You're looking at a different kind of "All Out Assault", this one based on utilizing a fuller expression of current excellent technology, as opposed to a limited expression of such. Some go for a cost-no-object expression of one technology. I have chosen to pursue a superb expression of different technologies. I have derived far more pleasure doing so than seeking one rig to satisfy my longings to hear beautiful systems.
Photos represent some of the speakers, components and cables I have reviewed over the years. I have spent time predominantly with four technologies in speakers; Full range hybrid dyanamic, Full range ESL, and Omnidirectional hybrid. I have branched out to horn hybrid as well.
I have moved to file and streaming playback exclusively utilizing Tidal and ROON. However, I maintain CD as backup source. I find a shocking disparity in performance of digital based systems.
This is a dedicated room, built by myself and tuned for two channel, but wired for 7.1 surround. I listen to 2 ch. audio approx. 95-98% of time. The surround and video compliment is not noteworthy, as a result. I upgrade them only every several years.
Source, amplification and speakers have all been reviewed and are highly recommended. The sound quality of the system is moving steadily toward SOTA.
Colibri is Avantgarde Acoustic's affordable brand of speakers. The C2 is a high performance compact (bookshelf) horn hybrid loudspeaker.
See my review of the Colibri C2 at Dagogo.com
The stock stands are quite low, so I obtained some 34" Sanus stands to raise the speakers, with superb results affecting the soundstage. The speakers are currently paired with my Perlisten D212s Subwoofers, which have also been reviewed for Dagogo.com
Legacy Audio Whisper DSW Clarity Edition
Bill Dudleston realized my concept of a fully configurable speaker able to be employed as both passive and active. The result is what I call a "crossover speaker," which can be configured; 1. Fully passive, with as little as one stereo amp and three sets of speaker cables; 2. Hybrid active/passive, using the Legacy processor for the bass and the Mid/Treble passive, and 3: Fully active, using six channels of outboard amplification.
The speaker has been retrofitted for a review of upgrade internal cabling and capacitors. The result is the Whisper DSW, which Bill Dudleston of Legacy measured a 2 dB improvement on the Bass!
PureAudioProject Trio15 PAP Horn 1
Wonderful two-way hybrid horn reviewed for Dagogo.com. I enjoy the flexibility of the speaker in the crossover and "internal" wiring. My special utilization of the speaker is in Landscape mode, the realization of a dream for an alternative sound which I have pursued for about five years. The Horn 1 in Landscape impressed the entire audio group of which I am a member; they all placed it among the very best systems I have made. It truly is a stunning application of an affordable speaker with high end sensibility.
Alternative application of using Sound Anchor custom stands to hold speakers sideways. This results in a far wider soundstage superlative for live music recordings. Note that the orientation of the horn of the Horn 1 speaker is normally horizontal, so the Landscape mode/application results in the speaker's horn turned vertical, similar to large horn speakers such as the Volti Audio Alura.
PureAudioProject Quintet15 Horn1
Largest of PureAudioProject (PAP) offerings, this one outfitted with the horn driver. Features upgradable crossover components (cap, resistor) and "internal" wiring.
This speaker is especially beautiful sounding with the Legacy Audio i.V4 Ultra Amplifier. Both products reviewed for Dagogo.com
King Sound King III
The King III is a full range ESL with a performance which takes back seat to no magnetic planar speakers. With subwoofers they are a formidable ESL experience.
Kings Audio Kingsound King Tower
Omnidirectional hybrid dynamic/ribbon speaker system not available in N. America. and perhaps entirely disconintued by Kings Audio. Added to my collection as an expression of Omnidirectional speaker technology.
Aspen Acoustics Grand Aspen Speaker
Continuing development of Scott Kindt's DLT (Disproportionately Large Tweeter; my term) designs. The Grand Aspen is the new flagship, extension of the Capella (previously called the Lagrange L5 MkII, seen below).
