A modest upgrade

[davedotco]

In financial terms, hopefully less modest in sound quality.

Some of you may know that I have a preference for active speakers in general and a soft spot for the Adam Artist 6. It is, to my knowledge, the most practical and room friendly active speaker at anything resembling budget prices, a slender floorstander just 5.5in wide (135mm) and 33.5in tall (850mm), finished in piano black.

Originally designed to sell at around €1200, the Artist 6 has been available from Thomann in Germany for about £600pr, until they sold out, 3-4 months ago. I was lucky enough to pick up a slightly used pair in mint condition a week or so back so I ordered a Teufel Connector 2 (the functionality of a Sonos Connect but with hi-res streaming capability, tune in radio, Tidal and Spotify Connect built in), again from Germany. To complete the setup I ordered a pair of 3m Van Damme phono interconnects from Designacable.com.

Both the cables and the Connector 2 arrived promptly, total cost, Connector 2, Artist 6 and cables about £550 complete, so now to start to put it together....*biggrin*

 

[rainsoothe]

enjoy da toys

 

[davedotco]

I have often spoken of the importance of getting the setup of a system right, in the 'old' days this might involve turntable set up, equipment supports and all the rest, but these days it is all about reliable network connections, downloaded control apps and digital connections.

Still it can still be done in a methodical manner so setting up the router, finding unused wi-fi channels were done as normal, then the system connected up carefully, both in terms of network and audio connections.

The 'Raumfeld' control app was downloaded to the iPad and the setup procedure followed with some care, absolutely dead simple, when the setup was complete go to the home page, tap and then open Spotify, Tap the connect symbol and we have music...*good*

A few moments adjusting the system and the speaker gain, setting the Tweeter level to -1, I have a fairly live room, and things were immediately sounding good, some further work on the speaker positioning and experimentation with the bass eq still to come, but the initial reaction is very positive.

Furthermore it is the most discrete system, two tall but slim floor standing speakers is all you can see, everything else is hidden as it is all controlled from the iThing. One bonus, although the setup and control needs to be done from the iThing, Spotify on my laptop finds the Connector 2 with ease so I can still browse and control Spotify from my laptop, which I prefer. The volume contol in Spotify mimics that on the iThing but all audio signals, be they analog or digital are fully wired, perfect.

 

[lindsayt]

Whatever happened to that mega system you had stashed in the south of Spain?

 

[ID.]

In financial terms, hopefully less modest in sound quality.

Some of you may know that I have a preference for active speakers in general and a soft spot for the Adam Artist 6. It is, to my knowledge, the most practical and room friendly active speaker at anything resembling budget prices, a slender floorstander just 5.5in wide (135mm) and 33.5in tall (850mm), finished in piano black.

Originally designed to sell at around €1200, the Artist 6 has been available from Thomann in Germany for about £600pr, until they sold out, 3-4 months ago. I was lucky enough to pick up a slightly used pair in mint condition a week or so back so I ordered a Teufel Connector 2 (the functionality of a Sonos Connect but with hi-res streaming capability, tune in radio, Tidal and Spotify Connect built in), again from Germany. To complete the setup I ordered a pair of 3m Van Damme phono interconnects from Designacable.com.

Both the cables and the Connector 2 arrived promptly, total cost, Connector 2, Artist 6 and cables about £550 complete, so now to start to put it together....*biggrin*

Nice one. Look forward to hearing your impressions. Those speakers would've been my choice for the living room, but they were never distributed here.

 

[davedotco]

In financial terms, hopefully less modest in sound quality.

Some of you may know that I have a preference for active speakers in general and a soft spot for the Adam Artist 6. It is, to my knowledge, the most practical and room friendly active speaker at anything resembling budget prices, a slender floorstander just 5.5in wide (135mm) and 33.5in tall (850mm), finished in piano black.

Originally designed to sell at around €1200, the Artist 6 has been available from Thomann in Germany for about £600pr, until they sold out, 3-4 months ago. I was lucky enough to pick up a slightly used pair in mint condition a week or so back so I ordered a Teufel Connector 2 (the functionality of a Sonos Connect but with hi-res streaming capability, tune in radio, Tidal and Spotify Connect built in), again from Germany. To complete the setup I ordered a pair of 3m Van Damme phono interconnects from Designacable.com.

