Arghhh my system

[admin_exported]

The other day I've listened 4 hours extensively to a worldclass system.

-Spectral SDR-4000 Pro CD

-Spectral 30-SS preamp

-2x Spectral 360-SS monoblocks

-Magico V3 speakers

-MIT Oracle MA cables

-DAADS, sound diffusers

WOW, is all I can say. It will change forever the way I'll look at Hifi. In fact even with such beautiful gear I totally forgot about the system. The music WILL just suck you into it. You'll be directly teleported to the ambiance of the music. When you play a CD of a live concert you can feel how big the space is. You can picture everything in front of you perfectly. Female singers will give you butterflies in your stomach. Listen to some classic pieces and you'll think it was a creation of God. Yes it's THAT amazing.

Ofcourse the price is not for most of us. But to hear something like this is incredible and everyone should experience it at least once.

Now I can only hear the bad points of my system. Everything sounds slow, harsh, badly balanced, out of place and what not. Anyways I'm starting the journey to own a system like this one day. Im starting with the amps and the cables.

 

[Anonymous]

SlickenSmooth:
The other day I've listened 4 hours extensively to a worldclass system.

-Spectral SDR-4000 Pro CD

-Spectral 30-SS preamp

-2x Spectral 360-SS monoblocks

-Magico V3 speakers

-MIT Oracle MA cables

-DAADS, sound diffusers

WOW, is all I can say. It will change forever the way I'll look at Hifi. In fact even with such beautiful gear I totally forgot about the system. The music WILL just suck you into it. You'll be directly teleported to the ambiance of the music. When you play a CD of a live concert you can feel how big the space is. You can picture everything in front of you perfectly. Female singers will give you butterflies in your stomach. Listen to some classic pieces and you'll think it was a creation of God. Yes it's THAT amazing.

Ofcourse the price is not for most of us. But to hear something like this is incredible and everyone should experience it at least once.

Now I can only hear the bad points of my system. Everything sounds slow, harsh, badly balanced, out of place and what not. Anyways I'm starting the journey to own a system like this one day. Im starting with the amps and the cables.

Go and listen to a cheap Micro system for a few hours and then go back to listening to yours with the same music. I'm sure you will feel better then.

 

[jaxwired]

Slick,

You have such an excellent system and it's all new kit. I'm surprised you're that dissatisfied.

I'm also surprised that the super high end system was THAT much better than your system. Other than the bass, I wouldn't expect a big leap in performance.

I suspect that part of what impressed you was the great sound,but part of it was confirmation bias. Meaning, you expect a system with that price tag to sound amazing, so it does.

We HiFi ethusiasts have to guard against never being satisfied. Upgrading HiFi can be an addiction and tends to have little to do with real gains in sound quality for those that are afflicted.

 

[Anonymous]

The thing I have found with going in to high-end territory is that it gets to a point when it's no longer about the better bass or treble, or other such 'hi-fi' elements.

You start hearing inflections of tonality in vocals and instruments & timbre being reflected differently. You get a sense of the acoustic of the environment that the recording was done in. The whole sense of musicality and timing takes on a more lifelike quality. These are things you hear around you every day and can often notice as 'missing' in listening to music, yet when your system starts to emulate that true-to-life element, then it makes for a rather different listening experience....

I listened at a number of different price points in other brands and the same brands as I now have and it was this sense of 'life' and reality that is what persuaded me to spend the extra. Yes the bass did improve and vocals were better projected etc etc, but it kinda got to the point when those usual things I listened for were less important than the lifelike holographic presentation that drew me in to what is playing.

It wasn't to do with 'expecting' it to sound amazing 'cos of it's price - as the things I started to hear took me by surprise, as I was not aware that those were the sorts of changes that would come.....

 

[Anonymous]

jaxwired:
Slick,

You have such an excellent system and it's all new kit. I'm surprised you're that dissatisfied.

I'm also surprised that the super high end system was THAT much better than your system. Other than the bass, I wouldn't expect a big leap in performance.

I suspect that part of what impressed you was the great sound,but part of it was confirmation bias. Meaning, you expect a system with that price tag to sound amazing, so it does.

We HiFi ethusiasts have to guard against never being satisfied. Upgrading HiFi can be an addiction and tends to have little to do with real gains in sound quality for those that are afflicted.

Jax,

How I WISH it was like that. Seriously man I think most of us if not everyone hopes there is something out there that costs 3k and performs like, or almost like, something that costs 20k. Sure there are a some products that punch above their price range, and vice versa. But nothing punches that far above it's weight. If it was only bass then I could just buy a really good sub.

