Indulgence show 2017 (Tomorrow)

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QuestForThe13thNote

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Sorry Ellis but I walked in and straight out of this room. This was one of the worst performing hi Fi’s at the whole show, as well as some monitor audio speakers around £500 on the end of some roksan amps which sounded really bright. The Yamaha was going for transparency but had no decent control of bass or any warmth to the sound.
 

ellisdj

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BS I thought it sound alright mate to be honest - nice and clear - thats a very tough song they had on when I shot that demo.

It makes mincemeant of a lot of systems I have heard it on.

But to be honest I was working not really listening.

Hopefully you can see by the amount of videos I have posted up I was working hard - still not finished. Still working hard now pfffff :)
 

Blacksabbath25

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QuestForThe13thNote said:
Sorry Ellis but I walked in and straight out of this room. This was one of the worst performing hi Fi’s at the whole show, as well as some monitor audio speakers around £500 on the end of some roksan amps which sounded really bright. The Yamaha was going for transparency but had no decent control of bass or any warmth to the sound.
put that yamaha A-S3000 with the right speakers and your get loads of bass control and warmth i do with my dali opticon 8s
 
Q

QuestForThe13thNote

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The Dali ax5 actives were very good indeed though for price of £800, playing through Bluetooth. I also thought the new missions in development and newer version of lx2 very good too. I thought the ax5 sounded lovely and warm in tone and very good detail and dynamics. Punching Above their price. Kind of like the spendor small floorstander idea of very small floorstanders to not dominate rooms, although somewhat odd for traditional floorstander enthusiasts.

Ive never been a fan of floorstanding speakers like fhe rubicon from Dali, they don’t consistently seem to have as nice a presentation to pmc and atc , spendor and pro ac for similar money, for my tastes at least. But I would say these ax5 actives are different. I like some of the Dali bookshelf speakers.
 
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QuestForThe13thNote

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Yes I agree it’s about system matching but it was just the whole system didn’t work for me. Too much spaciousness and not enough warmth. It goes to show a lot of systems are about preference and not necessarily price. I give it that there was fab detail. But that type of track from daft punk (random access memories) showed up the issue with bass in that system. But at home that combo of amps would get too tiring for me, but a nice warmer hi Fi like the pro acs would be much better.

What did you guys think of the £2k pro ac dt8, sugden a21se same price I think, with a Cyrus phono signature and tt?. I though that a terrific sound. Simon
 
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QuestForThe13thNote

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On avm 8.2 amp I thought it worked fab with fact 8 but the avm £5k ish 5.2 with twenty5 22 was actually going a bit sharp on treble for me. This led me to believe avm is a really detailed amp unto itself as the twenty5 series have loads of treble detail already. But my cyrus sig system is actually less sharp than that avm 5.2 and 25 22 show combo with my twenty5 23s and cyrus. Goes to show system matching is so important. Also the conceptions about how Fi and say cyrus being high on treble doesn’t often mean much as it’s always about what amps and speakers you marry together and how they work, and tastes too!
 
QuestForThe13thNote said:
Sorry Ellis but I walked in and straight out of this room. This was one of the worst performing hi Fi’s at the whole show, as well as some monitor audio speakers around £500 on the end of some roksan amps which sounded really bright. The Yamaha was going for transparency but had no decent control of bass or any warmth to the sound.
I didn't spend much time in there either. Presuming Yamaha have done a good job with the speakers, it sounded like they needed something a little more in line with what they're capable of.
 

CnoEvil

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QuestForThe13thNote said:
What did you guys think of the £2k pro ac dt8, sugden a21se same price I think, with a Cyrus phono signature and tt?. I though that a terrific sound.

Sugden/Proac is a magic combination....and can see how it would work with Cyrus + TT. Clever synergy.
 
Q

QuestForThe13thNote

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The Cyrus phono signature is reputed to be fantastic especially with the cyrus psx r2 power supply with it. Not enough to get into a tt and all of that, just sheds load more expense on top of what I have. But maybe sometime in the future , probably not though.
 
Q

QuestForThe13thNote

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I was listening to the difference between innuos zen streamers. An ok difference between their basic zen streamer with a cd drive at around £2k and the flagship £5k Se version. But I still don't think they are really worth the money. I'd like to have heard them doing a comparison with a basic cheap and nasty western Digital nas drive from pc world, versus one of their streamers, on the end of a really good system with good speakers. I'm somewhat dubious they would ever do so, as I doubt these devices would be hugely better comparatively. Having an Ethernet out and not getting all the 'junk' from your router, as well as a non switching power supply in a toroidal design, and linear power supplies for different parts of the device, should in theory get you benefits. He was also describing the use of ssd drives and having a buffer cache so the data doesn't come from the hard drive, apparently for less noise. Whether this has benefits I've no idea. But £2k benefits over a £100 wd my book etc and £100 router. I doubt it. I'd stand corrected though if I heard a good difference. I wish, as with devices like power conditioners, that some people got in on making these and selling these at better prices and just selling the benefits at sensible money. Surely you could get a pc manufacturer to make you the same as this innuous device for a fraction of the price, if the ideas incorporated in the tech do yield sq benefits of value over basic pc nas drives used with domestic routers.
 

