Visit to Boston to Hear the Sublime Sound of PeterA

[Audiophile Bill]

I guess horn/set is not so popular in US.

Hi Tang,

It is interesting cos your vids actually really capture that speed and micro dynamics that I was waffling about.

 

[ddk]

I guess horn/set is not so popular in US.

Still is the exception than the rule here Tang.

david

 

[DaveC]

Great report, thanks Ron!

Peter, congrats on the new speakers! Looking at the pics I might try some fiberglass panels around the fireplace. I have a big(ish) TV in between my speakers and would throw a blanket over it, which does help... then I got some thick fiberglass absorbers in trade from a friend and attached some custom made brackets (made from stainless steel clothes hangers ) to one of the panels and put that over my TV. Even better!

Anyways, beautiful home and beautiful area to live. I haven't been back east in a while, but my late grandmother used to live in Boston as well as some other family, I used to visit a lot when I was a kid. I miss the amazing seafood and sailing too. I grew up in MD near the Chesapeake bay. My dad worked at Aberdeen Proving Grounds and we could rent small catamarans, sailboats and windsurfers almost for free. I loved the cats and windsurfers the most!

 

[MadFloyd]

Great report, thanks Ron!

Peter, congrats on the new speakers! Looking at the pics I might try some fiberglass panels around the fireplace. I have a big(ish) TV in between my speakers and would throw a blanket over it, which does help... then I got some thick fiberglass absorbers in trade from a friend and attached some custom made brackets (made from stainless steel clothes hangers ) to one of the panels and put that over my TV. Even better!

Anyways, beautiful home and beautiful area to live. I haven't been back east in a while, but my late grandmother used to live in Boston as well as some other family, I used to visit a lot when I was a kid. I miss the amazing seafood and sailing too. I grew up in MD near the Chesapeake bay. My dad worked at Aberdeen Proving Grounds and we could rent small catamarans, sailboats and windsurfers almost for free. I loved the cats and windsurfers the most!

Hey Dave,

I'm curious what you refer to as fiberglass panels - can you share a pic?

Thanks!

 

[DaveyF]

I guess horn/set is not so popular in US.

It used to be. We have moved on.

 

[DaveC]

Hey Dave,

I'm curious what you refer to as fiberglass panels - can you share a pic?

Thanks!

Sure, I have 5 of these in 24 x 48":

https://www.gikacoustics.com/product/acoustic-art-panels-2-inch/

My room has high ceilings and too much bare drywall, the decay was a little on the long side. Adding the panels helped A LOT. I also have cylindrical bass traps in the front corners of my room.

One of the 5 panels I added brackets to and I can hang it over my wall-mounted TV, it's a 58" Panny plasma so it doesn't cover 100% of the TV but I put the original blanket over the whole thing to make it look a little nicer.

 

[MadFloyd]

Sure, I have 5 of these in 24 x 48":

https://www.gikacoustics.com/product/acoustic-art-panels-2-inch/

My room has high ceilings and too much bare drywall, the decay was a little on the long side. Adding the panels helped A LOT. I also have cylindrical bass traps in the front corners of my room.

One of the 5 panels I added brackets to and I can hang it over my wall-mounted TV, it's a 58" Panny plasma so it doesn't cover 100% of the TV but I put the original blanket over the whole thing to make it look a little nicer.

Thanks, Dave.

 

[morricab]

I hear ya! But I also think you have waded into some tricky issues and complicated questions there.

1) The dynamics you are enjoying may be more a function of high-sensitivity loudspeakers in general (regardless of the amplifier topology with which they are driven) than the horn/SET combination per se. Maybe high-power Spectral on horns would be even more dynamic and even faster-sounding than SET?

2) Maybe the solid-state amplification is not removing/bleaching harmonic content; maybe the SET is adding attractive-sounding even order harmonic distortion.*

*I am happy to argue the other side just as well as I argue my side.

Suffice to say PP SS amps and SETs have fundamentally different distortion components that impact psychoacoustics differently. Even when both are used correctly they will sound different.