Both the cables and the Connector 2 arrived promptly, total cost, Connector 2, Artist 6 and cables about £550 complete, so now to start to put it together....*biggrin*

Nice one. Look forward to hearing your impressions. Those speakers would've been my choice for the living room, but they were never distributed here.

They are certainly very elegant and practical. The footprint is pretty small and the slender dimensions, just 5.5in wide make them acceptable in a way that my preferred A7x/A8x (at comparable budget) would not be.

The trade off of course is in the deep bass, two tiny 4.5in drivers are never going to give much extension, however well their response is shaped. Late night listening is therefore an interesting test.

Initially I thought this might be an issue, the first track tried sounding a little bit lean but when the bass was there on some Charlie Mingus it was solid and very articulate. The double bass had good body, which sounded 'right' and the overall balance was quite realistic, though rather like listening at a distance.

New Order had the propulsive drive I would have expected and even at modest levels the urge to move ones feet was near irresistable. Some more complex and downright 'messy' material sounded more separated than I was used to and the sound did not collapse back into the speakers, which I thought impressive.

I did briefly try the speaker eq, really just to see the range, but I need higher levels to really be able to find the best settings. My room is fairly reflective so I have left the tweeter level at -1 for the moment, I am training this morning but some more listening and maybe some response sweeps later today.

 

[Al ears]

In financial terms, hopefully less modest in sound quality.

Some of you may know that I have a preference for active speakers in general and a soft spot for the Adam Artist 6. It is, to my knowledge, the most practical and room friendly active speaker at anything resembling budget prices, a slender floorstander just 5.5in wide (135mm) and 33.5in tall (850mm), finished in piano black.

Originally designed to sell at around €1200, the Artist 6 has been available from Thomann in Germany for about £600pr, until they sold out, 3-4 months ago. I was lucky enough to pick up a slightly used pair in mint condition a week or so back so I ordered a Teufel Connector 2 (the functionality of a Sonos Connect but with hi-res streaming capability, tune in radio, Tidal and Spotify Connect built in), again from Germany. To complete the setup I ordered a pair of 3m Van Damme phono interconnects from Designacable.com.

Both the cables and the Connector 2 arrived promptly, total cost, Connector 2, Artist 6 and cables about £550 complete, so now to start to put it together....*biggrin*

Nice one. Look forward to hearing your impressions. Those speakers would've been my choice for the living room, but they were never distributed here.

They are certainly very elegant and practical. The footprint is pretty small and the slender dimensions, just 5.5in wide make them acceptable in a way that my preferred A7x/A8x (at comparable budget) would not be.

The trade off of course is in the deep bass, two tiny 4.5in drivers are never going to give much extension, however well their response is shaped. Late night listening is therefore an interesting test.

Initially I thought this might be an issue, the first track tried sounding a little bit lean but when the bass was there on some Charlie Mingus it was solid and very articulate. The double bass had good body, which sounded 'right' and the overall balance was quite realistic, though rather like listening at a distance.

New Order had the propulsive drive I would have expected and even at modest levels the urge to move ones feet was near irresistable. Some more complex and downright 'messy' material sounded more separated than I was used to and the sound did not collapse back into the speakers, which I thought impressive.

I did briefly try the speaker eq, really just to see the range, but I need higher levels to really be able to find the best settings. My room is fairly reflective so I have left the tweeter level at -1 for the moment, I am training this morning but some more listening and maybe some response sweeps later today.

Ah the joys of a 'modern' setup? Sounds intriguing though. Have fun playing, I like the 'non presence' idea especially in modern accommodation.

 

[BigH]

Sounds a good system for modest outlay. Re bass I think your ears soon adjust to the sound of less bass, I have never been a fan of huge bass anyway, think it causes too many problems in systems and rooms. Also its good you can adjust the sound for your room I think thats a real benefit.

 

[ID.]

The A7X are probably overkill for my living room, much less my office where they currently reside so the Artists would be ideal for my small Tokyo apartment. Going on what I currently own, the 8020C are adequate and anything more potent than the 8030C would be complete overkill. Luckily I really like the bass control I get with the Adams. Lots of bass issues, but treble is fine in my room.

