Hi--

>1800 watts of Carver driving Apogee??
>Man, you like that sound stage right up in you lap.

Well, yes, though their max. level is not all that high (the tweeters
twist when overdriven, at about 1-200 watts, but with their very low efficiency, that isn't very loud. Other amps I tried didn't sound as
sweet at that power level as the Carvers, and clipping sounds are no fun,
so I guess I can justify those Carvers....., maybe....;-)

>(I'm of the opinion that `bright'-sounding audio gives the illusion of
>closeness to the source, whereas such devices as tube electronics and
>acoustic suspension speakers (most notably B+W and Linn) sound more like
>being back in the middle of the audience).

Ummm, yes - I'm of the opinion that all other things being almost equal
(true much of the time), most audible differences (and characters) are
due to frequency response differences, especially very slight ones....

>BTW, regarding interconnect wire; I've heard a great deal of difference
>between plain narrow copper (20 gauge), heavy copper (14 gauge), and an
>exotic silver+copper multi-stranded wire (Kimber Cable, I think). The
>difference comes in resolving the individual sounds of instruments in
>symphonic music-- reduction of muddiness as it were. This difference was
>most pronounced in `mellow-sounding' equipment, and less so in
>`bright-sounding' equipment. The $80 per pair wires made all the difference
>with Conrad-Johnson tubes, and were almost unnoticable with a Levinson
>preamp and Bedini-designed Eagle Class-A amp. But that's just my ears...
>Regards,
>Richard Shiell rshiell@lightspeed.net (Richard D. Shiell)

No, its just simple physics (and good ears), with impedence matches
altering frequency response - the tubes have higher output impedences, allowing more variation in FR with impedence changes. It is easy to show with a scope and a square-wave generator the FR changes introduced by
using higher impedence outputs and wires, and the sonic effects of the impedence changes follow predictions quite closely (as the FR changes
begin to approximate the speaker impedence curve as the source impedence goes up, giving [usually] a subtle mid range and top end rise [and a
bump in the softer-sounding bottom] - though the tubes may start out
with a rolled-off top due to the basic amp response [sounds sweet and rounded, therefore... {'course, the abundant second harmonic distortion
of tube amps also contributes...;-}]).
David Ruether