Yes, I know there are many different “flavors” within each camp but certain traits shine through and form a basic sound characteristic.

When both are used correctly (ie well within their power envelope) the SET will have a psychoacoustically more invisible sonic signature. Absolute amounts matter far less than type of distortion pattern. The weighting on higher order harmonics is very strong.

 

[morricab]

Ron, great report on Peter's system! Now you know why I like it so much. I am not surprised that you appreciated the Pass amps and found they have tube-like characteristics in the best sense, i.e. not adding euphonic colorations but allowing for natural tonality, dynamics, and transient speed -- fast, but not over-etched. I hear similar from Spectral amps in Ack's system. And like you, ordinarily I am a tube guy who cannot stand a sterile, etched and dry sound.

Over the years I have witnessed Peter's meticulous and detailed efforts to address each parameter that can effect the sound, and I have learned from them. I agree, many audiophiles are too fast switching components without optimizing what they have.

As I had expected, you heard the same, often very significant, effects of individual VTA settings as I do when listening to Peter's system. Good observation of matching speaker size to the room; yes, a larger speaker probably would not work as well in Peter's room, but this one does perfectly.

Pass Class A amps might sound warmish but they do not sound like tubes...even Octave style tubes.

 

[PeterA]

+1 That was one of the most enjoyable and informative reports I've read on WBF in quite a while. Congrats to Ron and to Peter, whose attention to little details that make big differences can't be overstated.

Thank you Marty, Roger, and Twitch. I appreciate your kind comments.

dcc: Thank you too. Ron suggested a R2R deck in the room. That might be pushing the limits of what my wife could tolerate. There is a closet directly behind the turntable into which I am considering moving some of the noisy gear like power supplies. A tape deck could go into there as one only loads the tape and then sits for 45 minutes. No vinyl adjustments etc. from what I am told. I may consider that for the very long term from now.

 

[morricab]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your comments. I used to have your opinion:

“I think transistor designs will continue to have an advantage in dynamics and rise time and tube designs will continue to have an advantage in warmth and smoothness and emotional connection. ”

But:

Since I entered the world of very high efficiency speakers / horns, i learned that this was simply wrong. The SET amplifiers I have been listening to make all the SS I have heard sound incredibly slow and non-dynamic. I don’t think that automatically one could say they convey warmth as that is colouration unless in the recording. I would say these SETs have more ability to not remove / bleach out natural harmonic content (possibly perceived as warmth sometimes) in the recording.

I do agree though that partnering a great SET with the wrong speaker will lead you to your conclusions.

Cheers, Bill

Agree almost completely...I would only say that SETs are compatible than you are proposing and work well down to about 90db /Watt for a 20-30 watt SET. Not you Thomas Mayer though...too low power for anything much under 100db I guess.

 

[morricab]

With Tinka away on a business trip I took the opportunity to visit PeterA, with whom I have developed over the last three years a close friendship via WBF posts, telephone calls and emails. Peter lives in a small, seaside town about one hour north of Boston. I’ve never been to the Boston area before so this was all new to me.

This town is a beautiful New England town right on the water, with bays and marinas and boats easily visible from many locations. The town originally was a serious fishing town, and many of its inhabitants continue that cherished heritage with a love of the sea and boating and locally-caught seafood. The United States Navy can trace in its origins back to this town.

Peter and his beautiful wife, Anne, live in a charming house built in 1792, and which literally is only steps from the harbor. Peter is a member of one of the local yacht clubs, and the dock where Peter ties his shuttle boat, which he uses to reach the mooring of his sailboat, is a two minute walk from his house. For someone who loves boating and the sea Peter’s house and marina and boat set-up could not be easier or more ideal.



View attachment 43913



Peter and I have always communicated easily and, while we have always assumed that we do not have exactly the same taste in sound, we have always understood clearly where each other is coming from. I have never, personally, enjoyed the sound of Magico speakers driven by solid-state electronics (especially Soulution, Alon!), so I was assuming that I would find Peter’s system to sound bright or analytical or fatiguing in some way. Peter believed that I would not, and I wanted to believe Peter, but it just wasn’t clear to me a priori how solid-state on Magico was going to sound natural to me.

