The Mac and Cno Belfast outing

CnoEvil

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Those who keep a closer eye on this Forum than is probably healthy, may have picked up that Mac was planning a visit to Belfast...and we formulated a cunning plan to meet up and listen to stuff at Lyric Hifi. This plan, which was hatched many months ago, finally came to fruition today.

The idea was to Tee-Up a system which consisted of Linn Akurate DS -> AMS35i -> Kef Ref 3s and then pick up Mac and spend the morning doing what HiFi enthusiasts do best....Drink Coffee, talk endlessly about HiFi and listen to each other's taste in music.

This system was of particular interest to Mac, as he has heard me bang on endlessly about Linn DSssses and Kef Reference Speakers for more than a few years...neither of which he has heard before.....and Michael of Lyric was good enough to oblige, giving us a room to ourselves on a busy Saturday morning, for 4 Hours.

The long suffering Lady Cno goodly came for company, on the 180 mile round trip. I entered the address of his accomodation into the Sat Nav and off we set.

Just under 2 hours later, we were pulling up outside Mac's establishment, only to find that you could have thrown a stone and hit Lyric HiFi (potentially handy if Mac plans future trips to Belfast).

I was pleased to see that the delightful Mrs. Mac was also joining in the fun...at least it gave Mrs. C somebody to commiserate with, as myself and Mac started talking HiFi.

Two minutes later, I dropped off Mac and the 2 Ladies outside Lyric while I found a Parking space. I then made my way back into the shop (which is one floor up), only to find my three passangers seemed to have disappeared. They weren't on the street, or in the main demo area. Anyway, I went to have a much needed Pee on the next floor up (Storage Area), only to find they had taken the Lift and got off at the wrong floor.

Now, all together again, we went down to meet Michael....who met us in Shorts and a light T Shirt (Belfast is only 12 deg today)....saying that the 35i, which he had goodly been running for a couple of days, had not only heated up the demo room, but the whole bl**dy building! He wasn't wrong. The room was like a sauna...and would have been intolerable, if we'd had the sort of temperatures the rest of the UK has been experiencing.

We got Mac and his Lady Wife seated, while myself and Mrs. Cno sorted the coffee.

Finally, refreshments sorted, we started the listening session. We came to the amicable arrangement, where we chose track about. Mac chose stuff that was gentle and lyrical and pleasantly soporific.....and I chose the sort of stuff that was the musical equivalent of a Defibrillator. This worked well and sort of averaged out our musical taste.

I have written endlessly about how this system sounds....so hopefully Mac will see this thread and pen his own impressions and thoughts....which are probably more interesting anyway, as they are a fresh perspective, from somebody coming from a very musical system.

Once again, a big thank you to Michael of Lyric, who made this possible.
 

Singslinger

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Sounds like a good time was had by all (hopefully the wives as well).

It's been 5 years since I last visited Belfast, maybe one day if ever I can pluck up the energy to visit my mates there again, I'll try and check in with you and Mac.

Look forward to reading Mac's impressions.

Cheers!
 
D

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Nice one guys!
thumbs_up.png
 

CnoEvil

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Singslinger said:
Sounds like a good time was had by all (hopefully the wives as well).

It's been 5 years since I last visited Belfast, maybe one day if ever I can pluck up the energy to visit my mates there again, I'll try and check in with you and Mac.

Look forward to reading Mac's impressions.

Cheers!

It was interesting that we both had a similar fear going into the demo. I was worried, that when I heard my old Amp (properly warmed up) driving the speakers I'd rejected.....I would come to the conclusion that I'd made an expensive mistake. The fact that I hadn't was very welcome.

Mac was worried that he would prefer the Kefs.....and I will leave it to him to gives his thoughts on that. I believe he his flying home tonight (all being well, given the current disruption), so it will be after that, I suspect.
 
