Recently remodeled the room. Added a dedicated 20amp service for the electronics. I also buried the HDMI, surround speaker wire and electrical in the ceiling for additional lighting. The screen floats 12" from the wall and is backlit with blue LED rope lighting. I also found a set of NOS Sony tubes and replaced them myself. This will hold me over for a year or so while more 4k content becomes available. The this projector will be replaced by a 4k digital pj. Any comments welcome.
Thank you for the kind thoughts... I'm glad to hear the 800 is settling into the system well. I think you'll hear more start to emerge after it gets to 300 and over. I think we are on a similar path as I've hit a point where I'm sitting back and enjoying the music (when time allows) much more than obsessing over the system and changing it. Happy listening!
Thats really tough. My condolences to you and your family. I hope your father didn't suffer needlessly. I am at the point where I am not geeking too hard and I am just listening more. I have to say that the 800 has revived me into wanting to file through more of my music and get reaquainted with it. But I have also been without music for over a year so some of that is understandable. I have been running it around the clock for the past week and a half or so and I have approximately 200+ hours on it (I face my Revels together then throw two sleeping bags over them to muffle the sound). The change is noticeable. Relaxed would be a good description as it first seemed a tad sterile. It will stay in my system for a long time. I'm likely going to send the CDT-300 back as the differences that I'm hearing between it and the Oppo don't justify the extra money, and it can be used better somewhere else in my system. I still have a little time before I cannot return it so I will use that time. Who knows. I am on the hunt for a Voice now. Of course when I'm ready they aren't to be found. Go figure. One will turn up some time. I'm not hurting and can wait. Hang in there. Losing a parent is really tough. I lost my Mom 3 years ago and it takes time. I don't think the ache will ever go away but time will take some of the edges off. Happy listening.
Sorry for the delay in responding; work and a death in the family (my father) have taken me off the boards for a while. How do you like it? I am not contemplating any cross-grades or upgrades...I am extremely happy with where things stand and am focusing on just enjoying the music now that some time to do dedicated listening has returned!
I agree. The break in period on other components have their merit so i wouldn't think that Classe gear is any different. I look forward to the "additional subtleties". Good input about the analog and digital side getting hours on them. There is certain music that i like to listen to in analog. I have found that there is some significant improvement to the Oppo BD83SE I have. It is not a bad transport and at times I like it better than the CDT-300. I still haven't formed and opinion till everything is broken in properly. Whats new on your side? Any upgrades desired or forth-coming or are you happy where your at?
Classe is a step above most if not all companies in how they deal with customers and help you protect your investment. The 300 hour break-in time on my SSP-600 and CP-700 pre-amp is definitely accurate. Between 300 and 500 additional subtleties come out as well. The trick with the 800 (or 600) is to ensure that you break it in on the HT/digital-analog side as well as spend a bit of time breaking it in on balanced bypass (I found this for best results). There is overlap however I found this worked best with the 600.
Thats very cool. Its nice to know that your investment doesn't stop maturing as soon as you open the box. Makes you feel better about spending the $$. The SSP-800 thread on AVS reports the same thing that Classe was, and still is very responsive to the users requests. They have worked through the growing pains for the 800 and have almost eliminated the bugs in the firmware. The sonics on the 800 have improved over the 600 with a more detailed presentation and a deep and wider soundstage. The most notable improvements are in the upper frequencies, especially with leading edge transients, attack, and decay. Cymbals sound more fleshed out and present, and the air around the instrument has improved as well. I also noted some improvements in the midrange. I'm trying to get a better handle on what is going on there. With BD material its crazy good. Even DVD-A has benefitted. Granted some these improvements are subtle (except the hi-freq info-it jumps out at you right away) and the unit is far from being broke in (Classe says 300 hrs) but i feel good about the purchase. The CDT-300 I don't feel as positive about. I need to get more time on it but i did an A/B comparison with the Oppo BD-83 and on some stuff i couldn't tell much of a difference. My feeling is that if you have the 800 doing the processing and the source is used as a transport only you will get good results with a variety of units. I'll report back in a while to see if that still stands. If it does i would rather use that money somewhere else in my system than on a transport.
I did a lot of testing and reporting back of results with the firmware in the 600 for Classe; they were extremely responsive when it came to fixing bugs. I'm sure they'll deal with anything in the 800 in the same manner. They are great to deal with!