After several listening sessions over the course of a week, both with and without alcohol, I heard no trace of brightness or edginess or harshness or sterility in Peter’s system. That is your humble reporter’s considered judgment.

Peter has spent a very long time learning about the components in his system and understanding how they relate to each other in his system. Since replacing his Magico Mini IIs with Magico Q3s Peter has spent months experimenting with and fine-tuning the location if his speakers in the room and and the toe-in of the speakers. This dedication and painstaking attention to details has achieved a sound that I find very natural. I think Peter has achieved a sound from his system which justifies the system being called a reference system.




View attachment 43920




I think Peter’s system is revealing and consistent and is a stable base to which the sound of other systems can be understandably compared. I can describe the sound of Peter’s system and compare it confidently to the sound I hear from other systems. After spending a week with Peter I think I have in my head, presently anyway, an accurate understanding of what his system does and how it sounds.

One way to put it is that the sound from Peter’s system is a sound I felt very familiar with. If I closed my eyes and you told me I was listening to my prior long-term system in the smaller room of my house in which I set it up I would have thought I was listening to my system. The sound is what I was used to hearing from my own system in terms of tonality and dynamics and detail.

We played all of my test tracks multiple times. There are many little cues and moments across my various test tracks which I listen for when evaluating systems and which, in Peter’s system, sounded to me the way they used to sound in my long-time prior stereo system.

Peter’s room is not a dedicated listening room, and it is not big, but he manages to achieve real depth. On my test tracks I heard reference level (for dynamic driver loudspeakers) transparency. I heard full-deflection dynamics. I heard a natural tone. Jennifer Warnes’ voice and Thelma Houston’s voice and Jeff Buckley’s voice and Neil Young’s voice and Stevie Nicks’ voice sounded like I think they should sound on a stereo system, and how I was accustomed to hearing them sound on my prior stereo.




View attachment 43915




1) I have never heard Pass Labs amplifiers before, but, in Peter’s system, they have a warm-ish, kind of tube-ish sound. I heard no attenuation of detail or smoothing of edge transients or any absence of dynamics. I also heard no fatiguing sound or edginess or leading edge artifacts. I would say Peter’s XA-160.5s sounded like what I am used to hearing from tubes. (I assume without knowing that I am hearing slightly greater dynamics and detail retrieval and a shade dryer-sound from the Pass Labs amps than I believe I would hear from tube amplifiers.)

2) The Pass Labs equipment is beautifully machined and built. The build quality and metal machining is equal to anything I’ve seen in the high end.




View attachment 43916




3) Peter told me that the SME 30/12 turntable is considered by some people to be a little bit life-less or a little bit dead-sounding. I heard no evidence of that whatsoever.

4) My broadest conclusion of general applicability is that we spend way too much time switching components in and out of our systems hoping to achieve a certain sound without taking the time and effort to optimize each individual component in the system. I believe that Peter’s system sounds as good as it does, and shatters certain prejudices or assumptions about Magico loudspeakers and SME turntables and solid-state electronics, because he has spent a very long time sweating every detail in the system — from speaker positioning to acoustic room treatment to cartridge adjustment — and then living with it for a long time and then sweating all of those
details all over again. If we spent as much time tweaking and optimizing a particular component in our system as we spend reading about components and rapidly swapping them in and out of our systems due to dissatisfaction we might achieve a straighter-line path to sonic happiness.

It is now plausible to me that people who find Magico speakers bright or analytical have never heard them in systems which have been lovingly adjusted and tuned carefully over a long period of time.

5) The coherence of Peter’s system counts for me as a another data point in favor of employing one brand of electronics across the entire system. I would have loved to have had some tube component to swap into Peter’s system, and I have to assume that if I had substituted one of the Pass Labs components for a tube component I would have heard an increase in liquidity which I would have liked. But would I have achieved that increase in liquidity at some cost to dynamics or detail retrieval or transparency? I don’t know.

