New Member from Northern Virginia

I just found this site recently and decided to join because of the friendly and knowledgeable postings I read regarding vintage horns. I tend to like the sound of many vintage components as well as many new components that are based on old school designs.

My system includes somewhat recent builds that utilize vintage parts. My speakers started as SAP J2001 (twin 12" alnico magnet, pleated paper surround woofers in an Onken cabinet, alnico magnet compression midrange driver feeding a plastic horn that sits on top of the woofer cabinet, and a Fostex bullet tweeter sitting below the elevated midrange horn). I replaced the SAP midrange horn and compression driver with a Western Electric combination--713b driver feeding a KS 12025 horn. I also inserted an L-Pad to control the midrange driver output.

My linestage is a build by Aldo D'Urso, an Italian builder who specializes in Western Electric inspired designs. My linestage utilizes four Western Electric 310 tubes and two 348 tubes. It is built into a big, old chassis (I have no idea what it was in a prior life), utilizes twin giant Daven attenuators for balance control, but, its modern provenance is revealed by the utilization of a motorized potentiometer for remote volume control. It is also unusual for its use of output transformers. The output transformers are needed because they complement the use of input transformers on my amplifier which is another Aldo D'Urso build. It is a stereo rebuild of a Western Electric 133 amp, including the use of Western Electric 613C input transformers and 171C output transformers. The tubes include four 348 driver tubes and four 349 output tubes. I own a couple of other amps that are not currently in the system, one a pushpull 45 amp and the other a parallel single-ended 2a3 amp (Audio Note Kageki).

My sources are a NAIM 555 music server/UnitiCore ripper/NAS, a Basis Debut table with vacuum clamp and motor controller, Vector tonearm and Transfiguration Orpheus L cartridge, the phono stage is a Viva Fono. I also have a Headamp Blue Hawaii SE headphone amp for my Stax 007 headphones.

I particularly value a system that can deliver lively sound at modest volume levels, which my system does quite well at. It is 99 db/w efficient, which works well with my lineup of amps--the 349 pushpull amp puts out something like 5.5 watts/channel.
 
Welcome from a former DC/Wheaton native.
I'm guessing you are familiar with Vu at Deja Vu?
 
Alnico, horns, tubes... what kinda place you running ? 😁
Big welcome from Texas... you should fit right in here with some of us other old school types.
 
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