Kubs

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I went yesterday - took the family with me (wife and two young daughters 4, & 2). The girls loved the show, lots of space to run around, loud music and colourful lights ...

Anyway, the room that impressed me was hosted by Ultimate Stream (I think) where I heard a pair of Amphion Krypton (I think - very large floorstand), powered by a T&A amp and was fed by a Merging Streamer/DAC. Wide spacious sound with pressence (not in your face). They swapped the speakers out for a pair of AEquo Ensis model - ununual looking speaker but had a great sound - very wide soundstage.

I hadnt heard of the Merging or AEquo so when I got home I thought I'd do some research but 5 mins in, I lost interest ...... the price!

Ophidian also made an impression - I happened to walk into the room when they had a pair of Minimo on demo - tiny speakers but the sound they made was unvelievable - very impressive. I'd love to hear the rest of their range.

The Musical Fidelity room was great too: Encore > Nu Vista 800 > KEF REF 1: lovely sound - rich and powerful.

Probably the worst sound (for me) was the new monitor audio (the ones recently reviewed by WHF) powered by Roksan - very bright, grinding, headache inducing sound (IMO!).

I left the family in the bar area while I looked around some more - my wife brought along a friend (proseccos' in hand) and kids where running around, so they were happy while I went off.

The Devialet room was great - didnt hear the Phantoms (not that interested anyway) but I did hear one their amps powering some Wilsons (not sure of model but they look like transformers) - the speakers just disappeared, it was like you were in a concert hall listening to a 16 piece orchestra.

I didnt leave empty handed - got myself a power lead: Isotek Evo 3 Premier.
 
Q

QuestForThe13thNote

Guest
Kubs said:
I went yesterday - took the family with me (wife and two young daughters 4, & 2). The girls loved the show, lots of space to run around, loud music and colourful lights ...

Anyway, the room that impressed me was hosted by Ultimate Stream (I think) where I heard a pair of Amphion Krypton (I think - very large floorstand), powered by a T&A amp and was fed by a Merging Streamer/DAC. Wide spacious sound with pressence (not in your face). They swapped the speakers out for a pair of AEquo Ensis model - ununual looking speaker but had a great sound - very wide soundstage.

I hadnt heard of the Merging or AEquo so when I got home I thought I'd do some research but 5 mins in, I lost interest ...... the price!

Ophidian also made an impression - I happened to walk into the room when they had a pair of Minimo on demo - tiny speakers but the sound they made was unvelievable - very impressive. I'd love to hear the rest of their range.

The Musical Fidelity room was great too: Encore > Nu Vista 800 > KEF REF 1: lovely sound - rich and powerful.

Probably the worst sound (for me) was the new monitor audio (the ones recently reviewed by WHF) powered by Roksan - very bright, grinding, headache inducing sound (IMO!).

I left the family in the bar area while I looked around some more - my wife brought along a friend (proseccos' in hand) and kids where running around, so they were happy while I went off.

The Devialet room was great - didnt hear the Phantoms (not that interested anyway) but I did hear one their amps powering some Wilsons (not sure of model but they look like transformers) - the speakers just disappeared, it was like you were in a concert hall listening to a 16 piece orchestra.

I didnt leave empty handed - got myself a power lead: Isotek Evo 3 Premier.

totally agree with you on the monitor audio and roksan as I think I already said. I went in and straight out it was so sharp. The wilsons were good with devialet amps but the phantoms pretty pants. I did have one of those isotek premier evos. Regrettably it didn’t make a difference in my system so I sold it.
 
Q

QuestForThe13thNote

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ellisdj said:
Need do the whole system with them - just changing one is not going to show the full benefit, bear that in mind

absolutely. I bought it before I knew that from what lots are saying, and just as a test. But if you were buying 6 or 7 of these for different components I’d sooner buy a mains conditioner or mains regenerator for the money instead. I reckon it would have more an impact assuming ones system benefits it or it benefits the system. Tried an isol 8 mini sub axis at home and that worked really well. The isotek stuff works well, like the Aquarius. Expensive though.
 

Kubs

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The best results were achieved swapping out the amp power cord ... The resolution and separation improved. When I tried the cable on the DAC the sound lost some weight.

I may order another for the DAC as ellis suggests.
 

CnoEvil

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Kubs said:
The best results were achieved swapping out the amp power cord ... The resolution and separation improved. When I tried the cable on the DAC the sound lost some weight.

I may order another for the DAC as ellis suggests.

Make sure you can return it, just in case.

I have always had more success on amps....I got no difference on my DS.

Personally, I'd be using the cheap one (Alpha) from Clearer Audio on the Source (which has a decent 60 day trial period) - if possible from their Clearance.

https://www.cleareraudio.com/pages/clearance
 

ellisdj

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I use a very premium Cable with £400 worth of connectors just on a USB to SPDIF Convertor - so just 1 link in source chain - its worth it on source imo

Having all the same will make most difference but being able to return is handy if I am wrong - I would run the new ones on the amp for a good week each as well.
 

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