6) Peter proved to me repeatedly the important changes in sound resulting from small adjustments in tonearm height. I still do not want to be determining a particular tonearm height for each record, and then adjust the height of the tonearm every time I play that particular record, but there is no doubt that Peter is correct that slight changes in VTA can result in big differences in the quality of the sound coming off that LP.

I will repeat this paragraph and continue this discussion on Peter’s system thread, “Sublime Sound.”

7) I also took away from this visit a renewed appreciation for the importance of matching your speaker to your room. I think one reason Peter is getting great sound is because he has thought carefully about the size of his room and what size speaker is best matched with it.

I told Peter that he literally would not want the M6 because I think it would overwhelm the room and he would be manufacturing a bass problem.

Thanks for the nice review, Ron. I would love to hear a system of Pass and Magico as you describe...sadly to date I have disappointed with both.

 

[PeterA]

That is a superbly handsome room, Peter. Are those ASC tube traps? What about the ones adjacent?

Excellent observations, Bill, including the questions about the floor. I go into some detail in my system thread (link in signature). For this photograph, I removed the dark color towel which covers the glass in the chest and the furniture over the fireplace. This is "company" mode, not listening mode. I have damped the upright piano, and I have removed all glass from the artwork. This reduced the reflections considerably and improved overall clarity by quite a bit.

The floor is indeed wide pine floor boards, 1" thick over rough sawn floor boards supported by 3" X 5" joists which span about 8' to a massive 12" by 14" beam running under the middle of the room. The load is conderable at the speaker/amps and at the rack. The rack weighs 750 lbs fully loaded. I placed two concrete/steel lolli columns under each from leg of the rack in the basement directly on the bedrock below. The rear of the rack is over another massive 14" X 16" beam. There is no detectable movement in this area of the floor.

Each amp is 130 lbs with a steel ballast plate of 136 lbs plus the 150 lb. Vibraplanes for a total of about 426 lbs plus the 250 lbs of each speaker. I placed an additional lolli column below each speaker. Again, there is no movement in this area, except for a slight rocking between the boards when one walks near there. The floor boards are nailed with original cut square nails for historic reasons. I should screw the boards together from below to make everything even more solid.

I am considering buying the new Magico S Pods which are plug in footers for the S and Q series Magico speakers. They are designed to reduce energy transfer from the speaker to the floor without reducing the mechanical grounding or solidity of the speaker. The key is that the speaker can not rock back and forth during massive driver excursions which may occur during bass signals in the sealed cabinets. The spikes have floor protectors so my historic floors do not get too damages. I am also considering design and making my own platforms on which I could place the speakers. These would be very solid but absorb vibrations and prevent that energy from reaching the floor. These platforms might be a sandwich construction of steel, copper and Isodamp material. We will see. I have heard effective results from Madfloyd's Magico M Pods, which are very advanced footers. They will not work with the Q series and are expensive, so I am looking for another solution.

I am also considering longer term to place the amps and stands in the basement below the speakers on large concrete structures to get them out of the room. There is a slight ringing from the heatsinks and top plates. Another project in the future.

Those are 16" ASC Tubetraps in each of the four front corners. They are very effective. Jim Smith and I played around with rotation and the reflective strip. With my old Mini II speakers, the reflective strips were facing each other. Now with the Q3s, the strips are facing the corners, away from the listener. With the added extension, the reflections were too much and the absorption allows for greater depth of image and low level resolution. I have one ASC panel on the sides of room at first reflection points. The panels between the Tubetraps are diffusion panels from Acoustic Revive. They help with diffusing the reflections on the front wall and contribute to the sense of soundstage depth. Finally, I have a 2' X 2' absorption panel on the wall 16" behind the listener.

At 15' X 16' X 7.5' it is a small room. I have reached a compromise that sounds good and does not detract too much from the sense that this is our formal living room. At times, I am sure that my wife considers it a dedicated "stereo" room, or "Peter's" room.