But it's exactly like BigAir says. I wan't even looking for things like oh better bass, oh nice treble. You listen to music as a whole suddenly even when trying to analyze it forces you to listen to the whole presentation, or so it seems. Everything just falls into it's place with perfect harmony. There's a great 3D thing going on. It really seems as if you're attending a LIVE show. One thing you'll notice immediately is that there seems so much air in between notes. And the silence inky blackness. That's what you pay for. Silence = Music. People told me that my Cyrus player makes thing appear out of nowhere. Well it's not even close.

Jax, I know it seems as I've been starstruck but I hope you have a dealer near you that has a system like that (and knows how to set it up properly). And go have a listen. A long listen. You'll hear what I mean.

Anyways according to my dealer the Spectral pre/ power combo that I'll have in about a month will shock me (in a positive way) when I hook my Spendors up on 'em. I can't wait. And I'll report back to you guys.

 

[Anonymous]

I've heard a couple of high end systems and you're spot on, in some of them the timing and imaging is so superbly defined with such natural tonality that you forget it's a reproduction. I think 'timing' as a system quality plays a bigger role in performance than some realise. High end kit tends to do this well.

I've also heard a £20k system that left me feeling cold. It was the Musical Fidelity kW top-end stuff with the MA PL300 speakers. It left me feeling cold and assulted with the sheer amount of data analysis it did. I don't think I gave it a chance and it needed a bigger room, but hey, £20k is £20k.

 

[Craig M.]

i think slick is right when he mentions the knowledge of how to set it up right, i went to the naim tour thing they did to show off the dac and ovator speaker, they were using top-end naim amplification and did lots of comparisons with their highend cdps. while some parts of it were amazing (never heard more realistic vocals) it seemed as if the room was having bass problems, it sounded quite bloated and slow to me. maybe i'm just not used to hearing a speaker that size.

 

[Anonymous]

I would certainly agree that there is more to it than JUST price.

I auditioned plenty of kit that left me very 'underwhelmed' and disappointed at the whole thing.

I was left thinking 'god is that ALL I have to look forward to !?!? ... and then I found the right kit ...... but it took lots of searching.

It's not as easy [well wasn't for me] as simply thinking - 'what names can I try that cost loads?' as that did not do it for me.

Naim did very little for me personally - which surprised me - since many years back I heard a cheaper Naim pre/power with Mission 753 speakers and was blown away...... just didn't do it for me now ... despite various speakers and price-points ......

Best amps I heard, other than what I bought - were Musical Fidelity Primo and AMS50 - gave a lot of 'life-like' performance.

Maybe there were times when it was the dealer's room at fault, but it still left me wondering what the hell they sell and who to .... ??? i.e. who thinks THAT sounds good in that shop !?!?

We all have our preferences, as is well known ........ some may not like my system [though they are clearly MAD !!}

;-)

 

[Anonymous]

Yes setup and system matching is SO important. It's ALWAYS important but some of the really expensive stuff is even more sensitive to it.

Also DAADS by Acustica
Applicata are really interesting. I thought it was nothing more than a piece of furniture when I first saw it. It controls the sound reflections in the room and you can control where and how much sound you want to reflect and that greatly affects how the sound gets to the listener. Again very important when you venture into the highend realm. But it sure requires a lot of knowhow. He also told me that everyone can plug expensive equipment together (and mostly it won't do the equipment justice) but to make them sound the way the designers intended them to sound is an art and really requires careful studying and lots of experience.

 

[jaxwired]

SlickenSmooth:

Yes setup and system matching is SO important. It's ALWAYS important but some of the really expensive stuff is even more sensitive to it.

Also DAADS by Acustica Applicata are really interesting. I thought it was nothing more than a piece of furniture when I first saw it. It controls the sound reflections in the room and you can control where and how much sound you want to reflect and that greatly affects how the sound gets to the listener. Again very important when you venture into the highend realm. But it sure requires a lot of knowhow. He also told me that everyone can plug expensive equipment together (and mostly it won't do the equipment justice) but to make them sound the way the designers intended them to sound is an art and really requires careful studying and lots of experience.

Totally agree with you Slick. I'm amazed how many people have high end systems with the speakers 3 inches from the rear wall or jammed into a corner. Setup and system matching ARE key to getting holographic sound. I still think you can get some amazing sound on a realistic budget though. I'd rather listen to a 3k system owned by a true believer than a 20k system that has just been thrown together.

Regarding high end systems, there just happens to be a high end audio show coming to my city in March. Should be interesting. I already have my tickets. I'll report back...