 

[Leeps]

I'd be interested to know how you get on using the Raumfeld DDC. If the sound and useability are decent, it could make a much cheaper alternative to the Bluesound Node, for which I'd be interested in for streaming Tidal, especially as in future I could use 2 or 3 of them.

 

[davedotco]

I'd be interested to know how you get on using the Raumfeld DDC. If the sound and useability are decent, it could make a much cheaper alternative to the Bluesound Node, for which I'd be interested in for streaming Tidal, especially as in future I could use 2 or 3 of them.

Is very cheap at the moment, just £119 inc shipping (and it includes 3 months free Tidal), fantastic value.

Functionally very similar to the Bluesound Node, but a fraction of the price. For me it was a 'no brainer' as I do virtually all my listening on Spotify, though I might well try Tidal. For me it will live and die by the quality of it's variable analogue outs, I use these to drive direct into my active speakers.

So far I am very pleased, the quality is easily good enough to hear the difference in quality between some of the digital radio stations on TuneIn and Spotify Connect has that extra Solidity (over regular Spotify) that I experienced when tested on a much more expensive set-up. If it is good enough to resolve these differences then I think it might well be ok.

Still lots more experimenting to do, I shall continue to write up my experiences.

 

[brownz]

I'm a year into my Connector and couldn't be more pleased with it. Nice solid app. Sucks in all my sources and delivers them to the place needed. I think they're great VFM.

 

[davedotco]

I'm a year into my Connector and couldn't be more pleased with it. Nice solid app. Sucks in all my sources and delivers them to the place needed. I think they're great VFM.

It was your comments that helped me take the plunge on the Connector 2, it has only been a couple of days in my case but, so far, I am very pleased.

Not mentioned the app but as you say, it is very solid, setup is so simple and the interface works well. Lots more exploring to do but the Connector does make Sonos and Bluesound look very pricy for functionally similar product.

 

[Leeps]

I'm a year into my Connector and couldn't be more pleased with it. Nice solid app. Sucks in all my sources and delivers them to the place needed. I think they're great VFM.

It was your comments that helped me take the plunge on the Connector 2, it has only been a couple of days in my case but, so far, I am very pleased.

Not mentioned the app but as you say, it is very solid, setup is so simple and the interface works well. Lots more exploring to do but the Connector does make Sonos and Bluesound look very pricy for functionally similar product.

To be fair the Bluesound does have a headphone output and optical input, which could be very useful in certain situations (the optical especially for a TV if it was your main AV system). But still, the price difference is significant even taking this into account.

 

[davedotco]

I'm a year into my Connector and couldn't be more pleased with it. Nice solid app. Sucks in all my sources and delivers them to the place needed. I think they're great VFM.

It was your comments that helped me take the plunge on the Connector 2, it has only been a couple of days in my case but, so far, I am very pleased.

Not mentioned the app but as you say, it is very solid, setup is so simple and the interface works well. Lots more exploring to do but the Connector does make Sonos and Bluesound look very pricy for functionally similar product.

To be fair the Bluesound does have a headphone output and optical input, which could be very useful in certain situations (the optical especially for a TV if it was your main AV system). But still, the price difference is significant even taking this into account.

The Connector 2 is pretty basic, no worse than the Sonos though. As always it depends on what your requirements are, my music listening is 99% Spotify and that is built in (as is Tidal with more Cloud services to come), I use TuneIn for radio, talk and sport exclusively so not critical. It has one stereo analog input, probably TV through a cheap dac. Airplay would be nice but I can manage without.

So far quite impressed given the cost (£119).

 

[davedotco]

To a good few tracks, still working on the settings but so far I am pleased as punch.

The important thing right now is the sense of transparency, the speakers seem to disappear, almost as if they have no 'character' of their own. Different recordings sound totally different, an odd thing to say, but it gives live recordings a great feel, some well produced studio albums sound almost 'polished' others have a 'loose' laid back feel.

Of course I have heard these differences before, but the setup simply makes them more obvious, it's not just technical differences that are shown up, the 'feel' of a performance comes across too, a band, playing live, clearly enjoying themselves makes you smile and sing along.