The Grand Aspen is a six-way speaker with built in active, oppositional, slot loaded subwoofer. I will be giving this speaker an owner's review to appear at Dagogo.com
Aspen Acoustics Capella Speaker
Craft speaker made by a Colorado physics teacher. This is the pre-production model. Uses what I term the unique DLT (Disproportionately Large Tweeter) configuration. It has the punch of a dynamic speaker with the generosity of a panel speaker.
A more formidable model, the Grand Aspen, is under construction and will be replacing the pair of Capella speakers in my possession. The Grand Aspen features an enhanced DLT array, as seen on the Aspen Acoustics website.
See review of smaller model, L5 MkII at Dagogo.com
Perlisten D212s Subwoofers
Pair of Perlisten Audio D212s Subwoofers as reviewed by myself for Dagogo.com
I enjoyed the Legacy Audio XTREME XD Subs for ten years. Perlisten incorporates room correction in the subs, allowing me to maximize different genres of speakers used in reviewing. These are impressive devices.
Exogal Comet DAC and Ion PowerDAC
This is an unusual combination of a DAC (Comet) with an additional complementary extended DAC with integrated true digital amp (Ion). Together, they include everything needed in the front end of a system except for the source. The Comet can stand alone, but the Ion is dependent upon the Comet, it cannot be used separately.
This combination is thrilling in its performance to cost ratio. One of the most outstanding products I have reviewed in ten years! The digital amplification is especially notable for its ability at 100wpc to drive more difficult speakers to listening levels of about 88-90dB.
Eastern Electric Minimax DSD DAC Supreme
Latest EE DAC featuring DSD and continues to offer opportunity to roll in discrete opamps. Allows contouring system to any selection of components.
Discrete Opamps Staccato, Burson, Sonic Imagery, Sparkos Lab
Discrete opamps rolled into Eastern Electric Minimax DACs and Kinki Studio EX-M1+ Integrated Amplifier
Iconoclast Cables and BAV Power Cords Iconoclast/Belden
Current reference cable line. See review at Dagogo.com
Owned/Reviewed Spkr Cables Various
Have owned: Audioquest, Harmonic Technology, XLO, etc; Reviewed cables for Dagogo.com include: Iconoclast, TEO Audio, Clarity Cable, Silnote Audio, Snake River Audio, Wire World. etc.
Outlaw 950 Surround Processor
Has nice variety of surround settings, 2 component in, plenty of other inputs... Only thing I wished it did was to convert s video to component.
Rotel RB-976
A lovely little workhorse amp! Configurable from 3-6 channels; a wonderful flexibility for surround applications.
Magnepan MGM W
Very affordable planars for surround. They only play down to about 100khz, but acceptable for surround. Awesome feature - they can be mounted upside down (will sound the same) to accomodate wiring near top of room.
Legacy Audio Silver Screen
Black piano finish; complementary driver set to Focus HD; dual 7" bass, 4" planar mid, 1" tweet
Tice Audio Solo/Solo High Current
I'm using two Solos, and one is High Current for power amps. Gotta have someting like this to open up the system's sound...but price might be a bit steep for some people. I will accept an offer of $1,000,000.00 though.
Furutech GTX-D (G)
Audiophile grade outlet featuring copper internals and gold plated sockets for power cord pins
Plateau AV 42
Wonderfully solid, black for AV use. Affordable. Nice to have on casters when you have to move it.
Panasonic PTL-500U
Upgrade from PTL-330U; this unit has high def capabilities.
Auralex Propannel 2x4'
Room tuning sound absorbing pannels. Made a shockingly huge difference in my two channel listening! Some of best audio $ I ever spent!
The only cables from Silnote not covered in the review which I have heard were at the latest AXPONA show. They have a new line featuring more silver conductors, and it was even more rich than last year, with greater finesse. Mark is doing a good job of capturing the detail afforded by silver, but without the thinness of so many silver and silver OFC cables.
