Hi from Raleigh, NC

Dylan

Well-Known Member
Oct 16, 2013
27
6
268
Washington, DC
I haven’t received any response to my last two posts. I’m not offended, but I still would love to get some advice.
Based on my last post, can anybody recommend an SACD player in the $10K range (new) that will be similar to my Ayre, but extract more information from my CD’s while still being musical and warm? I’m wondering about Luxman. I have no interest in streaming or computer audio at this time.
Thanks in advance.
 

GSOphile

Well-Known Member
Sep 3, 2017
569
352
173
Dylan,
I have an Esoteric K-03X that I'm very happy with. Another machine that might be worth checking out is the Marantz SA-10. Luxman also has some strong offerings. Unlike what seems to be the rest of the world, the Japanese are still in love with CD/SACD media and technology.
 

Dylan

Well-Known Member
Oct 16, 2013
27
6
268
Washington, DC
Thanks GSOphile. I’ll try check out Esoteric. The problem is that there is no dealer nearby and it is impossible to evaluate the component without extended listening on my system. My dealer was nice enough to arrange an in- home demo of the TAD. I’ll have to try arrange one with Esoteric, Luxman and Marantz.

Yes, it is true- American companies are rapidly abandoning physical media, while the Japanese companies are announcing new SACD players using their own SACD drives. Quite a difference. For example, Ayre has confirmed to me that there are no SACD plans in their future and PS Audio appears to have discontinued all their SACD players.

Thanks again.
 

Dylan

Well-Known Member
Oct 16, 2013
27
6
268
Washington, DC
[
ANXIETY AND RELIEF
This is the latest post in my continuing saga to get good sound in my small room. When I last left off, I had played with the placement of my TAD ME-1 standmount speakers and the listening couch to get best bass response.
Unfortunately, over time I realized that the TADs were giving me an accurate but microscopic sound that was like looking through two small windows into the music playing inside. The size and majesty was simply not there. I also realized that the standmount speakers took up as much floor space as a floorstander might (maybe even more as the stand bases were wider than the speakers to prevent tipping). This led me to reconsider floor standing speakers after about a year of owning the TAD’s.
I listened to a bunch of floor standers, none of which floated my boat. Due to the small room and the close listening distance, a typical floor stander’s sound would not integrate into coherence. Rather, you could hear separate sounds from the midrange and tweeter (and sometimes the woofer), which would shatter the illusion of music being performed in the room. Also, rear firing ports were problematic in overpowering the room.
I then found out about Fyne Audio, a new company formed by the managers of Tannoy when Tannoy threatened to move the company to Asia. On paper, they fit the bill- dual concentric speaker for coherence, the promise of the Tannoy tone, an omnidirectional bass port that would excite the room less and a deep, narrow footprint that might not look too overpowering. My dealer (Tenacious Sound) had just gotten in the line and I heard them at Capital Audio Fest 2019. With the promise of a 30 day money back return, I ordered them.
I could not be happier. First, they sound utterly coherent, and tonally vivid, like my old Tannoys. Bass is full, extends down below 30 Hz, and you can feel the bass as well as hear it. They also have very high dynamic range for the times I can crank it up (and even at low volumes). Large windows into a live performance. And visually, they look less clunky and more streamlined in the room. Lesson learned for me- although standmounts may be right under some circumstances, there is nothing like a full range speaker for me. I couldn’t be happier.
What’s in the future? I wanted to try streaming and bought a Lumin T-2 a year ago while I had the TADs. I loved the organic, coherent sound and the opportunity to explore new music. Over time I found I listened to physical media less and less, so I’m now selling my SACD player. I’d love to move higher up the Lumin line and run the streamer directly into a power amp for simplicity. I’m a big fan of “less is more” and still recall fondly my older stereo that had a Wadia SACD player running direct into a Levinson amp. We’ll see what happens.
Here is a picture of my current system.
81819CE4-D8DB-4039-804B-90C8FE794316.jpeg
 

kach22i

WBF Founding Member
Apr 21, 2010
1,591
210
1,635
Ann Arbor, Michigan
www.kachadoorian.com
It has been quite a while since I participated in this forum, but I would like to start up again. The primary reason is that I am about to enter a new phase of my life- retirement, and this has caused me to reflect back on my 50 years in this hobby, and to also look forward.

As part of our retirement plan, my wife and I will be moving from North Carolina to Washington DC. We've owned a tiny condo in DC for the past three years and have loved the stimulation and vibrancy of the big city. Our daughter and son-in-law also live there. So we've decided to make the big move. I'm very excited.

From an audio perspective, the move will be bittersweet. In retirement, I was looking forward to long listening sessions with the big rig, at realistic volume levels. However, with the move to a high rise condo in DC, this will not be feasible. Part of the challenge will be for me to find a satisfying stereo that I can enjoy in a much smaller room, at much lower volumes. I also may have to explore a headphone based system. These decisions will all be made next year when we move and find a less tiny condo.