 

[jeff1225]

It used to be. We have moved on.

Classic DaveyF.

 

[PeterA]

I hear ya! But I also think you have waded into some tricky issues and complicated questions there.

1) The dynamics you are enjoying may be more a function of high-sensitivity loudspeakers in general (regardless of the amplifier topology with which they are driven) than the horn/SET combination per se. Maybe high-power Spectral on horns would be even more dynamic and even faster-sounding than SET?

2) Maybe the solid-state amplification is not removing/bleaching harmonic content; maybe the SET is adding attractive-sounding even order harmonic distortion.*

*I am happy to argue the other side just as well as I argue my side.

Interesting. This is what a Spectral owner tells me is happening with my Pass XA.5 amps.

I happen to think that dynamics are more than just the right combination of speaker and amp or amplifier typology. I suspect it also has much to do with overall system integrity, meaning purity of the signal, but also with whether or not the speakers are adding their own coloration to the sound. Magico and other speaker brands known for good dynamics, both micro and macro, and the ability to go loud in general, have very rigid and well damped cabinet construction which reduces resonances. This lack of vibration means a cabinet with less sound of its own, or coloration, and this allows low and high signals to be heard cleanly (less blur). Driver quality also matters. This less resonant and more pure conversion of signal to air motion affects one's perception of dynamics.

 

[PeterA]

To paraphrase Al, they have not heard enough amp speaker combinations

I know I have not heard many different combinations, Ked, but I am satisfied and no longer searching. What would you consider "enough" amp/speaker combinations? Enough for one to realize that horn/SET is the superior typology combination to stop the search?

 

[Ron Resnick]

Thanks for the nice review, Ron. I would love to hear a system of Pass and Magico as you describe...sadly to date I have disappointed with both.

Among solid-state amplifiers I can imagine the Pass Labs components sounding great generally.* Nelson Pass, in my opinion, clearly knows what he is doing.

I have found Magico loudspeakers to be more variable. Every single time I have heard Magico speakers driven by Soulution electronics I have not liked the speakers. Every time I've heard them driven by tube electronics (Alieno OTL on M3s, big conrad-johnson on S5 Mk. IIs, Jadis on S3s(?), Kondo Kagura on M3s) I have liked the speakers.

Peter's system is the first time I have enjoyed Magico speakers (and not the most recent generation at that) driven by solid-state electronics. This is why I am so impressed with Pass Labs' electronics and with Peter's painstaking attention to speaker positioning and all other details.

Regardless of electronics I have never cared for any Wilson loudspeaker with a metal dome tweeter. For this reason I disliked Wilson speakers for 20+ years. But I love the sound of Steve's system. Steve's all-Lamm system and dedicated room treatment and painstaking system set-up have created a sound I love. So that (a huge amount of expense and work and dedication) is what it takes to make my ears happy with a Wilson speaker with a metal dome tweeter.

*I would like to hear an amplifier comparison between Pass and Vitus and between Pass and darTZeel!

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Excellent observations, Bill, including the questions about the floor. I go into some detail in my system thread (link in signature). For this photograph, I removed the dark color towel which covers the glass in the chest and the furniture over the fireplace. This is "company" mode, not listening mode. I have damped the upright piano, and I have removed all glass from the artwork. This reduced the reflections considerably and improved overall clarity by quite a bit.

The floor is indeed wide pine floor boards, 1" thick over rough sawn floor boards supported by 3" X 5" joists which span about 8' to a massive 12" by 14" beam running under the middle of the room. The load is conderable at the speaker/amps and at the rack. The rack weighs 750 lbs fully loaded. I placed two concrete/steel lolli columns under each from leg of the rack in the basement directly on the bedrock below. The rear of the rack is over another massive 14" X 16" beam. There is no detectable movement in this area of the floor.

Each amp is 130 lbs with a steel ballast plate of 136 lbs plus the 150 lb. Vibraplanes for a total of about 426 lbs plus the 250 lbs of each speaker. I placed an additional lolli column below each speaker. Again, there is no movement in this area, except for a slight rocking between the boards when one walks near there. The floor boards are nailed with original cut square nails for historic reasons. I should screw the boards together from below to make everything even more solid.