Yes i discovered the PEQ, much to my enjoyment. Like your experience with Auto room EQ, the 600 results varied to the point that i had little confidence that the process did more good than harm. I have been spending an hour or so the last three nights getting my other components setup and level matched and have started the process of tweaking the PEQ. I did some speaker cabinet design concepts for Bob Hodas a year or so ago for free, hoping that he would tune my room for me. I haven't had a stable setup until now to take advantage of that yet but i'm getting close. Once the Voice is in my system (a few more months) then i'll be contacting him. He did one of the first 800's a year and a half ago and had some issues with the firmware. Classe has made a lot of improvements since then so i'm curious from his perspective how good are those improvements are or aren't. He likes to stay in the analog realm and use Meyers EQs but I don't want to go that route, namely for the added cost (i would need two EQs as they are only stereo to get the 3 front speakers then the surrounds would be left out). Having the 800 wouldn't make the same since at that point.
Classe still provides five band parametric EQ on each of the ten channels of the SSP-800 with microphone-based measurement, etc... Perhaps things have changed in the last year or so but I never found any unit that automatically EQ'ed a room correctly and consistently when run back to back. I always found that I had to manually adjust things anyway. What I can tell you is that the pre- and post-processing in the Classe Surround Processors I've used has been first rate and sonically, I've not run across anything at lower or higher price points that I've like better. Take this with a grain of salt as personal opinion of course as this stuff is all very subjective!
Good input Zephyr. I'll check out the Lumagen product. I got the 2 units last Friday and have only had time to look at them. Setup will happen in the next day or so. I found out that Classe did away with room EQ on the 800. Not sure how i feel about that. I guess i'll find out.
It's great to hear that the gods are smiling on you. I loved my SSP-600 for so many reasons. If I was still doing HT, I would without a doubt have an SSP-800 in this system for all its latest improvements in the DAC output stages, etc. etc....For an external scaler, without a doubt i would point you towards a Lumagen Radiance processor (for HDMI 1.1 and later compatibility). I've had a VisionHDQ for years (I convert HDMI video to DVI-D as I prefer it) and the scaling, configuration capability and ability to calibrate every aspect of video performance is second to none.
Well, the Gods are smiling on me. My quest to get the SSP-800 in my system just became a reality. And a bonus is that the CDT-300 is coming with it! I talked to Dave Nauber at Classe and he convinced me that the CDT-300 is a better option than the CDP-502 with the SSP-800. It turns out that the CDP-502 has the same board as the CDP-202 CD player and it doesn't support HDMI audio. Deal breaker. I know i should get the Voice first but this deal came down and i couldn't say no. So i'll be saving again and looking for a Voice in good condition in the future as i know the benefits of that addition. I'll report back once i get the Classe gear setup and give you my humble opinion. If the 800 scalar abiltie suffer then i'll consider an outboard scalar. Any suggestions?
I guess i should look into that option. Thanks for the suggestion, There may be a Classe SSP-800 on the horizon. We'll see how the finaces work out. I have heard my friends Revel setup and i agree with you Timm that the Voice will make a huge improvement. Thats actually what i should get before i do anything else as it will make a big jump for my Studios.
I agree with Zephyr - a scaler would do you right. I have listened to the difference between normal and lossless decoding on my Revel Ultima system - there is a subtle difference, but not enough to overhaul the system in my opinion. The alternative would be to buy a blu ray player that will do this decoding for you and allow the signal to flow to your preamp's inputs. I did this with my Lexicon MC-12B. The Voice will make a HUGE difference over your C30, and so will your proposed projector choices. Very nice system!
Thank you very much! If you want those decoding options then the SSP-800 is the way to go. I believe I just saw a write-up in TAS in which all the SSP-800's attributes were covered in very good detail. Happy listening!
Not a bad suggestion. That would work. The only issue is at some point i'm going to want the ability to decode True HD sound from Blu ray and the 600 isn't going to do that for me. I like your setup, BTW.
You could consider keeping the SSP-600 and investing in a killer scaler (Lumagen Vision HDQ or there new one that does HDMI...). If you have the funds for the SSP-800 on the other hand I've heard it is a killer unit.