Thank you again Doug....always enjoy your writing style and dedication laying down your experiences and what you see and hear! I'd be interested in more comments on your SILNOTE related experiences. They seem to have a lot of models and I'm wondering which ones you've heard in-depth and could share (here or email) particularly regarding Analog ICs...
Zephyr, thanks, I am not paid to attend shows or write reviews and show reports, and it's time away from other pursuits, but I figure people will enjoy the write up. Of course, I wouldn't attend if I didn't think I would come away with a list of superior electronics to pursue. :)
This is it, people; the Platinum Age of Audio! No doubt, systems can be put together that folks 40-50 years ago couldn't have imagined. File playback is MONSTER in it's ability to transform rigs. Get the right software, pre/DAC and amp, and you can blow the doors off the traditional system.
Zephyr, good comments, thanks! How deeply I enter the SET pool depends upon a couple things, including an upcoming review of speakers. If that goes as well or better than expected, then I might push more deeply into that type of amplification.
Sure, give me a call; I will enjoy hearing about your developments.
Good Morning Doug! I am interested in Legacy at the show reports of course (have heard the Vs twice, most recently 2 weeks ago at Legacy in a non-show environment). I'm just as interested though in reports on alot of other equipment at the show as the list was very long w.r.t. number of rooms, equipment offered, etc...and there is a slim fraction of info available, pictures, etc....on various pub sites, none on many others that did attend the show which is a bit mystifying. I had to be out of the country on business starting that weekend so I was not able to attend. Looking forward to your various reports!
I was thinking intently about making the switch to tubes a short while ago as there are several offerings out that which do a great job in SET as well as pentode mode with good levels of higher power. I was set to pull the trigger on demo'ing Ayon or VAC or VTL or Manley or NAT given some great advice I received from many members here however in the end, it came down to the honestly of a distributor of one of those product lines who knows my speakers and others from Legacy very well and advice from Legacy saying the best performance I could get out of the AERIS, and some day the V or Whispers would be from great solid state amp (Maker, AVM 8.2, etc...) so I returned to my home-state with SS and Tom Maker's offerings; I'm so glad that I did as the new Maker Audio NL14 Stereo (I have the 1st one in N.America) is beyond words in the improvements it offers over the NL12.1 that I know, love and owned for many years. I'm very happy I stayed SS so that I could experience what this amp has to offer; it has all the punch of SS and dynamics' related finesse as well as muscle with tube-like harmonics and other attributes that I will not do without. You may want to grab of these amps for a review, or the NL14+ Monos (or the upper-line pyramid REF amps in mono or stereo and give them a listen.
All that aside, if you are going to chase SET for a while, there are a few that are very interesting to me from the upper line AYON non-integrated line as well as the big NAT Emiiters and the new Magma that seem to have SS-level punching power while still SET with a rather unique approach/choice of tubes and ability to also run in pentode mode. Let's talk on email/phone for more particulars of what I've tracked down.....
Zephyr, good to hear from you; I assume you have an interest in the Legacy V speaker shown at AXPONA. I will have comment on it, as with many others. I have one show report part done and another coming soon. I found plenty of interesting things at the show to report on.
I thoroughly enjoyed the show, and I reached many rooms. I had wonderful conversations with attendees and reps. Many of the rooms were difficult with ventilation noise at a pretty high level. One had to listen past it. Other than that the venue was good.
Meanwhile, I'm returning to a SET amp for another go-round. It's been a while since I worked with them and my last impression of them was that they were lovely in terms of tonality and clarity, but not terrific in terms of weight. So, we'll see what happens this time.
Good Morning Doug! When will Dagogo be posting their Axpona 2015 coverage (nothing is up as yet)? In general, looking over all the show coverage, there is precious little out there in terms of deep/real show coverage for most of the equipment out there; hoping Dagogo will be posting more.....have a great weekend!
