The Yumcha Diaries: 25/07/09

The Yumcha Diaries: 25/07/09
Horns, more please

After yumcha, four of us went to audition BenYC's new horn setup. It's a "clone" of the Jensen Imperial. Sometimes you can hear the real thing (asking for >>$100k) play magnificent music at YK audio.

The alnico drivers are actually not expensive, according to BenYC. Instead of a one-piece enclosure, he made a ported bass enclosure (side vents) according to Jensen spec, and made two open-back enclosures for the midrange horn and the tweeter, to which a supertweeter is added passively. A cheap dbx 3-way professional ss crossover feeds 3 amplifiers at recommended crossover points: SUN VT-25 LE, SUN 6V6SE and ASL EH-6V6 PP (rugged, and could be used in this originally 6L6 PP amp!!) monoblocks, driving the tweeter assembly, midrange and bass, respectively. The rest of the equipment include PS Audio Lambda, Parasound PCM-63 DAC, Counterpoint SA5.1.

The system was just setup and still in early tuning stage. Compared to the previous (non-alnico) Klipsch La Scala, which I sold to BenYC, there was certainly more details up above though a slightly etched quality was apparent and coherence seemed to be lacking slightly. Later, it was revealed BenYC's kids had "re-equalized" the curve! :-) Ah, sweet kids...

Although not yet perfect, the detailed sound revealed very good presence, as a good horn should do (though many don't) and I agree with whlee that one could tell the quality and potential of the drivers. I am not quite sure I agree bass is better than La Scala, which has deep bass if you do it right.

Anyway, an good setup with eminently deep potentials, which I look forward to re-auditioning soon. I also have to re-arrange my house now (friends know how big a task that is) to receive the La Scala back. This I plan to put beneath my current alnico pair, so as I can play them stacked! Isn't that something to look forward to! :-)