I think that is because you are in the "I would like to try everything" category rather than having a well defined end point to your "search". Not a problem but it does eliminate the need to care about what the reviewers goals are.
Windsor Hifi Show - simple systems ruled
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I think that is because you are in the "I would like to try everything" category rather than having a well defined end point to your "search". Not a problem but it does eliminate the need to care about what the reviewers goals are.
I got my end point from listening to hundreds of live concerts and practice sessions over a five year period. That and making recordings of some of those performances. It was at that time that I discovered tubes and Stats, which delivered a whole other level of getting closer to that endpoint than I had before. The horns I had heard up to then seemed further away. Now I have heard some truly great horns that arguably can get closer to that lifelike endpoint.
Although live experience is a great anchor, you also need experience and thought concerning sound reproduction to define the end points. Intrinsically stereo sound reproduction is an illusion - if you frame yourself just in the perfect reproduction of the facsimile you risk creating a system that will keep you away from the recreation and enjoyment of music. We must remember we want to be fooled, and in part it is this fooling that makes us believe we approach lifelike ...
Listening to stereo is a learning process - it is why our preferences can change with time and perhaps why "Il audiofilo es mobile" ...
After listening to the tri-amplified German Physiks Gaudi speakers playing stadium rock my end points concerning amplified music changed a lot. Fortunately I mainly listen to acoustical music, otherwise this system would have to fit in my listening room ...
You are referring to end point as the reference sound, I am using "end point" as the reference component closest to the reference sound. We all think the best component we have heard so far is the closest to that reference and hence the end point component, until we hear something better. I don't trust reviewers to tell me what's better, but I look at their leads for components to try out that I haven't heard before.
I want to get to making some recordings for the next phase of learning, and room measurements, trying to hear what's wrong with which frequency and how can I adjust it rather than just saying that violin tone sounds wrong. That is a skill set I would like to develop.
After listening to the tri-amplified German Physiks Gaudi speakers playing stadium rock my end points concerning amplified music changed a lot. Fortunately I mainly listen to acoustical music, otherwise this system would have to fit in my listening room ...
Detlof's triamped 200k German Physiks sound fantastic on acoustic chamber and arias. The shape of their mids and midbass section causes a think dense image of the vocalist to be locked in. I think this can only be improved with a wider room. The bass gives the density of the bass section heard in concert halls even on the softer passages
Atmasphere mids and loads of current from Lamm and ADM to midbass and bass
Although live experience is a great anchor, you also need experience and thought concerning sound reproduction to define the end points. Intrinsically stereo sound reproduction is an illusion - if you frame yourself just in the perfect reproduction of the facsimile you risk creating a system that will keep you away from the recreation and enjoyment of music. We must remember we want to be fooled, and in part it is this fooling that makes us believe we approach lifelike ...
Listening to stereo is a learning process - it is why our preferences can change with time and perhaps why "Il audiofilo es mobile" ...
After listening to the tri-amplified German Physiks Gaudi speakers playing stadium rock my end points concerning amplified music changed a lot. Fortunately I mainly listen to acoustical music, otherwise this system would have to fit in my listening room ...
I dont' agree...unless you for some reason don't like the sound of live unamplified music, then getting a good facsimile of live, unamplified music might not be your ideal. Once you put "amplified" in the sentence then all bets are off because live, but amplified can range from awesome to god awful and everywhere in between. Sure it is still live but you have no idea what the intrinsic sound might be...just like most studio recordings. In my understanding of making it sound like live, unamplified music you will be fooled...at least to some degree...and that is part and parcel with the identification with live and the degree of "liveness" a system possesses.
My preferences have gone steadily in one direction actually. I went to horns only because A) I needed something smaller than 2.4 meter high electrostats and/or ribbons and B) I finally found some makes/models that are low enough in coloration to be convincing. Otherwise, I probably would still have large planars. However, my horns give me a more lifelike "punch" than my planars of the past but the gap is not enormous...at least with some stats...with others it is huge. Depends a lot on the maker. The planars did a better job of recreating the space of a performance and that went a long way towards believability in that respect...and preservation of tone.
I went to tube amps quite a while ago, particularly SET (although they were hybrid SET (KR Audio)) and have never looked back. I tried a push/pull hybrid again (Einstein) and a Class A push/pull triode again (VAC 30/30 and PureSound A30) just as a sanity check. I also had for a while another kind of SET hybrid (NAT Symbiosis SE) where the output was transistor rather than tube (like the KR Audio). However, I am now back to tube output SET (Wall Audio Opus M50, JJ322 and Ayon Crossfire III) and would not go back to any other technology...save perhaps SET OTL (there are a couple out there). SS amps, push/pull and SET, to me fail in delivering what I hear live, usually with tone but also often with dynamics...particularly micro-dynamics. The best amp to date that I have heard with this is the Aries Cerat Diana integrated (small review spoiler!).
I was probably one of the first (and probably one of the only) people out there to strap a SET to a big Electrostat or Apogee. At least no one else on the forums talked about this kind of combinations. Everyone "knows" you have to have big powerful SS for Apogees and Maggies...except you really don't if your room isn't huge (btw. they work well in small rooms...another myth busted). Electrostats were too demanding (some are...some aren't) for a SET. Well, at least with Acoustats (and the STAX ELS F81) they worked beautifully. Maybe Soundlabs not but have you tried?
