Tony M

Oh yeah - not to be missed! Count me in please, Clive.

@Ooogh talked me into buying the PSE version of these in slightly different/later chassis' when they unexpectedly cropped up on SNA a year or so ago and I couldn't be happier or more grateful for his encouragement - gorgeous amps and I consider mine were an absolute bargain! Amazingly, these are half the price I paid with ?better/more valve options included! That says it all, really.

That looks like a very impressive bit of audio machinery indeed - count me as impressed! Totally endorse your enthusiasm @Ooogh. Bring on the next one to crop up for sale!

A couple of corrections to things that seem to be accepted as facts: Everyone does not have access to water, sewage. Within a 25 Km radius of a capital city we can access neither and have to provide the infrastructure for ourselves at considerable initial and ongoing cost. The weird thing is that we have an involvement in a farm 250 km from the city and we get mains water there, pumped from the city. The NBN has NOT provided us with a reliable 25 Mbps downlad speed. For a considerable part of the day, it is less than half that, even though we pay for 50 Mbps. There is no option to access a better service, even at increased cost. (Yes, I do get that we could install fibre at our own cost, but obviously that is unrealistic) Now Bill Morrow stated "We killed it" in relation to 100 Mbps on FW and cited cost as the reason. But, surely FW is cheaper overall per customer than any of the wired solutions? Are not FW customers being shortchanged by the failure to upgrade the capacity? In the interim, I think it would be honest to acknowledge that we are sharing a limited resource and maybe leaving the TV on Netflix all day whether watching it or not needs to be discouraged. "Unlimited" plans on FW may also be unrealistic. But that would involve a candid acknowledgement that the NBN has failed to deliver on promises to FW customers. The current approach seems to me to be pretending a resource is available when it isn't. From a purely personal POV, I want the promised 25 Mbps to be available to us. If I have to pay more for that, so be it - it's really not that different to having to install and maintain our own water supply infrastructure.

Well, it's what I was told by the tech and it seemed to fit with the absolute consistancy of the service. I guess because we and most of our neighbours are on 20 acre+ properties - though some unfortunates are crowded into 10 acre lots. The density apparently was deemed insufficient to support a wired network. Several of our closest neighbours don't even have the FW option and have only been offered satellite! I can't see why this is based on terrain and trajectory to the tower, but I'm glad to at least have FW. I can't see a massive difference in routing wires underground then and doing the same with fibre now. Unfortunately, most of our neighbours just haven't bothered to upgrade from ADSL and are more interested in potholes in the road/ rubbish collection etc than internet speeds. So there has been little if any backlash and would be close to zero interest in any concerted solution. My real hope is that future options will allow a "pay for what suits you as an individual" approach. Surely wireless can cater for this rather than the "one size fits all" we have at present?

Dave This was an aside - an anecdote I hoped would be interesting as it must be rare to have any panel on any tower with only one subscriber. Further to that it is no longer relevant as I have moved on from that service. In any case: Vividwireless is no more The service was throttled to 13 Mbps, regardless of modem/antenna etc. But that speed was available 24/7. Only one specific model of modem was sold as providing access to the service. I'm always happy to emply a professional when needed, but I'm not sure why that would be relevant here. My fundamental concern re our NBN FW situation is that we will miss out on technological advances in the next few years due to geography. Our FW connection does everything we need at present and we can still stream video that appears to be reasonably high definiton during peak times. However, it's being stretched to the limit to do so and we know how rapidly things advance in the tech world - so we can't help wondering how long this will be the case. I'd really like to have an option for keeping up to accepted standards that did not involve moving house. There's obviously a tricky balance to be struck between providing a reasonable standard in rural/semi-rural and remote areas and leaving it entirely to commercial considerations, in which case we'd be entirely stuffed. I think most of us are realistic enough to realise it's inevitable we'll pay more for the same level of service as the metro areas, but we just hope it will be available so we at least have the option. After all, we are within a 25 Km radius of a capital city and decades ago, Telstra's antecedents strung their wires to farms in the middle of nowhere. I guess we've become more city-centric in the intervening period and that's not a good thing IMO.

Your insights are appreciated, Dave. However, a few questions arise from your comments: As someone saddled with FW, I'm curious as to how we are "probably going to be used as a political wedge". Not disagreeing - just not sure I understand what you're saying here. What do you envisage happening in FW areas when speeds increase dramatically in other areas? Is there any real hope that we will have the opportunity to have comparable speeds, even at increased cost? Have you ever seen an ISP quote "typical evening speeds" for FW? I know I haven't and it's not for lack of looking. A 50 Mbps plan with Aussie Broadband seems to be the best available and that drops from 40+ to less than 10 Mbps as the "Netflix effect" kicks in. (I even moved from Internode, whom I'd been with forever, when they decided not to offer a 50 Mbps plan on FW.) I note Foxtel are going to integrate Netflix. Do you happen to know if they will deliver this by satellite to satellite customers? I guess that's unlikely but it might help the congestion a bit. As an aside, I was on a 4g home internet plan with Vividwireless prior to moving to the NBN FW, mainly for the improved speeds. The tower was fairly local and apparently grossly underutilised. The speed was only 13 Mbps, but this was absolutely consistent. I phoned one Sunday morning as the internet suddenly went out - got straight through to an Aussie tech who apologised for the lack of notice but advised i was being moved to a different panel on the tower and service would be resumed within the hour. He mentioned thet I was the only person using the previous panel. I expressed concern that the speeds would drop, but he reassured me that I was the only user on the new panel also!

