I have not updated this in more than a year. Finally sold the Sarastro 2s to a friend. The Sarastros were not a good match to my room. The rear firing config. excited the longitudinal mode significantly. They have some non-linearities that I cannot effectively compensate for given my room limitations. This is not to the speaker's fault as they sound much better at my friend's larger listening space. To say the speakers are too big for the room would only be partial truth.
This is not due to lack of effort. I went thru acoustic consulting with Rives and then local expert Bob Hodus. Read up on Handbook of Room Acoustics and Sound reproduction. After the consultations, I did a lot of experiments to improve the room acoustics. Rm is 22'x14' x 10'. Dimensions are not bad but one side wall has windows occupying >2/3 of surface area. There are also a door & a fire place along the mid axis of the room, two walls were interior walls which are less robust in bass reinforcement. Room is at mid level with living space above and below. Previously, after reading the Get better sound book, I had settled for a listening location at 4ft from backwall. This allowed for boundary bass boost which overcame a bass cancellation problem (mid axis, quater wavelength listener to boundary) at 35-40hz. However, primary length mode at 25hz (7db) muddled up the sound. Despite treating the rearwall, the comb filtering effect from the rearwall markedly reduced transpancy and smoothness.
Rives Audio: I went with level 2 consultation and also bought the room measuring kit to allow for repeated measurements along the way. I was quite weary of the actual translation of mathematical modeling into the field. Richard was very helpful in educating me to use ETF and BARE. He was excellent in recommending RPG products, different type of curtains, blinds for different applications. Rives also had all the contruction methods for bass traps and diffusors. Although I preferred the looks of built in traps and diffusors, I went the way of RPG and GIK. My friends had ripped out acoustic constructions that they didn't like and that's just too painful for my wife. Room tuning is complex and requires much trial and error. Base of my previous experiences, I was also worried about resonances of wood diffusors (ceiling and sidewalls). Rives ultimately set the listening location at 9ft from the rear wall. The result was much improved clarity and smoothness along with reduction of room modes. The suckout at 35-40hz is still present but reduced in bandwidth and severity. Richards felt that is acceptable in my case as there is smoothing in human hearing. Bass was flat on psychoacoustic curve on BARE. (I thought this has something to do with combination of gating and smoothing. I could produce a similar curve on Fuzzmeasure when I played with smoothing and gating time.) Rives also had even handed approach in balancing RT 60, freq response, absorption and diffusion.
Bob Hodus: I seeked the help of local expert Bod Hodus in hope of eliminating the suckout entirely and also to provide a second opinion before engaging in a sofit / ceiling construction proposed by Rives. Bob was a pleasure to work with and very willing to educate. His approach was entirely hands on. He focus mainly on frequency response curve and uses absorption mostly. Using continuous test sweep, we went thru inumerable listening locations, reconfiguration of bass traps and speaker locations. At the end of the day, he got rid of the suckout entirely, low bass 20-40hz was linear without boost or suckouts. It is done by sitting 12 ft from the rear wall. THat left me with only 10ft betw me and the front wall, not a lot of room to position the rear firing Sarastros. I was excited with the new result and invited listening group over. All felt low bass was excellent but trade off was made in clarity of midrange as speakers are too close to the wall.
I thought about this for a while and kept rereading the Handbook of Room Acoustics. "Bass is best thought of as waves or pressure zones and high frequencies are more similar to light rays (hence the term specular reflection)." Although my room is symmetric in dimension, the asymmetric construction allowed for the most even bass pressure distribution at the 12 ft point. What if I were to set up the speakers along the opposite wall and check if bass linearity persist at the same spot. Sure enough, the bass alignment remained the same and I got 12ft betw me and my new front wall. This allowed for more room for the speakers to breath. It also prompted me to choose a speaker with no rear wiring port/woofers. I went with the Isis after auditioning Rockport, YG, Magico. I am quite happy with my third pair of Avalons.
After the bass foundation was set, I proceeded to adorn all surfaces and experimented with a few tweaks.