I am considering buying the new Magico S Pods which are plug in footers for the S and Q series Magico speakers. They are designed to reduce energy transfer from the speaker to the floor without reducing the mechanical grounding or solidity of the speaker. The key is that the speaker can not rock back and forth during massive driver excursions which may occur during bass signals in the sealed cabinets. The spikes have floor protectors so my historic floors do not get too damages. I am also considering design and making my own platforms on which I could place the speakers. These would be very solid but absorb vibrations and prevent that energy from reaching the floor. These platforms might be a sandwich construction of steel, copper and Isodamp material. We will see. I have heard effective results from Madfloyd's Magico M Pods, which are very advanced footers. They will not work with the Q series and are expensive, so I am looking for another solution.

I am also considering longer term to place the amps and stands in the basement below the speakers on large concrete structures to get them out of the room. There is a slight ringing from the heatsinks and top plates. Another project in the future.

Those are 16" ASC Tubetraps in each of the four front corners. They are very effective. Jim Smith and I played around with rotation and the reflective strip. With my old Mini II speakers, the reflective strips were facing each other. Now with the Q3s, the strips are facing the corners, away from the listener. With the added extension, the reflections were too much and the absorption allows for greater depth of image and low level resolution. I have one ASC panel on the sides of room at first reflection points. The panels between the Tubetraps are diffusion panels from Acoustic Revive. They help with diffusing the reflections on the front wall and contribute to the sense of soundstage depth. Finally, I have a 2' X 2' absorption panel on the wall 16" behind the listener.

At 15' X 16' X 7.5' it is a small room. I have reached a compromise that sounds good and does not detract too much from the sense that this is our formal living room. At times, I am sure that my wife considers it a dedicated "stereo" room, or "Peter's" room.

Wow - thanks Peter for the comprehensive reply. I admire and commend you for the extreme attention to detail you are going to with your system - very inspiring stuff. Looking forward to your next breakthrough. I am very interested to learn your tips for room treatments. I heard an ASC treated room a couple of years back and thought the bass response was very good indeed - with Alexias.
Do you have any advice on getting the lateral imaging to move beyond the outside of the speakers and walls at all? I am about to move my kit to a smaller room of 18’4 x 12’ x 8’ and have a Carte Blanche really. The imaging was already deep in there with just one GIK trap that I moved in as a very quick experiment before I move the system in properly. I want the lateral image to widen mainly.

Best regards.

 

[PeterA]

Great report, thanks Ron!

Peter, congrats on the new speakers! Looking at the pics I might try some fiberglass panels around the fireplace. I have a big(ish) TV in between my speakers and would throw a blanket over it, which does help... then I got some thick fiberglass absorbers in trade from a friend and attached some custom made brackets (made from stainless steel clothes hangers ) to one of the panels and put that over my TV. Even better!

Anyways, beautiful home and beautiful area to live. I haven't been back east in a while, but my late grandmother used to live in Boston as well as some other family, I used to visit a lot when I was a kid. I miss the amazing seafood and sailing too. I grew up in MD near the Chesapeake bay. My dad worked at Aberdeen Proving Grounds and we could rent small catamarans, sailboats and windsurfers almost for free. I loved the cats and windsurfers the most!

Thank you Dave. I like the suggestion about the fiberglass panels. I may look into that and just plug the fireplace opening. It sounds worth experimenting with.

I used to love windsurfing. The water up here is too cold, IMO, but I used to do a lot of that when I lived in the US Virgin Islands. Lots of fun.

 

[PeterA]

Thanks for the nice review, Ron. I would love to hear a system of Pass and Magico as you describe...sadly to date I have disappointed with both.

Why do you think this is? Do you think that Ron's description is inaccurate, or that the Pass/Magico systems you have heard have not sounded like what Ron describes because of set up or system context, or that Pass/Magico is incapable of sounding like what Ron described? I am intrigued.