I haven't read the whole thread you linked to, and you may well be correct, Trevor. However, Passlabs' published info on their XA .5 amps seems to indicate they do double down into 4 ohms and that they leave class A at their maximum power output, ie into 4 ohms. I remain confuse xa.5_specs_3.pdf xa.5_specs_3 (1).pdf

Actually, it's interesting to compare the technical specifications of the 30.5 and 30.8 on the Passlabs website. Most specs are identical, except the 30.8 has higher input impedance, double the power consumption and weighs more. So, do we believe the power output for both is the same?? Evil's experience suggests this isn't the case in the real world.

My understanding is that the XA30.5 and XA30.8 are both 30 wpc class A into 8 ohms. The X150.5 and X150.8 are essentially identical amps to the XA versions but are biased to go into class B operation hence they are 150 wpc into 8 ohms. The XA30.5 is generally regarded as warmer and lusher than the XA30.8, but the XA30.8 is more resolving. Power output and power performance should be similar. Evil's observations are hard to explain based on published info.

Ha! I'm older and slower than you. No way I could keep up with the pace of your amp quests, but it's fascinating looking on and I will hopefully find my way to Happy valley soon to have a listen to whatever supects you have in custody at the time. I guess it's possible the Magnus could be the holy grail, but my bet would have to be on a more mainstream solution, simply because that's the way it's worked out most often in my experience. A bigger class A Passlabs would have to be a good bet, based on the evidence so far and would avoid the tube hassles you mentioned. Unfortunately, that would be a rare beast in this neck of the woods.

Monte Walsh (the 1971 Lee marvin version - haven't seen the Tom Sellick remake) This under-rated gem is a warm and beautiful movie that treads easly and deftly between melancholy, humour and action. I portrays a West that is changing forever with the sad result that the cowboy life is becoming redundant. The gorgeous music by John Barry gets under your skin and stays there permanently. I was sold right from the opening title song by Mama Cass Elliot. Maybe not a typical Western, but my favourite. I liked "Bad Day at Black Rock" too - must be one of the best titles ever! But I guess that's even less of a "Western". I last saw "Soldier Blue" about 45 years ago but I do remember really enjoying it, despite fairly universal panning by the critics.

Sorry, I just saw this post. I'm at Hahndorf, in the Adelaide Hills - quite a few audio enthusiasts around here. I totally agree the support of those guys on the TacT forum is fantastic. Just one example was the analogue (or was it digital - just can't remeber for sure ATM which it was) input board of my 2.2XP failed. From the symptoms, they were able to tell me that 4 small SMC caps neede to be replaced. I was able to take the board out, drop it into a local computer repair shop and get it fixed by asking them to replace specific caps. Totally modular design is just great - no need to take the whole unit in. I think it cost something like $50! I have high hopes of keeping my Tact gear fully funtional for a long time

Hmmm - of course I tend to prefer red! Except..............these speakers seem to have a pronounced industrial aesthetic, especially the front panel. Now LOS says the design brief is to blend into the environment. I'll have to take his word that a miror steel finish achieves this in practice. But, wouldn't it then be going against this design theme to have vibrantly-coloured "look at me" horns on the front? This would be especally so if the colour on the horns wasn't replicated somewhere else. Notice, in the rendering with gold horns, thay look good partly because of the goldish coloured timber reflected in part of the mirror finish. Any colur added in the horns needs to tie in somehow, perhaps by using the same colour in tweeter enclosures. I think the industrial, metallic aesthetic is a brave choice. However, to carry it off it need to be maintained throughout. Sticking with silver tonings would be boring so I think the obvious choice is some form of gold/copper/bronze colouring. repeated at least once somwhere else on the speaker. IMHO gold and silver go well together and add interest to each other. And for a bit of a left-field idea, a distressed/tarnished/even rusty finish to the horns and some other bits could be a very interesting look. I think there's potential to do more here than add a coat of auto paint to the horns. Fascinating project, Simon. Thanks for keeping us up to date with progress and I can't wait to see further developments.

That's still one of the most inviting looking rooms on SNA! It's very clever, too, treading a fine line in creating an instantly-appealing visual impression without falling into the trap of looking over-designed. And Lee would have us believe he did it all himself!