Listening to music on a good stereo has always been a big part of my life. I'm not sure why music has always been an emotional attraction to me, but that has always been what floated my boat. I've never been into watching/playing sports or movies (although I am an avid reader). Music always produced the emotional connection for me. I'm a big Bob Dylan fan, having seen him live 50 times. My wife and I also go see a lot of live music together- from small jazz clubs to mid-sized venues and occasionally a large arena or festival (we've been to Jazz fest in New Orleans 6 times.). The wide availability of live music had been one of the big attractions of DC to us.

From my early teen years, I've had a desire to couple the love of music with good gear to play it on. My first stereo system in 1968 at age 13 was a Sony auto-reverse reel-to-reel tape deck that had detachable speakers. My parents bought it for me. Over the next 3 years I worked summers to add a pair of Fisher bookshelf speakers, a Fisher receiver and a Dual turntable. I also got into building Dynaco kits for friends (for the fee of an ice cream sundae) and eventually built a Heathkit receiver for myself.

When I entered college I worked at stereo stores part time and then dropped out of college to work full time as a stereo salesman, at a chain in NYC called Arrow Audio. Working full time as a stereo salesman convinced me that I wanted to design stereo equipment, and I went back to school and got an electrical engineering degree. I would have worked for a stereo equipment manufacturer after graduating, if I wasn't getting married. Working as an engineer for IBM seemed like the safer route and that's what I did. I later went to law school and became a patent lawyer, which I have done now for over 35 years.

Getting back to stereo, my 50 years have established a few guiding principles for me. They apply to my personal evaluation, purchase and enjoyment of equipment.

The first guiding principle is that it is a miracle that a combination of electronic circuits, and paper, plastic, wood and magnets can create anything that would come close to recreating a musical event in our listening space that can draw us in emotionally and suspend our disbelief. I always try keep this in mind when critiquing any piece of audio gear. (The same holds true for other areas of technology- it amazes me that people will criticize their download time on their smartphone, without realizing what a miracle it is that all our smartphones work at all.)

With this in mind, I come with the perspective that any stereo system will fall far short of a live musical performance, so I need to figure out what I am willing to sacrifice to fool me into getting emotionally involved in the music and forget that it is being played from a stereo. My perspective comes as a rock/jazz lover, rather than a classical music lover. So for me, best reproducing a string quartet is not an issue.

For me, most closely reproducing what I hear in a venue allows me to suspend belief. Thus, I don't require the utmost in transparency- I don't have to hear the brushing of the fingers on a guitar to make me believe that it is live. I also don't need to hear the pinpoint of images across a soundstage because that doesn't mirror what I hear when I listen to live music. I need the music to be free of artificial distortions- so static, lead in groove noise or cartridge mistracking destroys it for me. That's why I gave up records for CD's almost immediately (more on that later).

I also don't want to identify music as coming from a woofer or a tweeter. That's why I almost universally have played my speakers with the grills on and lights out- if I can see the woofers and tweeters in my mind's eye, it is a distraction for me. Same with the equipment- glowing vacuum tubes may make some feel warm and cozy, but for me it just constantly reminds me that the music is being reproduced over a stereo system. In short- no distractions to make me think of the equipment and prevent me from getting into the music.

What I do need is a system that can scale from soft to loud without effort or strain, that is coherent without drawing artificial attention to the different transducers, that produces sound that is divorced from the loudspeakers themselves and that has a big enough sound to fill the room at all volume levels. I also need that live tone, rather than the utmost purity of the sound.

I recognize that other people need different things for them to suspend disbelief. Some people need the sound to be etched so that every detail is exposed. Others need dispersed points of sound over a stage (left to right and front to back). Others need every resonance removed from the sound so it is pristine. These are all valid points of view to get that listener to forget that a stereo is playing reproduced music. I don't knock any of these viewpoints. But for me, the coherence, scale, tone and freedom from nonmusical artifacts mean more.

The second major principle I've learned over the years is the importance of execution over innovative engineering. I'll give two examples. Decades ago I bought a Rabco turntable. It was a linear tracking turntable. The salesman (actually was a saleswoman- very rare in those days) tried to convince me to buy a Thorens turntable with a conventional pivoted arm. I argued that the Rabco had to be better, and bought it. Once I bought it I found out that the Rabco arm was so heavy that when it was used with a high compliance cartridge, the arm would resonate and vibrate like crazy in response to the tiniest record warp or offset, making most records unplayable. Another example- after going through Magneplanars, electrostats and fancy cone speakers/enclosures, I found more musical satisfaction from a Wilson Sophia- no fancy enclosures like my pervious B&W N802, no fancy drivers like my previous Magneplanars or Martin Logans- just conventional drivers in a conventional enclosure, done well. Incidentally, I've learned the same thing about cars- better to have a Mercedes without all the options than a tricked out lesser car because the Mercedes is engineered/built to a different standard and will give more long term satisfaction.

