TEAC Reference 600 – Opinions / Reviews Please!

[Ambrose]

Hi All,

Apart from WHF review which says a genuine alternative to separates, there isn’t much on net about this system and some reasonable deals to be had £800.

How good is it? Can anyone review / recommend and give example of equal performing separates as a benchmark?

I may go a demo to see for myself but interested what opinions were first.

Finally, any better systems of this type / cost which work good with heavy rock? Needs to be compact

Thanks

Ambrose

 

[Ambrose]

Anyone had a demo or owns this system?

Be very useful to gather a few opinions please.

Ambrose

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

you say it can be had for 800 GBP now? nice 🙂 when I bought it last year it was priced at 1000 GBP. fast price drop.

anyway I decided to shed some light on my experience with the Reference 600 and hopefuly help you out with making the right decision. BTW it's my first post on WHF forum...

so, to the point. I bought my Reference 600 in January last year. I based my decision mainly on WHF's review. it was my first plunge into the world of hi-fi. before that I only listened to music from my laptop+Creative X-Fi sound card+ Creative 2.1 speakers. I had a chance to audition Teac's system with various speakers. at first I wanted to buy it with MA RX6 but as I was short with cash I setteld to buy rather cheap Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 having in view buying something better whenever I got a chance. in the end it turned out to be a great coincidence becouse I had more time to decide on speakers and my eyes lied on Dynaudio. I eventualy bought Focuses 110. it was one of the best decisions in my life, great little-big speakers (but now I'm running a little bit ahead of myself). for about 8 months I was playing Reference 600 with Diamonds and it was time spent very pleasurably. as I said befere, it was my first hi-fi so I new little about typical traits of true hi-fi; like soundstaging, imaging, timing and tempo, accuracy, reflecting true timbre of instruments and so on. now I know that then I had hardly any sounstage depth, hardly any imaging and presentation was rather sluggish and slow. after 8 months, as I mentioned befere,I upgraded speakers to Dynaudio Focus 110 and suddenly everything began to sound so wrong to a degree that I was forcing myself to listening to some music only to justify the fact that I payed a lot of money for the rig! what was immediately most annoying was a great deal of sibilance which began to polute my music. it felt as if some nasty hissing worm was draging behing leading notes all the time when someone was singing. and percussion was too splashy as well. I began to think that the speakers are too revealing of the amp because they couldn't be so bad if they were so well regarded wordwide! even though it wasn't my intention back in January I decided to upgrade the amp. after extensive reading I settled for Pathos Classic One mk3 (besides I got a very good deal on ex-demo unit 🙂 ). unfortunately I din't have a chance to audition the amp. I bought it only on my expectation based on opinions expressed in reviews. when it finally came I noticed right away a great improvement in sound clarity. heavily dence tunes suddenly started to sound much more organised an not so confused and homogenous, i.e. Sigur Ros's "Saeglopur" from album "Takk...". and big dynamic swings were waaaayyyy better described. the sibilance not so much dissapeared but I was so much happy with the change that I also decided after a couple of more months to upgrade the CDP to matching Pathos Digit (I didn't audition it as well and yet again I got a nice ex-demo deal). so in January after a mere year I got a completely new hi-fi setup but I was never ready for what was about to come. introduction of Digit changed considerably presentation. the sound is now very fast and precise, imaging is wonderful (especially in recordings of live music like jazz or classical) but what amazes me most is the ability of this CDP to retrieve and transfer background details; therefore micro dynamics is wonderful, small nuances in reverberation and decay of instruments make you believe the experience is more alive, not to mention the depth of soundstage which expanded hugely! as for dreaded sibilance; it finally vanished but not before I changed the speaker cable from silver plated copper Qued Revelation to pure copper Atlas Hyper 2.0 (but that is a different story).

