Bose headphones

[Volvohead]

Originally Posted By: Win


Well, real audio snob looks down their nose at anything other than directly heated triodes run single ended; sorry if you have to look that up. 6BQ5's are the VW Beetle of the audio world - I have dozens of 'em, maybe more, NOS, in my warehouse of junk.


You're right on that. I went through the SET phase a number of years ago. They can be an tremendous amount of fun, as they are an easy circuit, but the speaker matching issues with them . . . Not that a 6BQ5 is a mountain of power. But it's clean and musical for what it is, especially in certain makes. The WE cult was not for me. Hope you get more out of it.

I now get more enjoyment working with the vintage era classics. Super iron in some. Some of them were voiced to perfection. The biggest problem is catching them before the estates curb them.

Klipsches do have a similar love/hate thing going. I think the older Heritage models (and their oiler x-over caps) connected to bottles is what they do best, just as PWK first designed them. They really need a warmer system to sound right. Some of the newer ones, especially when mated to the wrong SS amps, can get harsh, though. Once PWK retired, the family took it elsewhere. A Tannoy can be more relaxed, but they are rather costly.

With Thiels, it's the opposite. But Jim Thiel gets more respect in the high-rent circles than PWK. Very different roads taken. Both first-class designers.

Oh sorry . . . getting too technical. Details tend to annoy some of the natives here.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete

....
Historically, Bose's recipe was to make the sound "pop" by accentuating certain frequencies while leaving gaping holes in others. Many uneducated buyers will fall for this "wow" factor, thinking this is what good sound is. ....



I think that depends on how far back you want to go in history, Pete.

My memory runs back to the old direct / reflecting days, when Dr. Bose's marketing was that the sound one heard "live" was a combination of direct and reflected sound when it reached the listener, and the early speakers he created, 301, 501, 601, 901, etc., tried to mimic this. And when correctly placed those early speakers did a pretty good job, and produced a good, albeit distinctive, sound, imo. When incorrectly placed, the result was not as good, because the direct / reflecting thing just wouldn't work and didn't sound right.

At least that's how I recall it, and they were really polarizing even back then; some audiophiles would practically froth at the mouth at the mention of Bose.

The newer stuff is clever in its own way, I have one of the wave radios as my clock radio, but I now use mostly Klipsch speakers as I have different requirements. I don't recall ever seeing a spec for Bose speakers, other than impedance at some undefined point. Personally, other than sensitivity, I think most speaker specs are subject to so many external variables, their utility is pretty limited.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Win
When incorrectly placed, the result was not as good,

This goes for just about any speaker out there. Placement is key. So is soundproofing. If you can't do anything about placement, then you could start tinkering with adding equalizers to compensate for the environment's shortcomings, but it can be a tedious work which most of us are not willing to do. Then there is a whole group of audio experts which will say that using an EQ is blasphemy, and to some extent I can understand this as well. Sort of like the subject of using oil additives.

When it comes to home theater, most newer receivers have built-in auto EQ mechanisms. Whether this helps or hurts, I don't know. I'm behind times with a basic 6-year-old 5.1 DD receiver and some additional stereo gear here and there.

 

[Hokiefyd]

My folks had a pair of Bose 501s in the basement. What a roudy set of speakers those were if you turned it up. They had them connected to a Teac receiver and the result was quite good to my admittedly untrained ears.

To this day, I have a Teac receiver in our home entertainment system, hooked to a lonely pair of KLH speakers. I have found KLH speakers to be a very good value for decent-sounding speakers at a layman's price.

 

[Astro14]

Back to headphones...

I have the QC15s...and over 400,000 miles of airline flying later, they are simply awesome. I like the light weight, comfort, great noise canceling and good sound quality...when every other person in 1st Class on a 14 hour flight has them too, it may just be marketing...or they may be on to something...

 

[SteveSRT8]

^^^Funny, for sure. I only got mine as a gift, I don't fly that often so it was a HUGE surprise to know you just didn't have to deal with all that ambient sound.

 

[Quest]

audio-snobbery aside: I do own a pair of Canadian made Boxe 301 series II, refoamed by yours-truely. On limited occasions where I have a pair of lowly S-S class-B amp with subdued high frequency, I can go with them and do some casual listening.

Otherwise: I don't get to use my Boxe very much, thank you (imaging, definition, high-freq. peakiness, etc).

even with my Rotel RA-810A (modified low-end SS amp, good when you have young kids in your family), the 301 sounded terrible, with tilted highs....I can fix it but no time for now.

