Author Topic: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time  (Read 20506 times)

Offline Rob S.

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Re: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time
« Reply #30 on: March 01, 2010, 07:16:08 AM »
How long did the Moscode play?  Anybody else have impressions on that amp?  Which one and how much is it?

Rob
No new money spent on audio!!  but starting in 2012!!

Offline mdconnelly

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Re: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time
« Reply #31 on: March 01, 2010, 07:26:42 AM »
I'm afraid that was after I left so it was down to Steve, Ken and Shane at that point.

Offline richidoo

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Re: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time
« Reply #32 on: March 01, 2010, 07:31:46 AM »
I assume it is the latest version, 402 Au with gold plated circuit board. $6500 as reviewed by Stereophile last September. Maybe Shane can bring it to my meet in a couple weeks.
http://www.moscode.com/

Bigfish8

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Re: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time
« Reply #33 on: March 01, 2010, 07:57:05 AM »
Yes it was the Moscode AU 402.  Shane asked Steve and me if we wanted to hear the Moscode as the evening was winding down (surprisingly early).  We said "sure" so Shane switched from the Butler 2250 over to the Moscode.  We really did not make an A versus B comparison but felt the music was smoother, just a little less edge to it.  While the Butler 2250 has a tube it sounds more like a traditional SS Amp, or I should say it sounds that way to me.  The system we were listening to all evening was essentially all SS and when you add tubes (to a tube lover like me) I am going to prefer that sound 10 out of 10 times. 

The MSRP difference between the Butler and the Moscode is approximately $3000 plus or minus.  In my personal system I have a tube output stage on my source and I have a tube rectified Mapletree Preamp with Tung-Sol 6SN7 Round Plates.  I would like to hear the Moscode and Butler comparison in my system to determine if I would still prefer the Moscode.  At Shane's with the limited listening I would pick-out the Moscode blindfolded!  If Shane has the time next Sunday when he brings my speakers home I may ask him if he can bring along the Moscode just for kicks and giggles.  Hell, it is the only way to learn!

Ken

Offline Rob S.

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Re: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time
« Reply #34 on: March 01, 2010, 08:09:52 AM »
Have your check book ready, ken.    :-P

Rob S.
No new money spent on audio!!  but starting in 2012!!

Offline hometheaterdoc

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Re: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time
« Reply #35 on: March 01, 2010, 09:25:22 AM »
First off, thanks to everyone that attended.  It was great to see you all and swap stories again.  I think getting together with friends talking about the hobby is the most enjoyable part of the whole thing, even moreso than the gear or music itself.

I want to send a specific huge thank you to Ken for letting me borrow back his Mini2s.  I should finally have some showroom stock coming up when the distributor's order arrives.  I'm looking forward to that!  But for this meeting, it was wonderful to have the Mini2s here to compare with other new products.  

It was a rather intimate gathering.  Numerous folks had to cancel at the last minute, and some folks that had planned to attend ended up not showing.  I can only assume things popped up for them as well.  No worries, it made for a very enjoyable evening where we could chat about various subjects and not have to turn the music up to 110dB levels to listen over the racous crowds that sometimes show up here :)

The theme for the evening was more value priced electronics that still offer incredible performance for the price.  The gear we listened to was selected mostly by the requests and interests of the folks that were attending and those who planned to attend.  There were supposed to be folks from as far away as Virginia, Wilmington, New Bern, the mountains, Greensboro, Winston Salem, and a number of locals coming over to have a listen.  They were all of a generally similar mind on the price points of product they were interested in and I chose accordingly.  

The majority of the evening was spent listening to the PS Audio PerfectWave DAC fed by the PS Audio PerfectWave Transport and my audio PC via M2Tech Hiface USB-SPDIF converter.  For some reason, after the M2Tech Hiface was added to my PC, my regular Lynx L22 card that is also installed will no longer output anything other than 16/44.1.  I'm still troubleshooting that one.  Something else to put on the list to figure out what the heck is conflicting and going on there.  The PS Audio PerfectWave DAC was feeding the Butler Audio TDB-2250 most of the evening direct with volume control done with the DAC.  Cabling was a single set of JPS Labs Superconductor 3 interconnects and SuperConductor3 speaker cables.  We did eventually bring in the Moscode 402 Au amplifier later in the evening so folks could compare with the Butler.  Lots of other amp options here, but to be perfectly honest, I wanted to keep the swapping down to a minimum and just listen to some tunes on a couple different setups.  Based on the folks that I knew were showing up, and based on some listening I did Friday night and Saturday morning, I thought these would be the most well received combos of gear so that the total package of sound hit on some things that people would like.  if others had shown up, I'm sure we would have swapped in other gear, specifically the Belles pieces as I think they are fantastic, just not the same kind of tone as the pieces we used.    

No scientific comparisons were done.  Just general listening.  We used a variety of material including disks that folks brought, some of my own disks, a few HRx recordings I have, and some 24/96 material I had bought earlier on Saturday to try out.  My apologies again to the attendees for the time wasted on getting disks burnt to play on the transport.  I figured out my blunder when you left.  The Transport requires UDF 2.0 format burns... I didn't have that set correctly on my machines as I use UDF 2.5 and UDF 2.6 most of the time.  

The evening started by playing a series of disks/tracks using the Usher Mini2s with Diamond tweeters installed, then swapping out for the PSB Synchrony One's and playing the same tracks over again.  By that point, most everyone had arrived for the evening.  So we listened a little more with the PSBs and then swapped back in the Usher Mini2s.  The early attendees got to hear Usher first, then PSB, then back to Usher.  Others only heard PSB then to Usher.  Based on feedback, the Ushers stayed in the system the rest of the evening.

