KeithR's "Dream Speaker" Search

[Al M.]

Yes, I would be surprised...we also tried a couple versions of Octave preamp...compared to the Einstein "The Tube" my friend had at that time (later replaced by Aries Cerat Incito and then Impera) it was not much of a contest. You have to realize that Octave is pretty common over here so we have a fair amount of experience with the brand.

We'll keep it at "surprised" then .

 

[morricab]

Never understood why the KSA250, that had a similar circuit but just a lot of more power sounded so much better than the KSA150. even will less exigent speakers. Anyway it needed typically more than ten hours warm-up to sound at its best - and then space expanded in 3D.

Never heard the 250. Heard the 50, 100, 150 and the big original mono reference models

 

[bonzo75]

No, it does not.

Well you like Nagra on YG and NATs on apogee grands

 

[andromedaaudio]

They come in second i guess after Aries Cerat

 

[morricab]

Well you like Nagra on YG and NATs on apogee grands

I said Nagra on YG was not too bad...and yes I liked the NAT on the Apogee Grands BEHAVING as Divas (passive Diva Xover and panel only). I was not very impressed with the full Grand system after refurbishment...it had a synthetic electronic signature that, given I have never heard that signature on the "Diva" Grands, nor on any other properly driven Apogee, I would attibute to the electronic brain of the Grand. I heard something similiar with Henk's system.

 

[morricab]

They come in second i guess after Aries Cerat

That is true for just about everything I have heard...

 

[Duke LeJeune]

So you became a lion cheetah!

Well I wasn't outright lion... just not tellin' the whole truth!

 

[pdubya]

95 dB Demo track(s) that m900u couldn’t hack?

So I have a pair of OG Haileys, a pair of m900u’s, a c900u, a sound meter, and some dedicated circuits in a recently built 14x19 room. I’m curious to have a listen, using both stereo and mono setups, to whatever you guys found lacking when doing the Luxman demo.
Thanks
Parker

 

[christoph]

+1

I think musical genre preference significantly drives loudspeaker preference.

And vice-versa

 

[Ron Resnick]

CAT may be an excellent choice. Another one may be Octave, which has overkill power supplies, with optional external shoe box sized capacitor banks.

Keith does not want to deal with a high power amplifier which has a tube output stage.

 

[Ron Resnick]

What you call lean i call neutral ( Convergent audio ) Octave sounds very good to my ears as well

I love the CAT design (high-power, all tube, Class A). As an absolute matter I find CAT amplifiers to sound neutral. But as a relative matter I find CAT amplifiers to be more lean-sounding than ARC or VAC or VTL.

 

[Ron Resnick]

And vice-versa

I am not sure if you are serious or joking, but I do not think speakers drive musical genre preference.

 

[213Cobra]

if one if serious about hifi, music preference is irrelevant. A proper system can fulfill full spectrum expectations. You might decide some deficiencies are more tolerable than others, but the aim is everything is musically convincing. -Phil

 

[bonzo75]

I am not sure if you are serious or joking, but I do not think speakers drive musical genre preference.

He is right, many buy gear and then play what sounds good on them and what does not. That's why such a proliferation of audiophile stuff that sounds good on most systems

 

[the sound of Tao]

I am not sure if you are serious or joking, but I do not think speakers drive musical genre preference.

Not that the speaker actually alters your preference in any way Ron but if a speaker doesn’t play a genre you love at all well it simply makes you play less of that preferred genre. If I had a speaker that didn’t play large scale classical well I’d certainly play less of that music as much as I love it. Equally if a speaker excels at particular types of music it might reasonably lead you to play even more of the types of music it shines at than you might normally.

 

[the sound of Tao]

He is right, many buy gear and then play what sounds good on them and what does not. That's why such a proliferation of audiophile stuff that sounds good on most systems

We love to show off our sound but so many audiophile standards can be much like receiving a good old fashioned waterboarding.

 

[Ron Resnick]

if one if serious about hifi, music preference is irrelevant. A proper system can fulfill full spectrum expectations. You might decide some deficiencies are more tolerable than others, but the aim is everything is musically convincing. -Phil

This view I think makes sense for your reproduction philosophy which, if I understand you correctly, focuses on coherence and not on height and scale. But I disagree. My ears don't hear it working this way in real life -- comparing what I hear in live music to what I hear from different stereo loudspeaker systems.

I don't hear a full classical symphony orchestra playing Pictures at an Exhibition coming out of a Zu Definition IV as convincingly as I hear it coming out of a YG XV or a Rockport Arrakis. I would like to hear the upcoming Zu Dominance.

I believe strongly that musical genre preference substantially drives loudspeaker preference. If we narrow the musical genre preference to jazz I actually think that a lot of individual subjective preferences would coalesce around a plurality view that horns/SET is the most convincing way to reproduce jazz music.

I personally believe that there is something about the way horn loudspeakers reproduce the sounds of brass instruments which is consonant with the way brass instruments themselves produce their sounds. If people who have experience listening to a lot of different types of loudspeakers hear jazz reproduced by horns/SET I think there would be statistically significant agreement.

If someone’s musical genre preference were mainly rock, or if someone’s musical genre preferences were equally divided among the main genres of music, I would not select for that person a horn/SET system.

For rock and thunderous symphonic classical music I like to have a lot of cone driver surface to move air. I think a large-sized or maybe a medium-sized dynamic driver system is a general purpose or all purpose loudspeaker system.

Conversely a large, four column dynamic driver system might not reproduce small-scale music -- solo vocalists with acoustic accompaniment or solo instrument musicians or small ensembles -- as convincingly as a smaller loudspeaker system might.

I think electrostatic and ribbon drivers reproduce particularly convincingly the sound of the human voice. Consequently I personally like best electrostatic and ribbon driver planar speakers. (I also like their "open" sound.)

 

[KeithR]

Not that the speaker actually alters your preference in any way Ron but if a speaker doesn’t play a genre you love at all well it simply makes you play less of that preferred genre. If I had a speaker that didn’t play large scale classical well I’d certainly play less of that music as much as I love it. Equally if a speaker excels at particular types of music it might reasonably lead you to play even more of the types of music it shines at than you might normally.

This was classical on Zu for me. Went from 1/10 to 1/3 of my listening when I moved to Devore.

I have to admit most genres sound good on YG - although I’m not a jazz guy so don’t have a real opinion. Electronica is outstanding.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Not that the speaker actually alters your preference in any way Ron but if a speaker doesn’t play a genre you love at all well it simply makes you play less of that preferred genre. If I had a speaker that didn’t play large scale classical well I’d certainly play less of that music as much as I love it. Equally if a speaker excels at particular types of music it might reasonably lead you to play even more of the types of music it shines at than you might normally.

This all makes sense.

But (other than a college student in a dorm room) why would one have a speaker which doesn’t play at all well a genre one loves?

 

[bonzo75]

This all makes sense.

But (other than a college student in a dorm room) why would one have a speaker which doesn’t play at all well a genre one loves?

Because most audiophiles buy the gear first not having thought through what music, recordings, etc they want to play. Even after years of purchase they don't know well music and recordings in their own genre. And gear purchases are often done on impulse