged should you ever find yourself in the central Wisconsin area.

I spend a lot of time in Wisconsin. On purpose even. I own a home in Wisconsin even. The audio systems at that home are weak though.

When someone asks me what I like best about living in Minnesota I say “The best thing about Minnesota is it is real close to Wisconsin.”

What town? I think it’s worth the drive!!!

Great write up With the 2.3 W amp what level of heart ( I mean heat) :slight_smile: does it generate, I know they are rated at 65W @ 120 V. Does this equate to the heat a 60W light bulb generates? In other words not to much heat?

Thanks

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Rick hipped me to the fact that a guy in the next town over to me had put up a pair of Spatial M3 Turbo S speakers, which are 94dB efficient, open-baffle, dual 15"s with coincident compression driver for the top in the upper woofer. So had to snag them. Pretty cool speakers audio-and-visual-ly. Sadly, they sound much better driven by the Vitus than the Decware. However, the Decware is far from broken in, and has better NOS tubes on the way. So still very early days.

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Is that a staircase behind the railing?

yup.

The heat is not as bad as i thought it would be. My current rack, on the replacement list, has adjustable shelves so I rearranged them to afford more air flow around the amp. I’ve only had the amp a week, but from what I can tell there was no need to adjust the shelves up 2-3". I’d say your estimate of a 60 watt incandescent light bulb is spot on regarding heat generation. I’d say the previous amp put out more heat in general, a Forte 3 at 200 wpc. Seems as though 4-5 inches above the top of the tube amp should be sufficient spacing.

@weedeewop Thank you for your informative response, I enjoyed it very much and greatly appreciated it. I have read it twice and love the education for me. Audio is so wonderful!
Chas

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On the other hand, I’m making my morning toast over the Torii.:stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Looks schweeet! I’d think the Torii jr. would be up to the task. May be just a matter of dialing things in a bit. Look forward to hearing how this plays out fo you. Nice taste in vinyl BTW, Herbie Hancock, the Beatles, Green Dolphin Street, Sufjan Stevens… It represents a sense of balance.