Addition of Ayon tube amp - 4 ohm vs. 8 ohm output? Disparity in volume of bi-amped Crown low-end

Heh, I KNOW the title is somewhat confusing, sorry about that

Basically after 20 years of using vintage (Read: ANCIENT!) Sherwood Newcastle discrete amps in a dual-mono configuration to run two tall open baffle 13 driver line-arrays, bi-amped with a Crown 2502 400/side to drive 2-15" dipole woofers, and after a bunch of hemming and hawing and reading/watching reviews, I FINALLY had the opportunity and got a great deal on a very nice used Ayon Orion II Integrated Tube Amp which is replacing the Sherwoods and therefore driving the tall line arrays now (something I would NEVER be able to afford new) Pictures of it are included in the link at the bottom of my post.

Okay, I am SUPER new to this, but my first impression is of course 'WOW!' because that is quite a difference in setup. But, one thing that I do notice is that since the Crown is now run out of the 'Pre-Out' of the Ayon, it does go through the preamp circuit of the Ayon before going to the Crown to run the woofers, and therefore there is a substantial drop in overall volume of the Crown (with bloody 400/side you would frigg'n THINK that would still be enough! ) But, it seems like the overall sensitivity of the Crown is a LOT lower in volume in proportion to the Ayon, which ironically is MORE than enough to blast the line arrays.

Before, I was running the Crown from the 'Tape Out' of the 2 Sherwoods (1 per channel) I understand now that that the output was basically a 'Line Output' at full volume, bypassing the volume, etc., of the Sherwoods, thus the overall louder volume. So, before, the balance between the Sherwoods and the Crown was more 'even' in the sense that since I had to use the attenuators of the Crown sort of as volume controls to regulate the full output from the Sherwoods' 'Tape Out' outputs, I had to set the volume of the Sherwoods (right/left for the higher frequencies of the towers) and the volume of the Crown going to the woofers completely separately. Normally, for most albums, I would leave the Crown set at about '10' and the Sherwoods were set at about '24' It seemed to be a nice balance. On occasion I would raise or lower the Crown slightly if a recording was either somewhat 'muddy' sounding or if it needed more bass 'punch' But, that was not often (my more 'Purest' approach as opposed to using villainess tone controls! ) My system was designed to have the absolute LEAST in the signal path as possible. Thus 12 of the drivers per side on the open baffle dipole towers run full range without crossovers. There is only ONE capacitor used as a crossover for the ribbon tweeter on each side. The open baffle dipole woofers are crossed over using the Crown's internal low pass filter. This is just to give you the overall idea of how my system works.

Soooo, what I'm trying to get across here before everybody bloody HANGS themselves is that now that I have the Ayon in my system, basically the output of the Crown even regulated through the Ayon's volume control is a LOT lower! My first idea was to bridge the Crown and run the two 8 ohm woofers in parallel thus supposedly increasing the wattage into 4 ohms, which is SUPPOSED to be a lot more. It was indeed louder. Before, in regular stereo mode, I would have the Crown set almost completely open with the attenuators set about 2 clicks back from full (about at '18') that seemed to be a pretty even balance with the Ayon. But, it just seemed weird to have to have it turned up almost all the way, again with over 4oo bloody watts a side already! Anyway, so after bridging the Crown and wiring the 2 woofers accordingly, I could now set the attenuators at about '15' and I did notice a tad more 'punch' in the low end (still crossed over @125) But, at least that DID give me some more headroom to play with.

Now, here comes one of the things I want to ask you MUCH more experienced people... I don't know if it was my imagination (likely) or what, and I DO need to do more comparisons, but I THOUGHT I noticed a slight less 'focus' or precision in the image field. My speakers are specifically designed with a VERY big and detailed soundstage and image in mind, thus the tall line-arrays and the fact that they are designed as fully dipole with no cabinets, boxes, or enclosures of any kind. I feel that that especially makes them quite sensitive to any changes in the image or soundstage, and I THOUGHT (or imagined) that I didn't quite get the 'spatiality' and detailed placement as when the Crown was in stereo mode. So, my long-winded lead up to this is basically asking you all, do you think that bridging the Crown, would I REALLY notice any difference in the overall image...? And remember, this is JUST for the low-end woofers crossed over @125 or perhaps @132.

So, please, any thoughts or input concerning that would be VERY helpful, thank you! Could there indeed be some perceived difference in the imaging with the Crown being bridged vs. its stereo mode, or am I TRULY just imagining this...?

