AmityV2 moved into the science fiction realm. I have been playing with it for five days now. First I rebuilt the amplifier so components and stuff were sensibly, if more traditionally, laid out. It helped. At its best, up to the weekend, it has sounded poor through to extraordinary but the frustrating thing is that now I know what Lynn Olson means when he says most pre-amps are grey sounding with an Amity, that Amity has no sound of its own but (hint) Lynn and his chum Gary went on to build Aurora (oh yeah, why
) and Mr Olsen also designed a rather good, if special pre-amp just with Amity in mind, I should have known that I’d be in for a very long ride… yeah right, there is always Karna.So, if you are vaguely familiar with the circuit what can possibly go wrong? I’m happy with simple CCS (resistor, cap,resistor) on the 6N6P anodes. Who has used 6N6Ps before? Does anyone like them? I should swap in a pair of ECC99s but I’ve run out of steam. 6N6Ps are okay for now. (7044, 5687 etc etc - another thread)
There are only three caps a channel; two are ultrapath and one, between earth of interstage and HT positive of output, is all there is to go wrong. I tried Solens, then Obliggatto film in oil on the 2A3s and finally got stuck at some metal foil, polypropylene caps from Taiwan; cheap. The first ultrapath is 6.8mfd Mundorf supreme. The make of cap really makes a difference. All three types of cap altered sonically for a few hours until they got used to what else was hapening.
So, poor sounds = shrill and nasty.
Extraordinary sounds = massive dynamics and slam but nearly
always overall grey coloured even though the resolving power of the
amplifier was amazing (reliably hearing bits in the mix I’d never
heard before, being pulled into the music etc etc)
But that kind of extraordinary sound was frustrating – what could be wrong? Low impedance input (as per text) helps hugely (Wadpre2 supposedly has 600ohm output. This works and isn't bad) TVC is lovely providing there is welly to drive into it. So, a Convergent Amplifier Technology preamp (big voltage swing, I'm guessing has low impedance output as it looks like a cathode follower) and TVC was one nice way to go. Just using WADpre2 was easier.
But I am going to need a preamp where I really didn’t want one. Now I’ve got enormous slam and volume, detail and musicality and have resorted, for now, to my Elac with ribbons (88dB sensitive) speakers instead of Fostexbackloaded 208s that I have been using since Monday.
(One set of old Shuguang 2A3s is worn out, though, and this set me back a while until swapping them for a pair of TJs and Phroarrr! Back on track. The old Shuguangs really distort badly. They were a matched pair once)
Having given up on the idea of ever having a neat and tidy build, and as there were a couple of holes in the chassis from the large Obliggattos that were now relatively small Taiwan caps, I decided to put in a 76 line stage, giving me a choice of input without another box.
This is not an Amity any longer though.
That is what is playing now. Welly, dynamics and …well I’m knackered and aching, eyes and ears about to give up. The bath calls. But for now I am pleased. Every day the amp sounds different, - strange -
(A quad of TJ mesh sound marvellous by the way. These are for 'best' when all else is done.)