Having a grand time currently attempting to turn the Kingsound King III ESL into a high efficiency speaker! While this is not possible in principle due to the design of the ESL, it is possible to experience the panel equivalent when you push massive amounts of current and wattage through the speakers and use the clean TEO Liquid Pre passive in the chain.
I'm running the Pass X600.5 Monos with the King III and have the TEO turned nearly full on, only one detent away from complete pass through. I am using the iPad's volume control for level selection. I would open the Liquid Pre up full throttle, but there is some electronic hum which becomes quite noticeable when open full. Only one step down halves the hum, which I'm not sure if it comes from the wall, Mac Mini, monitor associated or EE Minimax DAC Supreme. Regardless, when pushing this much power through the King III it wakes up brilliantly.
The Legacy Audio XTREME HD subs also love the power associated with the full throttle setting of the TEO Liquid Pre, as they become monsters, pulsing out huge LF. I have to keep them toned down to prevent ceiling tiles from rattling. :) I'm pleased by the seamless integration of the subs with the ESL speakers, no small credit given to the 6.1MHz up sampling of the HQPlayer software incorporated recently. The system quality of any rig I build has stepped up nicely due to the HQPlayer software, one of the most fabulous improvements I have ever done for the money, as it cost only $137, and has turned the discrete opamp-enhanced EE Minmax DAC Supreme into a far more capable DAC, which is now running better than 4xDSD. The ease of the sound is remarkable, the listenability at elevated levels is greatly enhanced. Older recordings are truly beautiful, not just tolerable. This is a realization of my principle that with a superior system all recordings, even older ones are ever more pleasing to the ear.
See my reviews of components mentioned here at Dagogo.com
My article regarding the Eastern Electric Minimax Tube DAC Supreme and DAC Junior is now published. Tremendous fun discrete opamp rolling the Supreme!
But the really incredible news is the radically upgraded digital from using the fabulous HQPlayer software for Mac with my stock Mac Mini! As you can read in the article, simply putting this software on my stock Mac Mini resulted in matching the sound quality of a dedicated two tower PC source running J-River and HQPlayer! The witnesses were incredulous that my humble Mac could do such a thing!
I'm supposed to be reviewing servers soon, and they had better be pretty incredible, because the HQPlayer software does a bang up job of converting PCM to double DSD! Hats off to Jussi Laako, the one man show at Signalyst, the maker of HQPlayer! If he can update the interface to make it more streamlined, this will be a breathtaking product!
Eugene2, yes, I think you have moved in a very upscale direction with the Vapor speakers. (Necessary disclosure; I reviewed the Nimbus White, and own it). By the time you put all that into the Swans, you would be better off going the route you did - good move.
They were close to being a very good speaker, I had intention of upgrading the crossover with better caps, coils and internal wiring. They also sound better with the powered subwoofer disconnected and just using the eight mids and eight ribbons as a line source (after tightening all the screws). Imaging was very good for such a large speaker. I sold them to fund the Vapor's. I felt the design was incomplete. On another note Mike from Verastarr told me he wouldn't mind sending you one of his USB cables to compare
Eugene2, I was looking at your system's previous components and saw the Swan speakers. I had a chance to hear them at CES one year, but came away ambivalent. Did you ever build the system with the Swan speakers? What was your impression of them? A vastly different presentation than the Vapor.
Shunyata Python, PS Audio, Nordost Brahma were some of the cords I used, I also had a couple of Elrod cables. I met Mike from Verastarr at CES and really like his series two signature stuff. Also the ZenWave power conditioner seems to make a solid difference in noise reduction Albert Von Schweikert recommended it thats why I tried it out.
Eugene2, sounds like you are quite serious about pursuit of excellence in systems and obtaining a euphoric listening experience!
Please fill me in if you get to compare the Clarity USB to others. I also would like to know how your experience with the Odyssey mono amps goes.