D

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Cno - you still got your Pioneer TV or have you bought something newer? Cheers
 

CnoEvil

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gel said:
Cno - you still got your Pioneer TV or have you bought something newer? Cheers

Yup, it's still limping along. If it gets too hot, it won't turn on again (blue flashing light) until it cools down.
 

Electro

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It sounds like you all had a very enjoyable day CNO !

It brings back fond memories of Mac's visit to Electro Towers and my visit to hear his lovely system.

I look forward to more interesting detail from yourself and Mac soon . *good*
 

Andrewjvt

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Please take your wife out for a candle lit dinner for 2,
Buy her a gift and show her the booked suprise holiday to the Mediterranean that she is unaware of.
She has earned it.
 
D

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CnoEvil said:
gel said:
Cno - you still got your Pioneer TV or have you bought something newer? Cheers

Yup, it's still limping along. If it gets too hot, it won't turn on again (blue flashing light) until it cools down.
thumbs_up.png
 

Macspur

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Firstly a big thank you to Cno and his lovely wife for driving 90 miles to meet us and taking us to Lyric for a superb experience... the poor wives tried to go for a walk, but it was tipping it down. However, we did go for some nice refreshments afterwards and they met my extended family from the States and Ireland who tried to persuade them to join us for the knees up in the evening.

Also, a massive thanks to Michael from Lyric, who knew full well there wouldn't be a sale at the end of the day, but still accommodated us for 4 hours in his excellent establishment. Certainly Cno and him have a great relationship that's been built over 30 years.

Now for the demo:

Coffees having been bought we were ready to settle down for a good session. The store has a very impressive demo room, not good at measurements so will let Cno fill in that blank, suffice to say it's much larger than my humble listening room, which did, of course, have a big baring on what I heard.

I meant to say, before listening to anything, I had a good tactile look at the Ref3's and Cno's old 35I, which I have to say looked in mint condition, obviously lovingly cared for and red hot to the touch, glad I had shorts on as it was a tad warm in the room.

To start with I chose to listen to an album by Harry Manx that I knew both Cno and I liked and had recently listened to. It sounded very good, but no better than the Harbeths. Then I chose something from the genre I like a lot, Celtic Folk and an artist called Karen Kasey, detail was all there, but I was immediately missing the emotion of the Harbeths.

Then Cno introduced me to Hans Zimmer and a track from the Batman movie Dark Night Rises, called "Why So Serious" now I was hearing what the Refs were capable of and I understood what was meant by excitement... the base was incredible!, I guess it was to be expected compared to my much smaller SHL5+ anniversaries. I played the same track through my system this morning and whilst the timing was spot on and the base was there, I couldn't feel it as I did with the Refs.

By the end of the demo I was left feeling that the Kefs reminded me somewhat of the ATC SCM40 that I used to own... astonishingly good with good recordings and certain genres, but acoustically lacked the fleshier full bodied sound of Harbeth, this may not be the case with the newer ATC's, not having heard them, I couldn't say,

I can understand why for Cno the choice between the two brands was so tricky, but now having a better understanding of his taste in music I see why he decided on Harbeth and with the much larger 40.2 he will still maintain the exciting base of the Ref3's.

I can now put a voice to the man who we all know and respect on this forum and for anyone who has the good fortune to meet him, he is pretty well much the same patient level headed guy that I imagined him to be with a good sense of humour.

@Singslinger I do hope you get back to Belfast some time, it would be tops to meet you too.

Iceman, I don't think you'll be at all disappointed with your new speakers, beautifully made and with the kind of music you like they will sing sweetly.

Mac

www.realmusicnet.wordpress.com
 

CnoEvil

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Thank you for your kind words.....but it really was a pleasure.

The room I reckon was something like 12.5' x 12.5ft.

If Mrs. Cno did a lot of listening, I would have gone for the Refs, as we both really like them. She just finds the Harbeths lack too much excitement for her taste. I do think that if they had more room to breathe and a better Amp, things might be a bit different (or they might not). One of the reasons I bought the 35i, was the scale, excitement and vibrancy if injected into the music.

