Muy Bueno. Balanced out to Berkeley which also serves as volume control.
Berkeley Audio Design Alpha
Once I put the demo in my system, I new that I was sold. This one is worth its weight in gold and the only item that I have that I gladly paid retail price for.
Jeff Rowland 7M
These came from a very nice guy up the road in Austin.
Audio Physic Scorpio
Got these here. Beutiful. Want to add the center if I can ever find it used.
McIntosh men220
I know that room correction isn’t cool but this was fast, easy and super effective.
I took my berkeley dac to a friend's house to listen to it in his system with his x01 ltd as a transport. In the process, we a/b'd the esoteric unit alone, and as a transport to the berkeley. We did not control for all variables but the esoteric sounded so much better that I will be pulling the $ to pick one up just to try it in my system.
System edited: I think htat everything has turned over in the past 12 months except that I am commited to pursuing a competer based front end. Till my kids are old enough that I can get into records anyway...
ok guys. I really must be losing my mind. I moved the sorbothane pads that I had under my amps to under my pre and my dac. I really do think that I am hearing better leading edge definition. This is crazy. IF it is not all in my exceedingly suggestable imagination then why on earth would the engeneering folks at benchmark or jeff rowland do all of this work to create high quality product and then leave off such an inexpensive last touch??? It just seems absurd to me.
will not be the strangest thing that I have tried. Is there a cheap way to give it a try? I am not up to multi $$$ cryogenic quantum feet. (unless they work of course...) I guess that I could move the ones from the amps to the dac/pre.
Really? To be honest it sounds so much like voodoo to me that I never bothered. I really need to get new pictures up as well... Well, that is not really true. I did sorbothane pads under the nuforce amps. But I guess that I could try something under the Benchmark and the Capri s well.
I would echo Samhar's suggestion. Isolation and vibration control are many times overlooked and can be a relatively inexpensive upgrade with big time results. Lots of DIY isolation solutions out there also.
Hi, I can't tell for sure but from the pics it looks like you might get big results in clarity from a "small investment" in isolation devices under your components. BDR cones, sorbothane (sorbagel), Vibrapods etc..etc.
Good point. No, it didn't sound real to me. The experience was more of like watching a good magician and asking "hey- ho did you do that?" I really couldn't believe my ears. But it was more about the parlor trick and less about sound quality.
Hi musicfile. Im not sure that I got a deeper soundstage from the speaker change. But i did get a more complete rendition of what was recorded in terms of range. I never was happy with the integration of my sub. And I got a tweeter that is a little less forward than the b&w was. I found a couple of things that did add to soundstage depth. The first was moving my listening chair in closer - getting away from walls and eliminating the reflected sound and the second was experimenting with SACD and DVDA. I am guessing this is because somewhere in the greater information packedon to an sacd is more subtle detail about the room that the recording was made in that can give spatial cues. Not really sure yet. Still, the most startelling experience that I have ever had in terms of depth was at a dealer's who carried magnepan. He had a couple backed right up against a was and was playing some moderatly priced arcam electronics and my brain kept telling me that the sound was coming from 2 feet behing the back wall.
System edited: I replaced the 805s with audio physic scorpios after an audition roadtrip to austin where I was able to head guido c's first rate set up which was a great exterience and visit a few dealers (which was less great). I hope my wife never finds out how expensive this stuff is!
One of the biggest improvements for me in this department was bass traps behind the speakers. I had one behind each speaker initially and it was not enough. When I surreptitiously added a second trap behind each speaker, the depth exploded. I will say that many "pop" recordings are not recorded in such a way as to have depth.
Hard to tell exactly but I would pull those speakers out some more, at least 5 ft and make sure they are trianulated in a equlateral triangle or close to that anyway and toeing them in until the axis crosses just behind your head and see what happens. BTW, you room is kinda big for small stand mounted speakers but using a sub woofer or two (better) can really fill in the bottom end and flush out tonal response greatly, and it is a lot cheaper than buying full range floorstanders of similar quality. Also your walls a vary bare and reflections are going to reduce your potential for great depth of image.
The TV on the wall is not as big an issue as it might otherwise be if the speakers are out by five feet or so. The difference between the arrival of the direct signal and the reflected signal would be enuf to keep the direct signal fairly pure.
Good luck.........Oh, the obvious perhaps but if the speakers that far out is a WAF issue, you can always put a small mark on the carpet to ID the correct location and when not using the speaker for 2 channel listening you can just push them back toward the wall. One of the benefits of small stand mounted speakers.
I bet your system sounds great. I always liked the B&W sound. Owned 801's and N802's. I also like the class D amps and Jeff Rowland stuff. Check out Henry Ho's stuff if you are interested in ultimate class D. I think his website is iceh20audio or something like that. Search for H20 in the forum. Anyway I am rambling. BTW I am not a dealer or related to Henry. Just like his amps.
System edited: Got rid of the PS audio power products and power cords. just couldnt hear any difference. Added the Ayre player after demoing a few - cambrigde and esoteric sa-10. Liked the price/performance tradeoff of the used ayre the best. I am afraid that i am running at the limits of a very large listening space. I dont thin kthat there is more to be had unless I am willing to use a larger speaker. The room is 16x20 or so and the floor needs to be open. Might try and bring the 805s's to a smaller room and see what a floor stander would do in a space cthis large.
System edited: Just added the ps audio quinessence and extreem plus SC power cables. not Tweaks, but not sure where else to put them. Have not had time to A/B yet.