Okay, the next one is quite a bit simpler (I'm sure you are all heaving sighs of relief IF you are still here) I have NO bloody idea what the effect of using the 8 ohm speaker terminals vs. the 4 ohm terminals of the Ayon would have on the sound. Is there ANY chance, perhaps, that if I switch to the 4 ohm outputs (which would only affect the 2 line-arrays being run by the Ayon and not affect the Crown or low end) would that POSSIBLY reduce the volume to the line arrays, thus allowing the volume of the Ayon to be cranked up higher thus bringing up the volume of the Crown and the lows...? I haven't tried the 4 ohm outputs yet.

One last thing was an idea I was considering, especially if after all the Crown does need to be left in the less powerful stereo mode for better imaging. Is there a type of resistor that would NOT affect the quality of the sound but that I could connect to the speaker outputs between the Ayon's terminals and the wire going to the two line arrays that would in theory reduce the volume somewhat so that it would balance out with the Crown and the low end better...? Or, is there no practical way of doing that without somehow degrading the sound quality? I'm GUESSING that there must be some kind of high-end resistors that could simply bring the volume down but not degrade the sound quality, perhaps some of the ones that Decware uses or some such. Is that a viable option?

So, that's basically it on those 3 counts where I honestly really need some experienced input or thoughts to help me know what to do, or what my best choices are to balance out the volume of the Ayon's high end and the Crown's low end.

BTW, if you want a better overview of the way my system is set up (wired, etc...) feel free to check out the link at the bottom of my post. The 12 full range drivers per side are wired series/parallel in groups of 3. I believe they are 8 ohm drivers. The ribbon tweeter per side is wired parallel with the rest. I had figured out the resulting total ohmage (that the amp sees) quite a while ago, but I don't exactly remember. I mention this in more detail in the comments on the pictures in the link below of my Soundroom & System. I'm thinking that it came out to somewhere between 4 and 6 ohms a side... I don't know if that is that big of a factor in using the 8 ohm or 4 ohm Ayon speaker outputs.

Thanks kindly to all of you!

Jaime.

 

There are a few unknowns here that you'll need to figure out. If you don't have an Ayon manual try and download it. You need to know the output gain and the impedance of the preamp. It doesn't seem to be a good match for the crown amps.

You also need to know the impedance of your tower speakers; eg, 4, 8, 16ohms. And the sensitivity, how efficient they are for an amp to drive. But that's not really important because your Crowns had no problem with power. The problem is not enough gain going to the amps.

What happens if you hook the Ayons directly up to your speakers? Try both 4ohm and 8ohm taps from the amps. And keep the volume low.

 

The 4 & 8 ohm speaker outputs are to match the impedance of the speaker, which is currently unknown. Neg (black) goes to ground on back of Ayon. Red speaker wire goes to 4 ohm on both channels. Or 8 ohms on both.

 

Hey man, thanks for the input! Yeah, I have the manual. I believe you hit on it about the gain and impedance of the preamp section of the Ayon. The Ayon is currently connected directly to the two line arrays by way of the 8 ohm speaker terminals. Tomorrow, I'm going to try the 4 ohm ones and see how it sounds. Like I mentioned, it should be pretty easy to figure out the ohmage of the towers with the way I intentionally did the wiring. I'll hafta sit down and figure it out exactly. The funny thing is that the Ayon has PLENTY of power with it's Class 'A' 60 watts to drive the line arrays just fine. I'm going to try to bridge the Crown again and see if maybe I just imagined the difference in the imaging

 

I'm curious to hear how it works out. Earlier I was going to point out that the output power of the Ayon makes no difference since you're only using the preamps. But we didn't need to go there.

 

Thanks! Well, I am using the full integrated Ayon to run the two line arrays and only the 'Pre-Out' to run the Crown. But, I do think what I am basically seeing here, and I know bloody NOTHING about this particular aspect of this stuff, is like you mentioned, the compatibility/impedance of the pre-amp out and the Crown. It's not life or death, it DOES work with the Crown set almost full out, and bridged it DOES indeed have more power and punch. I just hafta take time and compare and see what 'synergizes' the best. With all the acoustic panels in place (as shown in the pictures in my link) it really does focus the imaging and such quite well so far, but I'm still playing with it (when are we not! )


***EDIT

I was going to add that the BIGGEST question about using a tube amp at all was whether one could even drive my towers. That was a huge question mark because I had no experience with tube amps. I even wrote Steve at Deware to ask his opinion because I frigg'n LOVE his approach and all the Decware stuff (talk about purity!) And his amps are less powerful. I was wondering if even his Rachel at 8w/side would work. But, even taking the chance with the Ayon, I figured that 60/side of class 'A' would probably be fine and as I said, it is plenty!

 

Well, I tried the 4 ohm speaker terminals on the Ayon today, and quite frankly my system sounded like total @ss! Don't know the whys wherefores, but yep, sounded pretty damn bad alright.