So, the Gaudi was good for Rock, what disqualified it for Classical?
i have heard violins sound all over the place...with real ones!! My ex-girlfriend had at one time a Guarneri del Gesu, Strad and a Guadinini at the same time. Each was worth $1M+ and each sounded fundamentally different...yet each still sounded like a violin. We measured them once where we looked at the FFT spectrum of a single note, played at about the same level for each violin. The harmonic pattern was strikingly different beyond the first few harmonics, no so much in the number of harmonics but their relative intensities. Very interesting.
Morricab, I am with you.
SET amps rulez
In my case with Duo Mezzo XD and Crossfire III.
Looks like a VERY nice system marslo! I tried to go back...just to see... no way was it happening. Interestingly, I have converted a number of my friends...just by demonstration...they got it and then they bought SET as well. We did a demo with the Lampi Atlantic and Der Siebener last weekend. I only got to hear the Atlantic but it was quite good sounding.
Violins can sound different but they still sound real, while with some hifi they sound plastic. Also, with some electronics when multiple instruments are playing, they sound flat.
There are many things that lead to a realistic illusion - tone, soundstage, dynamics, etc. Different systems can do realism by using a different mix of each of these factors, while some systems are just nowhere in the game.
I do not see anything in your post that disagrees with my main point - I also use mostly acoustic music as a reference. What I tell is that it is not enough - we need more than just references from it to build our end point.
I sometimes use Kendra Shank "AFTERGLOW" for evaluation - in the proper system you feel her approaching from the microphone and singing in a typical way of a small club with an amplified system, and I want it to sound like that! IMHO amplified music also has some fundamental aspects that are important to valuate systems.
I did not have the opportunity to listen to classical in the Gaudi's, they were sold meanwhile. But the system was somewhat "brute force" - mainly old Krell's and similar and sounded like very high quality PA's, missing the air and some finesse of modern high-end. Would they convince me if using tubes and SETs?
BTW, what speakers are you using with the Diana's? As far as I could see they are 25W SETs.
We were using the Thiel CS3.7 and the Cabasse Baltic Evo balls + 2 Rel Gibraltar subs. THe subs were being driven off the speaker taps and not line level. Surprising how much of the main amp character that picks up compared to line level. Yes, they are rated at 25 watts but it is unlike any 25 you have ever heard in terms of dynamic force.
I understand your point. I don't listen only to classical by any means. But when I have a system that does that really right the other music falls into place.
For some reason, i have always been very interested in Ypsilon and Aries Cerat. Do you have any other insights into Aries Cerat in terms of their Contendo Reference Horn speakers or their Kassandra DAC or anything else they design? Their stuff all seems to be 3x more over the top than even over the top stuff...and yet in a thoughtful-seeming way (i am no techie). Thanks for any insight.
I can report on the other stuff based only what I have heard at Munich in 2014, which first put the brand on my radar. That year, despite being in a box on the ground floor, they had one of the three best sounds at the show (Living Voice/Kondo was still the king that year IMO). Not sure what gear was involved that year but it was their three-way horn system, monoblocks, a huge preamp and a huge DAC...neither form factor is still around but they might have the same circuitry as current models.
"SS amps, push/pull and SET, to me fail in delivering what I hear live, usually with tone but also often with dynamics...particularly micro-dynamics."
- Which reference SS amps are you using for this benchmarking, because there are many bad SS amps.
- Which reference SS amps are you using for this benchmarking, because there are many bad SS amps.
Two European brands that also attracted my interest. However, although I can get full technical information and lots of details about the Ypsilon´s the Aries Cerat's are still a nebulous entity for me - very few technical details are known about them.
I have heard ypsilon aelius drive Ultimates and vivid G1, in non show conditions and in another system ABed then with Luxman on G1. The pre does sound good though and could potentially be a final pre if I can get a compare later.
For someone who can get a large room and large speakers, there are very few speakers that can sound good with SET amps - an extremely low number of large horns. Where SET amps work for the average room/budget constrained audiophile is that given he has to compromise on various factors, SETs on speakers like Verity or OTL on quads can be musical on many aspects at low volumes and low budgets.
But i don't get toy horns and so-called back loaded horns or sensitive boxes.
SS amps increase the range of speakers that do much more, smoothness and tone of SS can be managed at a price.
I am quite certain if I go Apogee in a big room or YG in a small room (now unlikely given how nice Heco is in a small room) it will be SS, mostly class A SS but there are some good AB amps, though all this require money.
Sure, if I go trio, universum, WE, it will be SET. Amps cannot make up at all for the sound once the speaker is compromised. If anything amp ideology can screw up the sound. Better to spend on a good TT
Sorry this gets repeated
For someone who can get a large room and large speakers, there are very few speakers that can sound good with SET amps - an extremely low number of large horns. Where SET amps work for the average room/budget constrained audiophile is that given he has to compromise on various factors, SETs on speakers like Verity or OTL on quads can be musical on many aspects at low volumes and low budgets.
But i don't get toy horns and so-called back loaded horns or sensitive boxes.
SS amps increase the range of speakers that do much more, smoothness and tone of SS can be managed at a price.
I am quite certain if I go Apogee in a big room or YG in a small room (now unlikely given how nice Heco is in a small room) it will be SS, mostly class A SS but there are some good AB amps, though all this require money.
Sure, if I go trio, universum, WE, it will be SET. Amps cannot make up at all for the sound once the speaker is compromised. If anything amp ideology can screw up the sound. Better to spend on a good TT
Sorry this gets repeated
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