so summing it up. I wouldn't reccomend you Teac Reference 600 mainly on the grounds that you like to listen rock. it may be too slow responding for fast paced music and its inability to controll deep bass makes things only worse. if I were to recommend you anything I would suggest you, based on my experience, to save for a little bit longer and get yourself something more decent. you may like Naim Unity. it's an all-in-one (so not too many boxes), it does everything you could possibly want at this point in history of mankind and it's fitted with a decent amp + CDP. I must admit I haven't heard it in action but you can find some very favourable reviews around and you can hardly find any ill word on Naim gear from their users. IMO definitely worth audition. I hope this helps although I know what you think now: wiseguy, it's always easy saying someone to dish out more dough 🙂 . but then again you must answer youself a question how much hi-fi you really want and need.

good luck

 

[Ambrose]

Hi Oldric!
Oh man, that’s an impressive first post!
Thanks so much for your story and experiences with the TEAC 600 reference, you have been on a journey for sure, albeit quicker than most!!!
Interesting how our goals / expectations change and by changing to vastly better speaker reduced listening pleasure. I guess this comes down to system matching in part and easy to find fault / look for improvement. For me it’s just finding fun system that I can enjoy listening to again and musically involving.
Reading through, I am not sure if I would be happy in the long run with TEAC setup, especially if it doesn’t time well and music isn’t cohesive / organised. Definitely sacrifice some detail for PRaT.
Yes, I like Naim! Blame it on accidentally stumbling upon a Naim Nait 3 Amp.
Just as background I have had a couple of hifi systems before from budget (second hand creek cdp / Alto amp & gale speakers) to midrange (Naim Nait 3 / CD5i / Spendor S5/e).
I now have AV setup Arcam AVR 280 Amp / Marantz DV6001 DVD player / B&W MT20 Surround speakers & Sub (AS2?).
Change was due to house move and starting family, but now my son is walking about, my M1 sats are packed away as no room positioning for fronts near TV although rears could be wall mounted. Instead I have 2 sats on top of sideboard with Sub providing some bottom end although not spectacular.
I have enjoyed a year or 2 listening to multichannel SACD / DVD Audio particularly including Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Deep Purple, Genesis etc but not so much moves ironically. However, setup in current configuration is not so good. Sure, listening to Machine Head SACD in Stereo is still good tuned up very loud (detailed clear and very dynamic / forceful) but at lower volumes there isn’t enough substance (full sounding) produced from smaller sats.
I now wish to have kept my last Hi Fi setup and worked out a better solution around new house / family arrangements however looking at more house / wife friendly system now. Maybe getting alternative speakers that work reasonably well on a solid sideboard (and near rear wall) that I could also choose to move into better room positioning and put onto stands when opportunity arises time to time for dedicated listening times would be possible?
Now I am at a crossroad and missing music listening enjoyment, on a more limited budget and not sure best route to go.
1) - Keep AV setup and upgrade / replace parts as and when affordable. EG better new front speakers to go on sideboard / better sub / rdac / Dvd player? Or perhaps this will never be enough?
2) – Sell AV system and replace with all in one system. Myryad Mi? Arcam Solo Mini, Marantz M-cr603.
I mean to be realistic and don’t expect to have a system as good as Naim/Spendor but instead something that is musically involving / foot tapping and good with rock music.
Even better if system can take Ipod/usb input or maybe even stream from PC/laptop. DAB a positive also (planet rock )
The Naim Unitiqute would be a good option I think and only cost that is a problem at the moment and perhaps not knowing much about streaming and if this will sound as good as CDP / usability issues etc.
I have the latest WHF Mag and am looking through about streaming options.

I guess maybe demo some speakers with current setup and compare to a good all in one system as a starting point. I have also secretly desired Dynaudio speakers as these match well with Naim I understand and also my preferred style of music. Hoping the Dynaudio DM2/6 maybe a good place to start. Just need to be able to work reasonable well close to rear wall (10-20cm) and I have fire place which protrudes into the room (middle) along the length axis (16ft * 13ft) with sideboard on right side of fire place. Sideboard comes out as far as fireplace if this helps speaker positioning in terms of being close to sidewall?
I appreciate that speakers will not be best placed and of limited width apart, but providing sound is still pretty good and not boomy I’ll be happy. Again, I plan to get some long speaker cables and stands for occasional dedicated listening. I could wall mount speakers as a last resort but gather this is probably not the better option unless spending £1000 + on speakers.