So, needless to say, I couldn't put the wires back on the 8 ohm terminals fast enough

Next, I'm gonna try bridging the Crown again. I was test playing the lovely Type O Negative with the Crown set at 1 notch below full out (this is in normal stereo mode) and it sounded pretty good, fairly balanced, but I wanna double check to see if I indeed get more 'punch' by bridging it. And, as far as my esoteric impressions of the image being affected, it may just be a slight tradeoff between playing kick@ss albums casually most of the time vs. a slight image tradeoff when I actually sit down to do really critical listening, so there you go...

***EDIT

Yep... So, listening to it bridged makes a BIG difference in the low end impact and the balance overall with the Ayon running the line arrays. WAY more punch. I am currently listening to George Duke - The Aura Will Prevail set this way. Yeah, a LOT more low end punch which I think my system really needs with the other 26 drivers carrying the high end frequencies I'm pretty sure I'm going to leave it this way. With the Crown bridged the attenuators are set at -6 from full out, so plenty of headroom. I'll just play around with the interconnects to see if I can dial it in a bit more. But, honestly for now overall it sounds pretty damn good!

Appreciate all the input and PLEASE whatever other suggestions you may think of, by all means pass them along. I have a LOT to learn with this new configuration!

 

That's great as long as you can keep track of your complex setup. I imagine the bridged Crown can kick ass.

One thing about tube amps... never have the power on without being connected to the speaker. Very different than SS, a tube amp needs a load to be powered up.

 

Oh yes, thank you mate! I learned that right up front when reading about tube amps

The George Duke REALLY sounded quite good, I must admit. I think I'll leave it like this for a while...

 

Just noticed one thing too that I had missed. Maybe those of you who know better than I do about this (i.e. EVERYBODY!) can tell me if this made a difference. When I went back and bridged the Crown again to give it another listen, I noticed that the first time I tried it, since I haven't messed with the leads to the woofers in a very long time, I had inadvertently reversed the polarity of how I wired the two woofers to the Crown. Now, both woofers were NOT out of phase with each other, but what I had done was assume the leads that I had marked a long time ago were the positive leads, which of course I wired together in order to connect them together to the leads on the Crown for the bridged mode. They weren't... They were the negative leads of both woofers. So, I put the marked ones in the positive terminal on the Crown, and the other two wired together I put in the negative terminal for the bridged mode.

This time when I went to try it again I noticed that that was what I had done, so this time I did it correctly and after wiring both the positive and negative leads of both woofers together, THIS time I put the positive leads in the positive terminal of the Crown, etc. Now, my IMPRESSION was that yes, this time it did sound better and more focused and punchier than the first time I tried the bridged mode, but I honestly don't know if that would actually make any difference.

The reason being is that I DO know that say in stereo mode if you were to wire one woofer out of phase with the other woofer, then YES, the lower frequencies would cancel and that would greatly affect the sound. BUT... in this case they woofers THEMSELVES were in phase. What I had done was when after wiring the negatives and positives together correctly, I switched them when attaching them to the Crown in bridged mode. Now, I know as far as just the woofers are concerned they WERE in phase, but as a pair connected to the Crown in bridged mode, there were OUT OF PHASE (technically) with the line arrays which are wired correctly to the Ayon amp.

So, would that make any difference in the sound...? Since the woofers are crossed over @125 and would be run strictly by the Crown in bridged mode, would it matter that the overall polarity of the woofers was switched or opposite from the polarity of the line arrays...?

I'm rather curious about that because, unless I'm smok'n something (neither confirm or deny) I would swear that wired the 'right' way did sound better, more focused, and punchier. It SEEMED that I didn't have to set the attenuators of the Crown quite as high to match the bass with the line arrays, but it COULD have simply been the material I was playing, IDK...

Any thoughts...?

Thanks!

 

I think it would affect sonics. You may not hear it due to all the drivers in your line array.
If bass drivers are out of phase, they are pushing inward while the tower drivers are pushing out (the correct direction).
You might hear it if you had a 2 way or 3 way speaker.

 

Yeah, that is what I thought too, thanks! Man... SERIOUSLY... It sounds frigg'n AMAZING now! I mean, just WOW! I played a few reference recordings (without even bothering putting up any of my acoustic treatments) and they all sounded way better than I've ever heard them here. Then, just as a comparative test, I played some of my FLAC files through my SMSL DO200 DAC, and again a big 'WOW!' Everything from Jethro Tull to Albert King sounded bloody fantastic! I, honestly, I am not prone to go over the top when describing the sound of my system, but this is such a F'n HUGE improvement, to be honest, I am still just kind of speechless and in shock, seriously...

 

That's great to hear. I'll bet you're digging the sound of tubes.