Anyway I ended up, as I often do at the moment, with a few tracks from Spotify's 'Southern Gothic' playlist, fabulous vocals and some of the most evil banjo playing I have ever heard

 

[Leeps]

Well if you're enjoying tunes instead of fretting over wifi/app glitches, that's a positive early sign. Looking at Apple's app store there seem to be very disparate views about it. Lots of very pleased 5-star comments and a few 1-star 'don't touch with a barge pole' comments.

I would suspect much depends on the particular way the Raumfeld is being used. I'd be purely using it for Tidal (so I can finally have a wired connection from router to source, rather than tethering my iThing to my amp directly) and the odd bit of network radio.

 

[davedotco]

Well if you're enjoying tunes instead of fretting over wifi/app glitches, that's a positive early sign. Looking at Apple's app store there seem to be very disparate views about it. Lots of very pleased 5-star comments and a few 1-star 'don't touch with a barge pole' comments.

I would suspect much depends on the particular way the Raumfeld is being used. I'd be purely using it for Tidal (so I can finally have a wired connection from router to source, rather than tethering my iThing to my amp directly) and the odd bit of network radio.

That is exactly what I do, only with Spotify rather than Tidal. The Connector 2 is only £119 at the moment and comes with a 3 month Tidal trial, so I intend to give that a go at some point. Fine value.

Like you I appreciate the comfort of a hard wired setup and the wiring and then the setup on the app was absolutely straightforward. No multiroom components used or planned so dead simple so far. Of course there is no 'tethering' of the control device so it can be shut down or used for something else, can cause a bit of a panic if you need the off or volume in a hurry...*shok*

Playing London Grammer for Mrs DDC at the moment, the 'head girls' voice is totally mesmerising....

 

[brownz]

I have mine wired to a router, but tried it for about a month in Wifi mode (ran out of connections so bought myself a 20-Port Gigabit Router) and it performed just fine. I would imagine that if you have a poor Wifi signal and small pipe feeding it, then you might run into issues streaming hi-res files through TiDal, epsecially if there's a few devices hanging off of the network. I'm on Android Marshmallow so can't comment on the Apple App.

 

[davedotco]

one of the reasons I went down this route was that it enabled me to run a fully wired system (control signals excepted) and Spotify Connect is integrated.

The Raumfeld app works seemlessly on an (old) iPad 3, but my system is the simplest possible so I guess it should. A great bonus for me is that, although Raumfeld is not available for OSX (or Windows for that matter), I can run Spotify From my Macbook, which I much prefer, the Spotify Connect function seems to work whatever device it is running on.

If I have a gripe, it is that a couple of extra inputs would be nice or maybe Airplay, but given the price it is hard to complain. It would be nice to be able to gauge the absolute quality of the analog outs but I have nothing with which to do a valid comparison.

One thing that is clear, and very much more obvious than I have heard before, is the difference between songs and tracks from different productions, for example the differences between 'original recordings' and 'Remastered' versions of the same song can be quite profound, it is not just about dynamic range either.

Still playing and adjusting, but more pleased with every 'session'.

 

[nopiano]

Thanks for the write ups, Dave. Really interesting!

Not really the same at all, but having moved my main system into a new house a few weeks ago (and mostly finished putting up curtains and pictures for a while!) I'm enjoying the differences the larger room brings.

Still a bit bright as a bay window is behind the speakers (not directly) and that remains without curtains temporarily - but enjoying the more analytical sound, while the larger room helps the LF breathe a bit.

Looking forward to your next instalment!

 

[davedotco]

My room is about 18ft square, with a corner 'missing' and several other irregularities to break up the square. Thw walls are mostly plasterboard on studding, so reflective but not that hard, there is a pretty large window too, with blinds rather than drapes.

Like many 'studio' type speakers the Artist 6 has shelving controls in the bass and treble and, strangely, a tweeter level adjust too. So far I have, against my expectations, set the bass shelving to +1, a little extra 'kick' but still no fake 'warmth' and 'body' that so many speakers insist on adding to the music.

I have taken the tweeter output off half a point too, no real difference on good recordings, the tweeter is really very good, but takes the edge off of some less good recordings. I would miss being able to make these adjustments were they not available.