I did a demonstration of my little theater room for folks.  The better half and I are still duking it out over seating for the room and I need to replace the rack in there to something else.  Otherwise, it's finally settling in to be a modestly priced setup that really works well given the space constraints.  JVC DLA-RS25 projector is the big outlier as far as cost is concerned.  But if I was going to blow the budget, this was the place to blow it.  The black levels on the JVC make active masking on the screen almost unnecessary.  Screen is a 100" Stewart Firehawk fixed frame model.  The Firehawk material helps during the day because it is not light controlled in that room.  Electronics were the Oppo BDP-83 blu-ray player, my HTPC streaming content, the marantz AV8003 prepro, Butler TDB-5150 amp, JPS Labs UltraConductor II entry level interconnects and speaker cables all around, PSB Speakers Imagine towers, center, and dipole on wall surround with the HD10 subwoofer.  I have the Audyssey Pro Sub EQ in there since the marantz doesn't do room correction on the new uncompressed formats.  All told, at full MSRP for everything, it's ~$20K with the JVC projector accounting for $8K of that full sticker price.  As a package deal, it obviously would be a better price than that.  However, it is a stunningly good setup that is very immersive.  This is one area where I get absolutely no objections from the better half.  She loves watching movies on this setup.  You can get very competent video from some of the LCD based units for far less than the $8K MSRP JVC.  It won't have the black level and realism, but for those that think even $20K is outrageous for this kind of setup, there are ways to do it for less and still get close to the same thing.  

After the theater demo, we came back down to the 2 channel room to listen a bit more.  We wanted to compare the PS Audio PerfectWave DAC with the Oracle DAC1000.  So we listened to tracks on the PerfectWave, then swapped in the Oracle and listened again.  The Oracle, at >2X the MSRP price, is still king.  I've never had it beaten in any shootout or comparison we've done here locally.  It's just an incredible piece.  Period.  But the PS Audio held it's own better than anything else I've tried in the past 9 months..... and I've had quite a few DACs through here during that period.  More DACs than I care to remember, to be honest.  It's really quite good for the money.  Knowing a customer would have to spend >2X as much to improve it with the Oracle is reassuring.  I'm pretty sure the PS Audio stuff is going to stick around as it's really good stuff for the money and offers enough flexibility to be useful for a wide range of customers.  Once the network bridge is released, it's going to be *the* product to have as it's music streaming capability will be a better performer than the Logitech products, imo.  At that point, its convenience will even make me forget about the Oracle... well....almost anyways :)  Mike is the king in the area as his digital setup is quite something now with the stuff he's bought from me :)    

After the DAC comparison, we did the Pangea swap.  I could have put it on the Butler amp if I moved the amp... the DAC was the easiest swap that required only a couple seconds to plug and unplug with the current power cord in use, a JPS Labs Digital AC.  No, this was far from a scientific comparison.  But it didn't take double blind testing to hear the impact of swapping the cords.  The Pangea was god awful and just destroyed the music when inserted.  None of us wanted to even bother listening or putting it in other situations after only a few minutes of listening to it.  Out it came and the music came back to life.

We then swapped tweeters on the Usher Mini2s, going back to the beryllium alloy tweeters from the new Diamonds.  The new Diamonds are better... somehow finding a way to be more resolving, while at the same time being more relaxed.  The Be tweeter is very good... but the Diamond was more to everyone's liking.

Next came the swap of amps.  The Moscode 402 Au is an incredibly flexible amp.  It can take a very wide range of 9 pin tubes in it's 4 slots.  The sound is then infinitely tunable to your system.  There's a lot of adjustment in this amp to make it sound just the way you want it to sound with your combination of gear just by swapping the tubes.  On this night, I made the amp pretty lush sounding with my tube choices.  We could spend a good portion of a meeting just listening to the amp with different tube combinations.  


As is always the case in this hobby, the audio side of things is very subjective.  No one hears the same, no one likes the same kind of sound.  What one person thinks is unlistenable, another thinks is just perfect.  The same held true with our listening on Saturday.  The majority of folks seemed to prefer the Usher sound on the Mini2s.  But a couple guys in attendance preferred the sound of the PSB Synchrony One.  They are *very* different sounding speakers.  They present the soundstage in a very different way..  Imaging is very different, the tonal balance is very different.  One isn't necessarily better or more right, just different.  For some musical styles and some listening methods, I can definitely see why some prefer PSB.  I can also see why others prefer Usher.  Overall, the only real conclusion to draw is that I think both offer tremendous value and are great sounding products for a much more modest price than a lot of the speakers out there.

Thanks again to everyone that attended.  It was great to see you.  I can't wait to do it all again soon!
Shane Sangster
Used to be Night & Day Audio.......

Offline hometheaterdoc

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Re: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time
« Reply #36 on: March 01, 2010, 09:36:09 AM »
If Shane has the time next Sunday when he brings my speakers home I may ask him if he can bring along the Moscode just for kicks and giggles.  Hell, it is the only way to learn!

Ken,

Yes, I will bring it along next week to do an in home listening session.

Which reminds me... for anyone local that missed the get together this weekend, Ken was kind enough to let me watch my hockey game yesterday instead of returning his speakers.  he's going out of town next weekend and is out of town all week for work.  So I have the Mini2s until next Sunday afternoon.  If you want to hear them before I return them, give me a buzz....

Thanks again Ken!

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

vigga

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Re: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time
« Reply #37 on: March 01, 2010, 10:37:45 AM »
Good times Shane - thanks for letting a decidedly video guy crash the party.  It was all very informative.  I'm just sorry I couldn't stay for longer.

Offline richidoo

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Re: Official Open House - February 27th - 4-5PM start time
« Reply #38 on: March 01, 2010, 10:39:44 AM »
Welcome Vigga!!