 

Heck yeah! Since my system is somewhat unusual, I just had no bloody idea how it would sound or if I could find a tube amp powerful enough to drive my towers. But, apparently the Ayon has plenty class 'A' power. I would say that going by how I set the volume, it has more power than my two old Sherwoods running dual mono @100/channel. I mean, at about 1/4 it is getting pretty loud. At about 1/3 it is shaking the room I mean, in the last 20 years I've always thought it sounded really good with an excellent soundstage and imaging. But, THIS is a whole different order of magnitude! AND... this is still with my 35+ year old turntable and cartridge! I was thinking about getting another TT and cartridge combo because I was just assuming that mine MUST be getting a bit tired after all this time. But, now after hearing it today, I'm not so sure if I am in such a hurry to do so...

I'm still using the Vintage Flagship Vector Aligned Linear Contact Audio Technica DR500LC (if you want the full fancy name as shown in my profile) which was considered one of the best way back then. Very precise, VERY detailed. Maybe because the tracking force is so light (about 1.3) and there were a lot of years where I didn't do any or much listening, IDK... But, it sure sounded shockingly good today!

Thanks kindly for all your help and input Bro!

***EDIT

Oh, just to add... The guy I bought this from was really nice and threw in a whole set of Gold Lion tubes in addition to the stock Ayon ones. I mean, I really DON'T wanna mess with it, but since I DO actually have a tube amp now, I am kind of curious...

 

Before I praise your listening room, it would be good to find out who made the Ayon tubes. Manufacturers have their logos stamped onto the glass by the tube factories. It's possible they are high quality. It's also possible they are Chinese rubbish. I doubt it, Ayon is very quality conscious.

So anyway, I love your vinyl storage. I see some Zeppelin in there, I collect different LP and CD LZ pressings. I've been buying records for 40 years as well, but been improving my digital for about the past 10 years.
Well done on the speakers, they're massive but attractive. They look toe'd out so that must help the imaging.
What is that incredible TT in the pic?

 

Heh, for a minute I was wondering what you meant by that 'incredible TT'... then I realized you meant the picture I use as my Avatar Yeah, amazing looking isn't it? Someone actually messaged me here once and told me which model it is and I looked it up, pretty impressive! I just thought the picture and design were so mind blowing, I chose it as my Avatar when I joined several years ago and I've never wanted to change it.

Thanks for the nice comments about my system. As I mention in a number of the comments on the pictures I had a really brilliant stereo designer friend who used to put on his own high end shows in Vegas and built and sold these immense ribbon line-arrays for like $20,000+, etc... It is his design for the baffles and drivers, and he also told me how to wire them for maximum efficiency. I was also able to get a lot of nice quality wire, interconnects and other equipment from him that I normally wouldn't be able to afford.

Yeah, Ayon makes their own tubes. You KNOW how high quality they are (and I've since learned) In the pictures of the amp you can see their logos on the tubes. I THINK they make the power tubes the K88's, but I believe I read that they acquire really high quality tubes for the pre-stages.

Ah Zeppelin... I was cranking up a nice original mint US pressing of Physical Graffiti today. WOW! Those drums sounded so much better today! And, that isn't even the best recorded album, really. I happened at the time, of course not knowing what I was bloody doing, upon a few of the Classic Records pressings of the Zeppelin albums new and bought them for like twenty-something each I think, I don't remember. So, I have I, V, & VII, all sound really excellent! Because these sounded so good I bought IV, but was VERY disappointed by how it sounded and immediately sold it to a member here. That pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the Classic Records Zeppelin I have US originals of the rest that I bought at the time, and a REALLY nice, dynamic Japanese pressing of II which is my 'Go To' for that album. Man... I was just thinking that I can't wait to hear it with my system set up this way!

With line arrays like these, especially open baffle dipole ones, they are VERY directional along both axes. So, they are towed IN very critically so that at the listening position the tweeters are firing right at ear level. I even bought a specific barstool that can be set at the exact right height to be in the listening position. The listening position is higher than usual due to the tall line-arrays presenting a particularly large and tall soundstage. Also, as I state in the comments on my pictures the fact that multiple smaller drivers are used makes transients SUPER fast! So, the attack is amazing. All that has always been great, but NOW with this amp and the Crown synergized, the TONE and presentation is incredibly better. And yeah, I built the shelves and use boxes and crates, because there is NO F'n way I'm going to go blind trying to squint to see the spines of albums the way most people have to store them. I want it exactly like a record store where you can see everything and browse right to where you want to go.

***EDIT

You have some really nice stuff too mate! I like those Gibbons, a nice 2-way design, that's my 2nd favourite type after tall line-arrays. I see that you HAVE indeed put a lot into your digital system. I've just never been that passionate about that, always first and foremost being an Analog guy But, I bet it sounds nice!