Conrad Johnson/ Vincent preamps

[blackraven]

My local high end dealer has a pair of Zu's in the store and he says they need proper preamp matching to sound good. His opinion of them were not very high. I got to hear them and they were nothing special.

Anyway it sounds like Mr. P needs to get his CJ checked out or maybe do some tube rolling. I think he would be pleasently surprised at what a difference it can make.

[Jack in Wilmington]

I know when Adam had his ZU's in for review he had to find the right combo too. He seemed to have the best luck with a Melody AN-211 and a Mystere ia11. Which wouldn't help Mr P because they wouldn't have enough juice for the Dyn's. Mr. P's had the CJ for a while right? Has it always sounded this way Frenchie or has the sound changed?

[frenchmon]

I know when Adam had his ZU's in for review he had to find the right combo too. He seemed to have the best luck with a Melody AN-211 and a Mystere ia11. Which wouldn't help Mr P because they wouldn't have enough juice for the Dyn's. Mr. P's had the CJ for a while right? Has it always sounded this way Frenchie or has the sound changed?

Hi jack.

It has always sounded this way. But neither Peabody nor I knew it was the CJ. I noticed a long time ago that the sound was thick. It has always had detail, but things where not popping...it was always sorta laid back in its presentation. And I made my concerns known to Peabody a long time ago. I suspect Peabody has been listening to it so long he really never tripped off it.

After a while I started noticing it was a very sweet sound....a little too sweet thick and no life. Peabody has always said McIntosh was to warm and he did not like it. We even listen to some McIntosh a few times and he said it was to warm and that Classe gear was warm and boring. I never told Peabody, but to me he was always describing his own gear and not McIntosh nor Classe. I (wrongly) thought it was the Dynaudio speakers so I had a distaste for them because (I thought) they where just sounding flat. I then took my Canton Speakers over to MrPs house and they where much more lively than the Dyns but had no bass. Even Peabody said they had no bass. The Canton speakers where book shelves and should have had more bass than they had at Peabodys. We sat the Canton Book shelves on top of the Dyns that night, so I just chalked it up to the Cantons sitting on the Dyns and thats why no bass. Canton are lively speakers and they do have a bottom end as in most good book shelves but they did not at Peabodys house that night. When I got them back home the bass was back and I told Peabody about it...and this was before I got the Vincent...at that time I was still using my Rotel preamp.

It was at this point that Peabody decided he needed new speakers and saw that the Dyns where not producing the upper effects in the tweeter and sought out a more lively speaker that not only had the bottom end of the Dynaudio's but also the upper range extension like the Cantons. He has tried Klipsch and ZU speakers and they could not produce the bottom end like he wanted.... and I listened to both speakers with the CJ preamp and the bass was not right.

So now enter the Vincent Preamp that made the ZU's sing with glorious bass and a more settled supper tweeter...and the Dynaudio with a more fuller bass and glorious tweeter. As i said in the other post....the CJ had a little more defind detail in the bass line but it was a boring sound that had no punch and could not hit hard...and Peabody knows it.

Jack, I don't know why Peabody is sorta in denial....it happens all the time in the audiophile world. If it did not happen...we would not have all that wonderful gear on audiogon just waiting to find a new home. In this business after a while, we swap out gear for new gear that satisfies us. The CJ is either not working properly, needs to have its tubes rolled, or its just the house sound of CJ. I have been telling Peabody for a while now he needs to roll his tubes