Author Topic: Get Together on Saturday?  (Read 11002 times)

Offline hometheaterdoc

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #15 on: November 22, 2009, 07:44:26 AM »
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!
Shane Sangster
Used to be Night & Day Audio.......

Offline richidoo

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #16 on: November 22, 2009, 08:14:37 AM »
Thank you Shane and Melissa, Carl and Christine for opening your homes to us marauding hordes. Yummy food booze and tubes.

I liked the Belles 21A better on both systems. It got the trumpets right. Just seemed more alive and pure in the areas that are important to me. But it was a little noisier and grungier way in the background. That didn't bother me except in the very low level spots where there should be silence. The 22A was tizzier on the edges of bright brass, I did not hear that on the 21A but it may have been there a little bit, there was no pure tube preamp with which to compare the Belles pres. Looking inside there were more of those scary looking transistor heatsinks in the 22 (3 larger transistors per channel - arranged like driver into PP?) than the 21A (2 smaller transistors sharing one sink per channel - PP?) The Belles 150A is a sweet amp. Great synergy with the 22A. The 21A had a special synergy with the Mac and Piegas.


The Oppo BD-83SE Special Edition Blu-Ray Player with Sabre32 upgrade seems like a nice player for the money. Modding the output with some nice caps could make it a real killer. For the money it is already truly excellent. Would be fun to compare it to mdconnelly's Oracle stack sometime ;)

Sol's i60 had a nice showing on both systems. It's finally approaching the finish line. The overall clarity is striking. Tone is excellent, bass control good (tweak coming for that, maybe today!) Power was enough for both of last night's moderate load speakers. The Mac really showed its balls tho. You just can't beat 500+W.

It was great to see everyone. I have an image of Shane's cable bazaar laid out on the living room floor, every JPS cable in the catalog,  all laid out in different pretty colors, including the most lovely purple. Definitely very tempting presentation. But if I brought any home I would be hung with it.

Offline mdconnelly

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #17 on: November 22, 2009, 08:53:43 AM »
Damn, sorry I couldn't make it yesterday.   I was family-challenged and there was no breaking away.     

Rich, I will have to do another G2G at my place.  With the DAC1000, SC3 speaker cables and XLR ICs between DAC1000 and amp, and the Alan Maher power toys, I'm definitely loving what I'm hearing.  And I could certainly bring the Oracle gear to other G2Gs.

At this point, I think I'm going on a Nervosa sabbatical (well, at least until I sell the Tact and my previous JPS biwire speaker cables).  Short of replacing my 10Ts, I think the only way up is room treatment and that will likely create a few new family-challenges all by itself.  I will say that the one thing I'll miss about the Tact was the ease by which I could quickly measure room response as I shifted things around.   Short of using my ears (which have proven to be a bit untrustworthy at times ;-), what do others use to measure in-room response?

Offline richidoo

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #18 on: November 22, 2009, 09:03:39 AM »
http://www.hometheatershack.com/roomeq/ - FREE
http://www.etfacoustic.com/ - powerful!
http://www.juicehifi.com/ - FREE, creates room correction files to use with your Duet>DAC1000

We missed you Mike! See you soon.
Rich

Offline mdconnelly

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #19 on: November 22, 2009, 09:35:17 AM »
Thanks Rich!  Always knew that stuff was out there but never bothered looking while I was using the Tact.

Offline hometheaterdoc

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #20 on: November 22, 2009, 09:50:41 AM »
We missed you, Mike!  Seeing as you are the most current with the Oracle sound, it would have been good to temper our enthusiasm over the pieces we were auditioning...

One neat thing that kept popping into my head as we were listening is that this, with the exception of the speakers being used, is the most sanely priced equipment list we've used in a while:

$900 Oppo player
$800 Audio PC (including Lynx card for AES/EBU) feeding ~$700 Buffalo DAC kit
Carl's $250 Dell feeding Nixon tube dac (not sure of $$ but not super expensive)

$2495 22A tube preamp
$2995 (original MSRP when still a current product) 21A preamp

$2295.00 Ref 150A amplifier

While not a $299 home theater in a box, it wasn't anywhere near the price class of some of the stuff we've listened to in the past...

I really think you could get a heck of a full range complete stereo system for $10K brand new including floorstanding Ushers and upper end JPS Labs cabling (or the smaller Harbeth)...  I know some people would fall over or laugh it up at the thought of spending $10K on a stereo... but that isn't really a massive investment to get the kind of sound possible out of these pieces given what some of this stuff costs today...  is it as good as the upper end stuff?  nope... but the gap between them isn't as big as it was in the past...



Shane Sangster
Used to be Night & Day Audio.......

Offline richidoo

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #21 on: November 22, 2009, 10:05:25 AM »
Despite a handful of threads about the new Belles stuff, it had not sunk in that the Belles stuff was THAT inexpensive. Definitely punching above their weight, especially the amp. Very refined and powerful sounding without much of a personality. Looking forward to hearing it on other systems in the months ahead.

No wonder I liked the 21 better - it cost more!  ;)

Offline Carlman

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #22 on: November 22, 2009, 11:23:25 AM »
I forgot to mention Sol's amp.. At that point I was pretty tired but the sound got my attention in a good way.. I've heard many iterations and I've always been able to find something about it that irritated me.. not this time.  It really sang and I enjoyed it on the Piega's.  Since the crossover upgrade, they present a much easier load.  I didn't hear any real issues and it was a true joy to listen to.. thanks for bringing it, Sol!

Also, quick correction, Rich..  the Mac is the MC402, 400 wpc, not 500..

-C
I really enjoy listening to music.

Offline richidoo

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #23 on: November 22, 2009, 12:24:47 PM »
I read somewhere that the 402 actually made 540W@8ohms. Sorry I can't find the reference at this moment.

Offline Carlman

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Re: Get Together on Saturday?
« Reply #24 on: November 22, 2009, 06:12:25 PM »
It's 'rated' at 400wpc but is able to produce more. :)  I don't think they publish what 'more' is, though. ;)
I really enjoy listening to music.