Frontal wall: Tried RPG skylines, hemifusors, abfusors, wood constructed diffusors, BAD Arcs. The wood constructed diffusors were the worst. They diffused effective but they also sounded. THere was marked resonace in 150-200hz range measurable on both Fuzzmeasure and ETF. Subjectively, they were like adding more speakers in the room. They enriched the wood tone during playback. With more of them, the main speakers disappeared as more of these diffusors made sound. This was pleasing for a short while. I think there are marketed room tweaks that work on similar effect. They extend the midrange resonance to balance out the slap echo in the highs and bass boom in many untreated room. The 7inch skylines were very good and produced smooth midrange and treble (largest effective bandwidth). They brought a lot of focus to the center stage if you put them in the center (suggested by Rives). I almost installed them permanently until I played the XLO test disc. It consisted of Bill Johnson walking around the room while percussing a gong. With skylines at the center, he could not walk away from the center but he could walked far away to the side. THe extruding blocks of the skylines were actually vibrating during playback. It was ruining the subtle spatial clues need for proper localization. I suspect the effect would be less if I was further away from the front wall. The hemifusors were better in this regard as there are no extruded blocks to vibrate. The BAD ARCs were the best as they were combination tools (absorb + diffuse). The soundstage was the most organized and yet able to portray variations in depths. Abfusors were almost as good but why pay more for the same thing. I later constructed a dome with 3 to 4 BAD ARC panels of varying curvature and width to be placed at the center. This dome pushed the centerstage forward and increased focus ( effect can be modified by changing width and curvature). I could see why so many rooms have this. This did not work for me as I was quite close to the speakers (8 ft). I ended up with three panels evenly spread out in front.
Sidewall: Tried aborption panels first. They decreased reflections and created more focused but smaller soundstage in comparison to the diffusors. They decreased the amplitude of the reflections as seen on the ETF impulse response but the reflections were still very focused in the time domain. With combo tools like BAD ARCs, the reflections were decreased in amplitude and also spreaded out over time. It tricked the ears into thinking the boundaries were farther away. Not treating the first reflection point of the ipsilateral speaker created a wide soundstage in a different way. The sound source appeared wider but price was paid on impulse response and soundstage specifity. Treating the 1st reflection of the contralateral speaker was just as important as the ipsilateral reflection point. The crosstalk was reduced. ie, the left ear heard less of the right speaker.
Backwall: I used a few RPG skylines to great effect. The slight resonance is no longer an issue as they are behind me and ten feet away. Later, I tried 5 columns of Ikea expedit shelfs positioned in at an angle. This worked even better with better bandwidth. Depth was increased to 12inch and area of coverage was increased. I had two very narrow band suckout(less than one sixth octave) from only the left speaker at 50 Hz and 110Hz. These completely disappeared after installing the Ikea shelfs. Only part of each shelf was filled with a mix of cds and LPs to maximize the diffusive effects. One drawback, they increased midbass reverb at 60-80hz via combination of blocking the fire place, altering overall room acoustics and there own resonances. I had to increase bass traps at the corner.
Ceilling: Very important yet frequently overlooked area. Before treating the ceiling, the soundstage would rise when orchestra went full tilt (Similar effect to broadening of sound source). Hemifusors and skylines were similar in effect. When they fell off, hemifusors survived much better as there were no extruded blocks to be broken. One of my more embarressing moments when hosting. Lucky it did not land near the tonearm during play. I had considered doing suspended wood panels or maybe acrylic panels. After having the Expedit shelfs increased bass reverbs, I am not going that route on the ceiling. Just imagine if a wood panel came loose from the ceiling.