I'm also a "buy and hold" guy in all aspects of my life (investments, cars, houses, stereo) so I tend to buy new and keep. I've never bought a used stereo component, only had one used car and one used house in my life. So reliability of the equipment and longevity of the manufacturer is important to me.

I am going to tell my stereo history in future posts, explaining lessons learned, and leading up to my present situation which will be a leap into the unknown. Feel free to read, comment and/or disregard.

That was a good post.

You know what you like and why.
 

Dylan

Well-Known Member
Oct 16, 2013
27
6
268
Washington, DC
What did you end up getting?

I imagine you collected some local band music over the years. Do you think you will ever hear them again via streaming?

Hard to get a signed CD streaming.
I’m not replacing the disk player. I’m very happy with the streamer.
Interesting what you said about local bands. In my experience, often I bought a CD after hearing a local band live and then was very disappointed in the CD. There are other local bands I heard that are available on Qobuz. Two examples are “Dustbowl Revival” who I saw as an opening act for another band and fell in love with (seen them 10 times now) - available on Qobuz. Also “Miss Sophie Lee” who we saw last year on a small stage at French Quarter Fest in New Orleans- also on Qobuz. So I’m quite satisfied. No autographed CD’s however!
 

Kcin

VIP/Donor
Mar 27, 2016
654
820
275
Canada
[
ANXIETY AND RELIEF
This is the latest post in my continuing saga to get good sound in my small room. When I last left off, I had played with the placement of my TAD ME-1 standmount speakers and the listening couch to get best bass response.
Unfortunately, over time I realized that the TADs were giving me an accurate but microscopic sound that was like looking through two small windows into the music playing inside. The size and majesty was simply not there. I also realized that the standmount speakers took up as much floor space as a floorstander might (maybe even more as the stand bases were wider than the speakers to prevent tipping). This led me to reconsider floor standing speakers after about a year of owning the TAD’s.
I listened to a bunch of floor standers, none of which floated my boat. Due to the small room and the close listening distance, a typical floor stander’s sound would not integrate into coherence. Rather, you could hear separate sounds from the midrange and tweeter (and sometimes the woofer), which would shatter the illusion of music being performed in the room. Also, rear firing ports were problematic in overpowering the room.
I then found out about Fyne Audio, a new company formed by the managers of Tannoy when Tannoy threatened to move the company to Asia. On paper, they fit the bill- dual concentric speaker for coherence, the promise of the Tannoy tone, an omnidirectional bass port that would excite the room less and a deep, narrow footprint that might not look too overpowering. My dealer (Tenacious Sound) had just gotten in the line and I heard them at Capital Audio Fest 2019. With the promise of a 30 day money back return, I ordered them.
I could not be happier. First, they sound utterly coherent, and tonally vivid, like my old Tannoys. Bass is full, extends down below 30 Hz, and you can feel the bass as well as hear it. They also have very high dynamic range for the times I can crank it up (and even at low volumes). Large windows into a live performance. And visually, they look less clunky and more streamlined in the room. Lesson learned for me- although standmounts may be right under some circumstances, there is nothing like a full range speaker for me. I couldn’t be happier.
What’s in the future? I wanted to try streaming and bought a Lumin T-2 a year ago while I had the TADs. I loved the organic, coherent sound and the opportunity to explore new music. Over time I found I listened to physical media less and less, so I’m now selling my SACD player. I’d love to move higher up the Lumin line and run the streamer directly into a power amp for simplicity. I’m a big fan of “less is more” and still recall fondly my older stereo that had a Wadia SACD player running direct into a Levinson amp. We’ll see what happens.
Here is a picture of my current system.
View attachment 64870
I just read your whole story.... what a great adventure.

Congratulations, I heard Fyne last fall and I was quite impressed by their presentation for the form factor.
 

Ron Resnick

Site Co-Owner, Administrator
Jan 24, 2015
16,017
13,346
2,665
Beverly Hills, CA
Welcome to WBF, Dylan!
 

Al M.

VIP/Donor
Sep 10, 2013
8,678
4,467
963
Greater Boston
Hi Dylan,

I enjoyed your well written story, thank you!

Al
 

Mikem53

Well-Known Member
Oct 1, 2020
662
581
105
Hello Dylan and all.. Another Charlotte area resident Here.. Used to belong to CAS, charlotte audio society..
That dissolved some years ago but another one exists.. I still know some members from the CAS of 2002
Maybe a meet and greet is in order someday... when things Get back to normal or some semblance of norm ..
 

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