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Originally Posted by R Harkness /t/1449699/audio-physic-scorpio-ii-with-luxman-sq-38u#post_23434744
Great stuff!
I love...LOVE...Audio Physic speakers. One of my top favorite speaker brands. I've had the original Audio Physic Virgos in my room, the Libras (they followed the Virgos), and a while back I had the Scorpios as well. I drove the Scorpios with Conrad Johnson tube monoblocks 140W/side and a tube pre-amp. Sounded glorious. They were perhaps the best looking speaker I ever owned as well. Sadly, being somewhat of a speaker collector, I had to pair down my collection a few years ago due to turning my 2 channel room into my home theater room (though I still listen to dedicated 2 channel gear in the room as well).
That's a beautiful looking system, panos_adgr.
Rich, thank you very much! I'm glad to get an answer from an Audio Physic fan. Audio Physic is a great brand with high value for money, rich equipment and a serious R&D behind the final product.
Audio Physics much greatly with tube amplifiers and they are capable of thrills if you go for the combination. In my countries forum where I'm participating a lot I had many conflicts when I expressed my thoughts of combining the Scorpio's with tube amplifiers. Most said that the seven drivers of the speaker plus the low nominal impedance plus the 3 and a half ways of the crossover would make an incompatible match with the Luxman SQ-38U amplifier. But when I auditioned this machine with my loudspeakers I couldn't believe my ears. Yes... It's a kind of a paradox if you think that I drive a 4 ohm, 7 driver loudspeaker with a pair of el34s delivering 25-30 watts per channel. But in action things were different.
I want to say that sometimes it's not good to go only with specs. It 's better to experiment. This is the best way to discover things if you go of course also parallel with specs and objectivity.
Ok there were some problems in the beginning. I had a lack of nerve and a bit laid back mids. But I had a suspicion of the the factory tubes of my Luxman being low quality. Have in mind that I bought my amp second handed with 3 years use from the previous user.
So after lot of reading in the internet I found out of the 6ca7 tubes and read of its characteristics. I read that they can replace any el34 and their benefits were more energy more nerve and more flat response across the whole spectrum, talking of the Electro Harmonix 6ca7.
So I went for it and I replaced the el34s with 6ca7.... The result was stunning. A Luxman SQ-38U on steroids. But there was again a suspicion of the character of the Chinese 12ax7 and 12au7 tubes. I finally had the nerve and energy but laid back mids insisted especially when listening to vinyl with the Luxmans tube phono. So one day a friend of mine borrowed me pair of Mullard bva nos 12ax7 tubes to replace the chinese of the phono. And it was the time that I lost my words. Superb results and immediate change of sonic performance.
Then I decided to change all the 12ax7 and 12au7 tubes of the amplifier. And so I did with 5 Tung Sol tubes. 3 in the driving stage of the 4 6ca7 and 2 in the pre amp section.
The amplifier now is like a different machine with what I had! Pin sharp imaging of music idols in the soundstage superb detail and description, rich mids with detail that reaches to the bone and super drive! Many audiophilers visited me to experience that hard believing result I was writting and describing in my local forums and the result was to earn a great reputation of my system.
Now I'm waiting a pair of High Output JJ 12ax7 for the phono stage of the Luxman to complete the tube upgrade.
The sonic result after these changes really exceeds my expectations I had before I start the upgrade.
I'll follow with some pictures.