Bringing it together: All these traps, diffusers, combo tools are used to optimize soundstage, impulse response and frequency response. They frequent have unintended effect on reverb at a particular bandwidth. The soft diffusors were great as they did not make sound of their own. However, they markedly curtailed the high frequencies (>10khz) reverbs as they increased soft surface area of the room significantly. Large hard surface adds resonance of their own and alter room acoustics. Attention needs to be paid to maintain RT60 in an even handed manner. This is at least as important as freq response curve. As the RT60 trends down for a higher resolution sound, it is very easy to kill the high frequencies and quite difficult to bring down mid and low bass reverb.. At one point, my system sounded lean in bass. I had five large removable wood panels installed to block off all windows in the room and installed a 2 inch solid wood door with soundproofing. Surprising, the amplitudes of the room modes and bass alignment are not significantly different but the RT 60 at the bass 40-80hz were drastically prolonged. The noise floor of the room dropped to 40 db but it was like a tomb. The bass was muddy and standing waves were very problematic. In this exercise, I learnt that at least in my situation, the room dimensions governed the amplitude and freq. of the modal response but the degree of reverb is largely controlled by the structure. It is very hard to paaively trap mid and low bass reverb (
I am sure my experiments and observations are flawed. Feel free to point out any deficiencies so I can learn and benefit.
Speakers previously owned: B&W 805, JM lab Diva BE, Avalon Opus Ceramique, Thiels, Harbeths, Quad 2805, Avalon Diamond, Verity Sarastro 2
Amps previously owned: Boulder 1060, Vac phi 300.1, Jadis DA88S, Pass lab X350.5, Naim 250.2, ASL 1009 and ASL hurricane, Mcintosh 275.... etc. Heard in my sytem: ML432, Lamm M2.2, etc/
Preamp previously owned: ARC Ref3, Ref 5, BAt 51se, Naim 282. Heard in my system:,Shindo, Halcro
Previous Phono: AYre px5e; ARC PH7, ASR exclusive 2010. Heard in my system: Lamm, Nagra VPS, Shindo, Halco, Allnic
Previous carts: Zyx Universe, airy; My Sonic lab ultraeminent, airtight PC1. Heard in my system: Goldfinger, PC1 supreme
Previous tonearm: Graham 2.2, Davinci 12", triplanar 7
Previous tables: SME 20/2; Avid Acutus
Here is my opinion and preference about different carts that have gone thru my system. Just opinions and I am no expert. My preference is limited by my ability to setup (sub)optimally and by phonostage matching.
My preference in carts have changed and current favourites are Lyra titan i and dyna v1T.
Zyx Universe: Very refined and detailed but not enough macrodynamics and bass.
Airtight PC1/Supreme: Most amount of bass. A little on the warm side. Played well on all three arms, worked well with tube + ss phono. Sounds good with many different loading. Lacked a little detail and refinement comparing to other top carts. The supreme is slightly more refined comparing to the regular PC1. Slow transients.
My Sonic Lab Ultraeminent: This used to be my favourite cart.. More detailed and energetic than the Airtight line up. Quantity of bass is less but quicker. Excellent bass power carried into the decay. Transient attack is not as fast as XV1T or Titan I and perhaps not as open sounding. In combination with the Davinci, it conveys the most ambient info and float the soundstage best.
Dynavector XV1T: I think this is the most neutral cart.. Faster transient attack than MSL/AT and more open sounding. Bass is impactful with less energy in the decay. I like this one on the phantom best. On the Davinci, the midrange is marginally richer (maybe wood wand) but the lightening transient and focus were attenuated.
Titan I: My number one cart after finding an excellent match with DV 507 arm. Fast and open like the XV1T (both stiff body contruction) but with even better grip on the Bass. The transient changes on double bass is very well portrayed from the attack to the decay. It portrayed wide tonal and macrodynamic contrast and make the performance very exciting. More focused and controlled than PC1. To my surprise, I never find it bright when properly adjusted. In terms of setup, the window of optimal performance may be small but not too hard to arrive at. You know when u get this one wrong. I like this less on the Davinci & phantom. The triplanar and Davinci adds a little warmth and roundedness that it does not need. The Graham could not control resonance as well and had a little top end glare. With the 507mk2, the heavy arm and flux damping dissipate the energy perfectly. Just all the glories, nothing more and nothing less.