I have a Nuforce little integrated in my living room, which doesn't see much action. Just something for playing Rhapsody through Sonos. I took it down to the big rig once to see where it stood, and as expected, reasonable but not Giant Killer sound. At the price it would be sensational if it did outperform separates; not likely.
What were you using in terms of power cables prior to the Verastarr?
This is such a great and informative blog, and Dagogo has become one of my favorite reads. I am very interested in trying the Clarity USB and Paul Pangs USB, they both seem to be getting some very good reviews lately. It will be interesting to see how they fare against the very good Verastarr USB I have been testing. My system continues to evolve I am waiting for two new components to arrive my Antipodes DX and my upgraded Odyssey Audio Kismet pre and mono amps. I also added a ZenWave Surge X and some Nordost Quantum QK 1 and QV2 devices. I upgraded my power cables to Verastarr silver foil and it has made a vast difference. I have used a Nuforce IDA 16 integrated to burn in my Vapor Audio speakers i was told the Dueland caps have a long break in period. So when everything is in should be a special night. The Nuforce is very clean but very clinical and thin sounding to my ears. We'll see...
Hi Doug, I will be interested to hear more about the software you have applied to your mini. I may hang on to my Mojo mini for awhile, so I can try what you discovered and compare directly to the Antipodes DX.
Roscoeiii, wow, that's a world away from your original goal! However, I understand the ebb and flow of moving through different permutations of systems over the years. A person can end up quite far from where they thought they were headed - and be very happy. I used to flip back and forth between panel and dynamic speakers, and I recall how happy I was when I found the Eminent Technology LFT-8 speakers, which seemed to combine the benefits of both. I get it when a combination you weren't looking for strikes the ear pleasantly. :)
Enjoying following your system's progress Doug. Always educational. Yes, for speakers I went for a great price on a pair of SP Tech Revelations around Thanksgiving, when I realized I needed to put off my Vapor aspirations for a while. Then I started reading a DEQX thread, and voila a great deal came up on a HDP-4. Best my system has ever sounded with these two in the chain.
Roscoeiii, good to hear from you. I thought you were going to put your money on speakers. Did you change your mind?
Mitch2, I'm hoping to hear the Antipodes at some time. My experience from a few days ago suggests the proper software "server-ized" my stock Mac Mini, as the DAC is now operating in dual DSD (5.6 MHz). Not to say that its as good as all servers, but it matched one directly compared, dedicated two tower PC server running J-River. That makes a person think.
Doug, Nice system. You have obviously invested a lot of effort and your experience to create an excellent system that gives you the sound attributes you enjoy. I was going to ask if you have tried any dedicated audio servers but then I saw your responses to Eugene2 above. Like Eugene, I have recently switched to an Antipodes (DX) server. My former source was a Mojo Audio Mac mini with all the bells and whistles such as linear PS, SSD, outboard AV drive (also powered by ythe linear PS) and the Atomic platform. That mini sounded great but the Antipodes sounds just a bit better and is so easy to operate. We could use more reviews directly comparing servers to each other. It seems the reviewers are more focused on reviewing DACs than on the source that sends the files to the DAC. The reviews of servers that are out there rarely mention direct comparisons with other servers, although they sometimes compare the reviewed server with a fairly basic basic Mac mini, but not a tricked out dedicated mini server with linear PS and other key upgrades. Back when we all had CD players, it seemed there were endless comparative reviews but now that our sources are servers, the reviewers have not yet provided a resource for comparisons.
Agreed that there are some amazing things being done in the digital domain that really impact the sound. Just got a DEQX HDP-4 and wow does that offer some amazing digital capabilities to overcome the physical limitations of speakers.
Marqmike, there is an amazing rate of change happening in digital playback in the past few years, not just with the gear, but with software, too. It's stunning how good file PCM (Redbook) playback has become, as well as the price to obtain it falling to extremely affordable levels - if one knows where to look. You definitely need to watch for that review, because it may answer some of your questions regarding the gear.
