Audiocrack, your responses are very interesting, especially since you haven't even posted a system yourself. IMHO, that leads no credibility to you. Karelfd, at the time of my purchase of the MF headphone amp, it was supposedly the best available. ( Yes at a price of $450- but I see very little as how this has anything to do with it) According to the review that I read from ST this was the cats meow. I realize now that the price is probably commensurate with the quality but this wasn't taken into consideration at the time. I was obviously mistakenly under the impression that this headphone amp could compete with or maybe better the Stax or any other equipment due to my reliance on this review. I haven't heard the Stax pieces, so presumably they are as you say. If we had a bigger interest in headphone usage, we would probably look more into what really is better; just at this time, my husband and I don't. BTW, the Odins do dual duty with this usage and in my husband's system.
Bigamp, I'm using a Musical Fidelity X Can V3. Frankly, I think it is a piece of sh't. I bought it without having heard it first ( big mistake) and after reading the review by Sam Tellig in S'phile. All I can say is that IMHO Sam must be a little deaf (ok, maybe a LOT deaf) to recommend this thing. Mind you, I have heard other MF pieces and again IMHO they are all mid-fi at best. Moral of the story, from now on if I can't hear the piece under consideration, I'm simply NOT interested.
Now you boys have me a little confused, my husband reminded me that the ic from the Transport to the DAC is a Harmonic Tech ic. Do you want me to take a picture of it..:0)
Mu6, you are beginning to annoy me, I NEVER said that we used an Odin cable between the amp for the Supremes and the bass ( spelled bass and NOT base) tower...We don't. The Odin ic cable between the transport and the DAC works fine, maybe you should try one before you speak.( Did I say anywhere it was a digital cable?) BTW, This is my last reply to you, since I don't even know if you own a system.
Mu6 and Bvdiman, do you guys have a problem? We have ten pairs of Odin IC's...one pair from the tonearm to the phono pre-amp, one pair from the phono preamp to the preamp, one pair from the Dac to the transport,one pair from the pre-amp to the amp(s), one pair from the headphone amp to the DAC, one pair from the DAC to the pre-amp. In my husband's system,one pair from the SACD player to the pre-amp, one pair from preamp to the amp and one pair for the tonearm to pre-amp and lastly one pair from the CD player to the pre-amp. Are you going to ask me for pics of these also...:0)
Mu6 ,the speakers cables are a bi-wire pair with bi-wire ends that are suspended on ceramic cable elevators. The speaker cables are all 3 meter runs. The ic's are balanced runs of 2 meters each and all cables are Odin's. We have ten pair of Ic's. Please don't ask me what goes to where and from where..:0)
Sudesh, we listened to many combos of pre-amp and amp prior to going with the Edge amp and Boulder per-amp. We felt that the Boulder was better than any of the other pre-amps we heard particularly in its ability to portray inner-detail. It also was dead quiet and with the Edge amps everything is portrayed as it also has the ability to portray great detail.(as you have noted) Now we did not listen to any of the great tube pre-amps ( CAT, AR, EAR etc), because we did not think they would match up noise wise with the Edge. Alexsee, we opted for the Zanden phono stage and the Koetsu as I like a little warmth and felt that the rest of system would benefit in the front end from that, since it is all ss.
Rudevries, my husband and I felt that the Kharma's sounded best with tube amps. The Kharma's need a big amp to drive them and as I said before a big tube amp gives off too much heat for us. We were not able to hear these speaker systems in our home, so we had to visit various dealers and a couple of shows. It is true that we could not actually compare the speakers with the same front end equipment most of the time. We opted for the Coltranes because they seemed to have the ability to fill our big room well and were not lacking in any obvious area. Plus I liked the looks too ( a big thing for a woman..:) )
Rudolph, prior to deciding on the Coltrane Supremes we listened to Wilson Alexandria 2's, Cabasse Spheres ( Very impressive but not anything I wanted to live with), YG Anat Professionals, Kharma Grand Exquiste's ( nearly bought these but my husband didn't like their power requirements) and several others I cannot remember. As for the tonality with the Edge amps, I feel they match very well with the Martens. The Boulder amps sounded a little bright and hard whereas the Edge's were more subdued and IMHO more neutral. We did not listen to tubes as I am not keen on their heat output.
Rudolf, I've owned the Coltranes a few months now..They are certainly impressive; not sure that they are showing their full ability yet as I suspect the run-in process is not done yet. My husband's strads took nearly six months to run-in and they are supposed to be good from the factory, we definitely heard an improvement after six months though.
Alexsee, I did not feel that the Boulder amp was competetive with the Edge, The amp(s) from Boulder seemed to me to be a little 'Bright' with my speakers and oddly, the same applied to the Edge pre-amp. The Edge was very good but not as good as the Boulder pre-amp in its imaging abilities
Alexsee, the room is appx. 20' wide by 30' long with a 15' ceiling. My room is also acoustically isolated with dampeners beneath the floors which themselves sit on a reinforced concrete slab.