We both very much appreciated the very kind invitation to your family gathering.....it looked like a lot of fun, with enough people to fill two floors of a Belfast Pub!....but Mary had prior commitments to do with her role at the local church.

I have a difficult question for you - Where would you place the system you heard on Saturday, in the context of the best systems that you have heard/owned?

I know that you would not do a straight swop for your Harbeths (which are around half the cost), for those Kefs - which shows that you have chosen wisely. The question is, could you live with that system, if BBC style Monitors didn't exist?

Ps. Can you remind me of the Artists that I particularly liked? - Thanks.
 

iceman16

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Thanks Mac for your excellent write up. I think both Harbeth and Refs are very good and its just a matter of ones music preference. Music source and system matching is also vital IME. When I demo the Ref3 with MF M6si / Bluesound node2 / Chord Dave dac I didnt quite like the presentation. It sounded a little metallic and there’s hardening in high freq. or I would say it’s too hifi for my taste. When the Dave was disconnected it sound more pleasing and easy to my ears( we didnt fiddle with chord Dave settings though). Im hoping that my Electro cdp will give the presentation Im looking for. Waiting for the Ref3 for 8 weeks is like eternity! In 2 weeks time hopefully they’ll be up and running.
 

Macspur

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CnoEvil said:
Thank you for your kind words.....but it really was a pleasure.

The room I reckon was something like 12.5' x 12.5ft.

If Mrs. Cno did a lot of listening, I would have gone for the Refs, as we both really like them. She just finds the Harbeths lack too much excitement for her taste. I do think that if they had more room to breathe and a better Amp, things might be a bit different (or they might not). One of the reasons I bought the 35i, was the scale, excitement and vibrancy if injected into the music.

We both very much appreciated the very kind invitation to your family gathering.....it looked like a lot of fun, with enough people to fill two floors of a Belfast Pub!....but Mary had prior commitments to do with her role at the local church.

I have a difficult question for you - Where would you place the system you heard on Saturday, in the context of the best systems that you have heard/owned?

I know that you would not do a straight swop for your Harbeths (which are around half the cost), for those Kefs - which shows that you have chosen wisely. The question is, could you live with that system, if BBC style Monitors didn't exist?

hmmm that's a hard question to answer... sadly as much as I love class A, I couldn't live with the 35I, not because of its performance, it's just the heat and power consumption puts me right off, but for anyone who that wouldn't be an issue, you'd struggle to find a better amp for the money and whoever buys yours will be getting a brand new looking unit for a fraction of its RRP.

It's the first time I've witnessed the capabilities of a Linn streamer and I couldn't fault it, I imagine it would sound even better through Harbeths and if I was looking for a streamer + NAS set up Linn would be high on the demo list.

The Kef Ref 3's are a beautiful looking loudspeaker and I would love to hear them in my own listening room paired with my own amp, but I think I would prefer to spend that sort of money on a top range Sonus Faber.

Now, putting aside objections over heat/power, could I live with that set up, probably yes, but think it may leave me hankering for change at some time further down the line, whereas with my current system, on the whole, I'm very content.

Wish I could come with you when you start looking for an amp to go with your 40.2's.

Mac

www.realmusicnet.wordpress.com
 

CnoEvil

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That is a very honest and straightforward answer - and not really a surprise. All the things that you like about Harbeths is what ultimately drew me to them.

If you find yourself free for a few days, around when I'm looking for Amps, you are welcome to come and stay, so you can give me support.
 