Am I being realistic? What would you be tempted to do?
Cheers
Ambrose

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Hi Ambrose,

as you asked for advice therefore I'm writing back. I was thinking about various all-in-one systems and with all their superb funcionality and connectivity they were always laking in one place, namely: amplification, save one example. for instance TEAC is rated 75Wpc into 8 Ohm but only 90Wpc into 4 Ohm, Marantz MCR603 is rated 60Wpc into 6 Ohm (no mentioning about 4 Ohm load), Unitiqute is rated 30Wpc into 8 Ohm and only 45 into 4 Ohm, Myryad Mi is rated 100Wpc so I presume is into 8 Ohm load but theres no mentioning about 4 Ohm load. however Myryad Mi had a class D amp and my experiences with class D amplification so far proved to be dissapointing (TEAC is class D, cheaper AVRs are usually class D, Primare I 32 is also a class D and it got bad review in WHF recently). I have a fealing that it's down to massive amount of global negative feedback that is needed to keep this circuitry stable and makes the amp look good on benchmarking (my Pathos on paper is definitely a worse amp than TEAC, save for current efficiency into 4 Ohm load 🙂)but then people report it sounds clinical or they have problems with sibilance or overbrightness. and that's why in my opinion tube gear usually sounds better than solid state, tube amps use considerably less feedback or even none (and they measure very bad too). but I'm straying too much off topic 🙂. so the only good all-in-one in my opinion is original Unity which yields 50Wpc into 8 Ohm and 90Wpc into 4 Ohm (the best situation is where power doubles when impendance load halves) but I know this option is out of the question due to price.

so my advice is that if you go the all-in-one road you should carefully pick speakers. Dyns might be too difficult for those amps because they need a stable and efficient amp into 4 Ohm load to sound their best. my pick for an easy and inexpensive speaker would be EB Acoustic EB1 or EB2 (whichever you prefer). if I were to believe what manufacturer says they're 8 Ohm speakers with impendance dip at 5.9 Ohm which is a very easy load. even tube gear would not have any problem driving them properly. EB2s being more expensive might be a better choice afterall because they're a closed back construction so there's no boominess when positioned close to wall. however, if you chose ported construction you can always seal the cabinet with a dense cloth and you'll get similar resutls but obviously less bass extension.

however, if you are willing to adopt more anorthodox approach in building your system I have another idea (and that's the one I would chose bearing in mind financial constraints). propably the smallest hi-hi possible would be a Logitec Squizebox Touch (it's streamer and internet radio and it can also accept mp3 players or external storage devices through USB or SD sockets) and a pair of active speakers like Dynauio MC15. I deliberately recommend those because they are much cheaper than active Focus 110s and they shouldn't be too fusy about positioning. they were designed as multimedia speakers so they should be fine sitting on sideboard and close to wall (they have only a narrow gap at the back instead a big hole as in bigger Dyn's models) plus they are fitted with 50W amp per driver. and if you find bass extension not to be satisfactory you can add a matching Sub 250MC which integrates perfectly with MC15s and you'll get a full active sub-sat set up (source is feeding the sub and sub is feeding sats, plus you have cutoff frequency selector). if you are willing to go further that road you can even get rid of your AVR and speakers and get a DAC with a preramp funcionality, like Beresford Caiman, and then connect Squizebox, DVD player, TV or Sky box to Caiman and then to speakers. you'll get rid of much clutter and I get the impression you wouldn' miss home cinema much (I definitely don't find it useful).

think about that and good luck

 

[Anonymous]

I too was considering the TEAC Ref 600 to upgrade sometime soon....but the comments have now made me pause. I appreciate of course that it is in the "ears of the beholder" ultimately.

Another system I was looking at is the Rotel RCX-1500 (About £1200).

Does anyone have an opinion on the Rotel? .......and how it might fair against the TEAC or Naim?

Would really appreciate some feedback please........anybody