On a differnt subject: As much as some folks would disagree: I, for one, luv the sound of European designed Pentodes (even when converted to UL or triode): tubes like EL84 (6BQ5/7189), or even it's bigger brother such as EL34 (6CA7). Even in single-ended mode: the sound has some fundamental "European" sound characteristics that are difficult to describe: suave?!?

There are currently 2 types of thermionic device types that I liked best: direct-heated triode such as 2A3, 45, 300B; pentode (modified UL or triode strapped ok) such as EL34, EL84, etc. I'm indifferent with others unfortunately.

Well, so much for audio snobbery.

Q.

 

[Win]

I don't think I could stand to listen to anything running class B for very long.

Some of my early solid state Zenith Trans Oceanics sound like they're running class B - after ten or fifteen minutes of listening I want to drive nails in my ears.

If you like 2A3's ( I don't) try some 5930's (2A3W) - they're two discrete 45's in parallel in the same envelope - they're the only 2A3 type that sounds worth a darn to me.

 

[Quest]

Win,

I can only listen to class-B so long as (a )it's properly designed and with fairly well-controlled local feedbacks and (b ) reasonably low distortion spectra.

I was able to revise my Rotal RA810 to achieve fairly listenable status, and I can listen to it for 3~5hrs at a time, provided that I'm using very high efficiency speakers (my 35+yr old JBL achieves that nicely), and (b ) I'm not playing anything overly aggressive on it.

Still sounds very "forwarding" at times, at least it will not electrocute my kids.

I'm currently using RCA bi-plates NOS on my "Buddhafied" loftin-white 2A3SE amp on a pair of Epos ES-11. It's my 2-die for system that I shall take to the graves.

Q.

 

[Win]

Quest,

I thought I no longer had to worry about electrocuted kids, but, it's now an issue again for me, as well, and I'm going to have to build new stuff in the next few months.

The one in the living room at our primary house is the worst offender - not only are all the tubes exposed, the power tubes use plate caps

.

edit: If you like 2A3's, keep your eyes open for some 5930's - they drop right in a 2A3 socket and sound like a 45.

 

[Quest]

thx Win, will keep an eye for them.

p.s. what are you building BTW?


Q.

 

[Win]

I haven't decided yet - it will have to be completely enclosed, and I'll need to do two of them, as we have two homes. I figure I have five - six months before toddling begins.

I have a pretty nice 45/2A3 amp, regulated DC filaments (something else to make audiophiles froth at the mouth, but I have zero, I mean zero, tolerance for hum), etc., that I built a few years ago on a Hammond chassis that I could put back in service pretty quick - they make a cage for that chassis, and if I moved the output transformers in about 1/4 inch I could cage it in an afternoon. I'm not all that crazy about the single ended DHT sound, truth be known. Maybe I need to build a 300B type, or go big with 211 or 845.

I've got a smallish single ended 6V6 ( and 6K6, 6F6, etc. ) pentode amplifier about half built on my work bench and an LMB cabinet to put it in, but I haven't started any metal work yet. After building a few audio amps, I find my wife strongly prefers the sound of the single ended pentode amplifiers, so I build those now, but I might build this small one as an ultra linear, for a change to see if she can tell the difference.

The amp currently in service at our primary residence uses cheap tv sweep tubes (6DQ6, 6GW6 or 6BQ6) (ironic, since the tv is hooked to it and plays through it) and is another single ended pentode amplifier with a couple of local negative feedback loops to tame the pentode shrillness, and a separate screen supply, for the screen grids. It's on an LMB chassis that I can probably get a cabinet for from LMB, or I guess I could have a machine shop bend me a cage.

I have a small push pull pentode amp I built and stuck on a piece of lumber, that I then stuck under the eave on our patio deck at our primary residence, that I use outside with my phone. I expected it to fail from the weather fairly quickly but it still works fine after several years outdoors, and another push pull pentode amp in my radio room (6AQ5's).

I got my first ham radio license when I was barely a teen ager and have been building stuff and accumulating parts continuously since. There is almost nothing that I can't go out to the warehouse of junk and grab the parts to build. I have thousands of unused vaccuuum tubes and other parts out there among all the other junk.

I sure dragged this thread OT, apologies to the OP, but it seems like any time anything Bose comes up, threads degenerate pretty rapidly.