Thanks to everyone for stopping by and having a listen. It really was great to see everyone and catch up a bit on what is happening.
I really liked the combined meet as we got to hear very different systems. It gave me a broader perspective on what the component that was being compared was actually doing and how it affected everything else in the chain to produce the end result, the music.
At my house, the RT tubes are not my favorite. They get right to the edge of too much high frequency without tipping over completely into the type of sound that makes me run from the room. They also, unfortunately, highlight the bottom end issues that still exist in my room. The RCA black plates are the balance for me. They roll off the top a bit so I can listen long term and have a really tight bottom end that doesn't show off the deepest bass issues. But folks in attendance wanted the RT tubes.. so it ended up being a good thing as it meant we were using the same tubes in each preamp.
At my house, I only listened off to the side and at the back of the room during the head to head comparison. So I couldn't compare imaging or soundstaging definitively. Just general impressions given the limits that I was under. What I could hear and was immediately apparent switching between the two units is that the noise floor is quite a bit higher with the 21A. Could it be age of the unit, some simple part swapping by Dr. Sol to make it comparable? The circuits are pretty different between the two units. Who knows. But that translated into less detail retrieval, less dynamic swing, and a more mushed up kind of sound even from my compromised position. The 21A started clearing the room before we even finished the comparison. I don't know how much of that was people that were snack and beer deprived, the short attention span of us, or if we were just bored of comparisons. I'll be curious to do it again on the Ushers when they get here because I definitely preferred the 22A to the 21A in this system with the Harbeth's.
Over to Carl's we went after listening to Sol's I60 again. Major, major improvement over previous iterations. It's still a touch too hot for me. But it's definitely getting there. The Harbeth's sucked up the juice in it a bit too much. I can see why Ken liked this on his more efficient Ushers. It's almost there Sol....
At Carl's, he setup the preamps, etc while the rest of us downed some pizza. It's hard work this listening to music. We're growing boys and we work up an appetite with all the exertion. We came into the room to the Oppo feeding his Nixon DAC into the 22A via his cabling. I personally hated the sound. It was extremely thin, yet still kind of fuzzy and was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too hot up top. But wait! There's more! We tried running straight to the preamp from the Oppo instead of going through the Nixon DAC. Big mistake.... It was downright unlistenable. Interesting that folks really liked this combo of source and preamp at my place and it was immediately turned off in Carl's setup. We listened for a while and because Richard had to go, we jumped right into a mini comparison.
In this instance, the 22A with RT tubes produced a way too lean overall sound in Carl's setup. It didn't have the same front to back depth it did in my setup. The 21A again was much higher in the noise floor. But it was needed, imo in the context of this system. The noise helped mask the sound. It was a much fuzzier, more globbed together and mashed up sound that overall had reduced detail and dynamics. The subtle things that you could hear with the 22A (although they were too much to take in Carl's system) were not there with the 21A. But you could actually listen with this setup. I wanted the separation and detail of the 22A but I didn't want the lean presentation.
This started us down a road of trying to change things up to improve the sound with the 22A. We first tried the RCA black plate tubes. Much better but still not there yet. We bypassed the Nixon DAC in this setup by adding a set of SC3 interconnects to go directly from Oppo to preamp. Much better again. But now we had a hum issue. Some swapping around and deduction revealed that there is a ground loop somewhere in Carl's setup. But using Oppo straight to preamp with no other components hooked up got rid of it.
We listened some more and then before hooking up the vinyl, I swapped in another set of tubes that were too lush in the context of my setup, RCA long plates. That was it! All the positives of the 22A but a warmth, texture, and body I've never heard from Carl's system. I believe the quote was "lush without being syrupy". For the first time ever, I actually liked the sound of Carl's speakers. I don't say that to offend. He and I value different things in the final sound. Just like he doesn't really like the Harbeths, I've been unable to get on board with the Piegas. No problem with either approach. Over time I've learned to appreciate some of the things the Piega's do. But I would never say I'd own a set. The combination last night might make me re-think things. HUGE soundstage that made the speakers completely disappear. Slam, dynamic swing, subtle details and shading coming through.... the music came to life and was very real sounding for the first time. Nothing was covered up or masked, yet so incredibly listenable. Just magic.
We then did a mini source comparison with Carl's PC feeding his Nixon DAC playing the same tune we were spinning on the Oppo. The analog outs of the Oppo fed the preamp and the digital out of the Oppo went into Rich's Buffalo DAC kit and out to preamp. I preferred the Oppo straight into preamp. For $900 and the flexibility it provides, the Oppo is a great little piece. The SACD multi channel out isn't as good as straight two channel out, but it's quite good for the price class. It's better than any other $900 player I've listened to and it has the bonus of also playing bluray, DVD, media files, SACD, DVD-A, and regular CD... someone needs to mod it to have a digital input so an audio PC or squeezebox like device could feed it and people would be set for not a lot of coin. It's not as good as some top end players and transports... but it definitely plays above it's paygrade.....
We then played some vinyl... it sounded like garbage
... so that was my queue to leave. Sorry I couldn't stay for the I60 demo in Carl's system. I wanted to hear it but I feared that folks would hear my snoring over the music if I stayed any longer...
Thanks again to everyone that attended. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoy hanging out with the lot of ya. Looking forward to doing it again soon. Happy Holidays!