CnoEvil

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iceman16 said:
Thanks Mac for your excellent write up. I think both Harbeth and Refs are very good and its just a matter of ones music preference. Music source and system matching is also vital IME. When I demo the Ref3 with MF M6si / Bluesound node2 / Chord Dave dac I didnt quite like the presentation. It sounded a little metallic and there’s hardening in high freq. or I would say it’s too hifi for my taste. When the Dave was disconnected it sound more pleasing and easy to my ears( we didnt fiddle with chord Dave settings though). Im hoping that my Electro cdp will give the presentation Im looking for. Waiting for the Ref3 for 8 weeks is like eternity! In 2 weeks time hopefully they’ll be up and running.

Mac will answer for himself - but my thoughts would be:

- I would not pair the Refs with the M6i as imo it is not good enough....and Chord Dacs have always been too forward for my taste.

- Given carefully chosen components of similar quality, the treble should come across as refined and detailed.

- With your Electro/35i and cabling, I would really be surprised if they don't meet your expectation

- Compared to you Focals, I would expect them to be more resolving, less forward and thus more refined....and with much greater scale and impact.

- I didn't hear anything on Saturday that sounded in anyway hard, or metalic. The Refs sounded more "HiFi" than Harbeth....but almost every conventional speaker sounds more hifi than Harbeth. Mac, as a Harbeth owner of many years, will hopefully confirm.
 

iceman16

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CnoEvil said:
iceman16 said:
Thanks Mac for your excellent write up. I think both Harbeth and Refs are very good and its just a matter of ones music preference. Music source and system matching is also vital IME. When I demo the Ref3 with MF M6si / Bluesound node2 / Chord Dave dac I didnt quite like the presentation. It sounded a little metallic and there’s hardening in high freq. or I would say it’s too hifi for my taste. When the Dave was disconnected it sound more pleasing and easy to my ears( we didnt fiddle with chord Dave settings though). Im hoping that my Electro cdp will give the presentation Im looking for. Waiting for the Ref3 for 8 weeks is like eternity! In 2 weeks time hopefully they’ll be up and running.

Mac will answer for himself - but my thoughts would be:

- I would not pair the Refs with the M6i as imo it is not good enough....and Chord Dacs have always been too forward for my taste.

- Given carefully chosen components of similar quality, the treble should come across as refined and detailed.

- With your Electro/35i and cabling, I would really be surprised if they don't meet your expectation

- Compared to you Focals, I would expect them to be more resolving, less forward and thus more refined....and with much greater scale and impact.

- I didn't hear anything on Saturday that sounded in anyway hard, or metalic. The Refs sounded more "HiFi" than Harbeth....but almost every conventional speaker sounds more hifi than Harbeth. Mac, as a Harbeth owner of many years, will hopefully confirm.

Thanks Cno. When I first heard the Ref3 it reminds me of my previously owned LS50 but with more of everything. Like a floorstanding LS50 version if you know what I mean. The lack of distortion even when push hard and not sounding “boxy” at all.
 

CnoEvil

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Mac - A recommendation for you: Shpongle "Once upon the Sea of Blissful Awareness", from the Album "Tales of the Inexpressible".

It nicely mixes what you listen to and what I like, into one track. *dirol*

Oh...and turn it UP!!. *dance4*
 

Singslinger

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Hi Mac, it would be great to meet at some stage in the future - at 58 now, I'm semi-retired and hoping to chuck it all in by the time I'm 62.

Maybe then I'll make another trip to the UK and do the rounds, visiting old friends, including those in N. Ireland. Hopefully my hearing holds up !

Cno - have you found a suitable amp to pair with the 40.2s?
 

Macspur

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Singslinger said:
Hi Mac, it would be great to meet at some stage in the future - at 58 now, I'm semi-retired and hoping to chuck it all in by the time I'm 62.

Maybe then I'll make another trip to the UK and do the rounds, visiting old friends, including those in N. Ireland. Hopefully my hearing holds up !

Cno - have you found a suitable amp to pair with the 40.2s?

I look forward to it, be here before you know it.

I asked Cno about a new amp at the weekend, but I got the impression that it will be a wee while before it happens.

Mac

www.realmusicnet.wordpress.com
 

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