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I am sure the Kenwood is very good indeed and 2X 120W is easily equivalent to 20W a side valves but think of the lektrik you are saving. MOSFET audio power devices did not quite cause the revolution in hi fi we were promised but I have an Arcam 6 50W pch MOSFET amp and its seems fine. I also...

Well, distortion is far from "zero" even for the best valve hi fi amps, it will be 100 times higher than the very best transistor designs. The V hi fi will still retain some of that thermal compression "busting" capability of rough arse guitar amps so even a nominally 20 W valve amp will have...

Well,...the "tone" of a valve amp, the whole thing, is a mix of pre amp and power amp distortion and that is a complex subject I am happy to discuss but my main point was about the loudness of valves compared to a similarly 'labeled' transistor model. But, circuit configuration matters. Take...

I do not agree. Dave.

Cranbourne Audio make some excellent pre amps at very competitive prices. I have no connection with the company. Dave.

A very fair point! But I have found in the ten years or so I have been on forums that people do not seem to understand the "Principle Of The Weakest Link" . One thing always astonishes me? A bod will come up with a phantom power problem with a $1700 mic and a $1000 interface and it turns out...

OK, well Tim and BSG make a very valid point, very often such a direct connections works perfectly well but..."studio under construction" says to me that you are looking for a specification a cut above the average 'home bod' job? If so then you do not want to risk degrading your signal so early...

Yes, good speaker makes put the level drop in their specification, it can be 3dB power loss at 50% of the power rating. This is the reason multiple identical speakers can go louder than you might expect. A single V30 say, rated at 60W might start to compress at 30-40W but two will compress...

In the TV trade we would get sets in with the screen so smoke covered that you would think the CRT had "gone"! There is a magic fluid called "Ambersil" which is a foaming, anti-static cleaner and works a treat on most surfaces. TV screens, plastics and Tolex but you can't get it into...

Yes, that "DI" box seems to be a collection of active unbalanced to balanced amplifiers and would seem to do what you want. I put DI in " " because strictly speaking a DI box has a high input impedance (as this does) and a very low output impedance (same here) but at microphone level. The DI800...

A rake of transformers of course but that is expensive and even the best ones have some impact on fidelity and can pick up hum. Lot of work but the "Spark Fun" modules are very good. But, if those direct outs are on jacks there is every possibility that they are on TRS "impedance balanced"...

Sadly I think the OP is on a hiding to nothing here and should take up stills photography instead! Dave.

I'd like to examine the oft quoted idea that "valve are louder than transistors". Basically it is true and for very sound engineering reasons. The first is the way speaker Voice Coils behave. Made of Copper they have a DC resistance of around 10 Ohms for a nominally 16R speaker. As the coil...

Hello David, I can add little to Rob's excellent treatise except to say I think you are unfortunately in a very high RF field strength area and fixing the problems is going to be difficult. Yes, ferrite absorbers on just about every cable and balanced cables everywhere. You might have to invest...

I would put serious money on that mixer having a Switch Mode Power Supply (my BCA2000 does) and so the 48V supply might be working but the +ve and -ve audio supplies failed. Does the FX display light up? You are I fear going to have problems getting that fixed. SMPSUs are notoriously...

Probably not mate. That pre amp "shoot out" came about partly I think because there were so many ding-dongs on their forum and others about whether expensive pre amps are really worth the money? The range of prices was I think about 10 to 1 and as I said, nobody picked out the expensive ones...

This might help, or not Rob! When auditioning monitors one of the most revealing tests is that of the human voice, notably is the listener 'fooled' into thinking they are hearing a real person. Problem: how do you make a perfectly faithful recording as a test piece? A measurement mic from the...

OK, LAST thing I wan ti is a cow with YOU friend but consider a "perfect" 1:1 ratio transformer in the OP stage of a mixer say? We expect and find, to a first approximation, the the frequency response is decently flat from say 40Hz to well beyond human hearing. Were the transformer behaving as...

Strictly speaking a transformer, when correctly terminated is not an inductor. This is how audio transformers 'can' give a flat, extended frequency response but beware! They are rarely perfectly driven or loaded and so are not totally' flat'. Transformers all have losses of course and one test...

I have always wondered what the design centre voltage actually was in the USA? Here I have read glib comments of anything from 110V to 120V with, I had assumed a 10% tolerance. Or is mains voltage set state by state? Frequency is held very precisely over here as well, a throwback to a time...