A
Anonymous
Guest
Well, I've finally bought a 740A. I connected it up last night and I'm delighted to report that it has the dynamic punch I most wanted, very different to the Rotel.
My first impression wasn't great though but this doesn't seem to be a fault of the amp. I played a couple of CDs to start with and got a fairly dry treble and laid-back performance (like a record rotating slightly below the correct speed). I remember thinking "Oh no, not again". I then played my cassette copy of Magical Mystery Tour on the Yamaha deck just to make sure the connections in the back were OK, and this time the sound was noticeably different. The drums of the title track had the required leading edge and there was no particular dryness in the top end. I powered up the tuner and the song being broadcast was again dynamic and toe-tapping.
Lastly I spun some LPs on the RPM4 (the one unit that had sounded the least exciting in the old setup) and the results were fantastic. On Rubber Soul the voices had an "in the room" presence and even with a basically constructed track like Kraftwerk's Computer World I was hearing detail I hadn't noticed before, there was plenty of kick and the treble was fine.
I don't know why the Arcam sounds so different from the rest. I'll try swapping the interconnect to see if that makes a difference. It's the only peripheral not to have a Qunex cable (it has an XLO/Pro type 125 which came free when I bought it). I'd be surprised if an interconnect could affect punch and treble response that much though. Still, no harm in giving it a try.
The 740A manual states that it needs a week's run in period (if used for several hours a day).Can this be achieved in mute mode or does it have to be driving the speakers at volume for the electronics to bed in? It also says that the sonic properties will improve over this time. I'm curious to know what differences I'm likely to perceive compared to what I'm hearing now?
My first impression wasn't great though but this doesn't seem to be a fault of the amp. I played a couple of CDs to start with and got a fairly dry treble and laid-back performance (like a record rotating slightly below the correct speed). I remember thinking "Oh no, not again". I then played my cassette copy of Magical Mystery Tour on the Yamaha deck just to make sure the connections in the back were OK, and this time the sound was noticeably different. The drums of the title track had the required leading edge and there was no particular dryness in the top end. I powered up the tuner and the song being broadcast was again dynamic and toe-tapping.
Lastly I spun some LPs on the RPM4 (the one unit that had sounded the least exciting in the old setup) and the results were fantastic. On Rubber Soul the voices had an "in the room" presence and even with a basically constructed track like Kraftwerk's Computer World I was hearing detail I hadn't noticed before, there was plenty of kick and the treble was fine.
I don't know why the Arcam sounds so different from the rest. I'll try swapping the interconnect to see if that makes a difference. It's the only peripheral not to have a Qunex cable (it has an XLO/Pro type 125 which came free when I bought it). I'd be surprised if an interconnect could affect punch and treble response that much though. Still, no harm in giving it a try.
The 740A manual states that it needs a week's run in period (if used for several hours a day).Can this be achieved in mute mode or does it have to be driving the speakers at volume for the electronics to bed in? It also says that the sonic properties will improve over this time. I'm curious to know what differences I'm likely to perceive compared to what I'm hearing now?