Coralstone: I never intended to get this one because of the warm fuzzy reputation of Koetsu. My dealer offer a partial trade deal and I could not resist. Another surprise, it is very detailed with a fluid midrange and extended topend. Bass power is slightly less than Titan/ultraeminent but not too fat behind. Only have this on the Phantom so far. Very difficult to align because the stone block my line of sight. I probably have not optimize this one due to neck spasm. It is also better played on an arm with Azimuth adjustment to minimize crosstalk.
Goldfinger v2: Another excellent cart.. Very limited experience but a friend was kind enough to bring it over for a spin. Similar sound to the MSL. Heaviest cart i have handled.
Much has to do with the ergonomics of the speakers and my room (24x14x10ft). The speakers (setup along short wall) yielded the most flat bass response when placed 4'2" to 4'6" from the wall behind the speakers. Distance is measured from the center of the bass cone. This was calculated by RPG room optimizer and verified by real time measurements. The listening position that yielded the most even bass response ( both amplitude and decay time) is near the center of the room.
The older Rockport (Ankaa, Aquilla) have woofers on the side and ports in the back. That means I am going to be sitting very close to the midrange unit and the tweeters along the front speaker baffle. The Veritys have rear firing woofers and port which means the same thing. I was worried about driver integration when listening distance to too close to the speakers.
The Avalon has woofers along the front baffle and downward firing port which allows the most distance from the listening location to the front baffle of the speakers. There is enough distance for proper driver integration.
Aside from ergonomics, I picked the Avalon Isis because they are not a difficult load, and they have fairly high sensitivity. I feel they have slightly faster transient response, more focused imaging and more inner detail than the Rockports. The larger Rockports have better bass dynamics but need a heroic amp. They are also little supple and laid back sounding for me. This is a purely subjective opinion and I am sure many Rockport setup are fantastic in all aspect. I just don't have the space or the resources.
At the time I was shopping for speakers, Magicos came out with Q5 which I found a little sterile sounding. I did not like the Wilsons with the older focal tweeter. I recently listened to the Magico Q3, S5 and the Wilson Sasha 2 and they make great sound.
My system have changed a fair amount and I have not updated the system page. The Rockports, Veritys that I auditioned are not the most current versions. I am happy to share my experience and you can decide whether they are helpful or flat out wrong.
Verity and Rockport used modified Audiotechnology drivers and there are some similarities in tone or transient response. Much of their difference in sound lies in the use of crossover configuration. Rockport use high order cross over and have less overlap between drivers. This restricts the driver output within their ideal operating frequencies and results in even off axis dispersion. The speakers are not difficult to place, imaging is solid and consistent when different instruments are switching in and out of play in the orchestra. IMHO, this approach pays a small price in speaker sensitivity,impedane swings, ultimate transparency, or immediacy in impulse response. Early in the hobby, I seeked speakers that conform to the principles of low distortion. Later, I like speakers that balance the low distortion ideals while being a sympathetic load to the partnering amplifier. Rockport's cabinets are more inert than the Veritys. Inert cabinets enhances dynamics and allow the speaker to disappear to a certain degree. I personally feel the speaker disappearing act has to do with the direct to indirect sound ratio (reflected sound). If the room is properly diffused, the reflections contribute to imaging, sonority and allow the speakers to disappear. If you put a speaker in an anechoic chamber where reflections are absorbed, you will be able to localize them no matter what the cabinets are made of. The converse is also true. Fairly cheap speakers like definitive tech. ,which is a bipole, disappear fairly well. The bipolar output has more indirect sound.
Veritys use low order crossover. Frequency overlap can yield uneven frequency response within the room when speaker setup is not optimal. Drivers are properly phase aligned in speaker design but their individual boundary interactions within the room and can lead to cancellation. When this effect is not properly addressed during room placement, it results in tonal shift/imbalance. The larger models employ ribbon tweeters which have wide horizontal dispersion but narrow vertical dispersion. The dispersion pattern is quite different than the midrange. The midrange driver plays very high (5khz) and very low (<100hz) in order to move the crossovers out of the midband. There is restricted dispersion at the high end of the midrange output. These are compromised made to optimize impulse response and phase response. The designer believes human ears are most sensitive to artifacts introduced by crossover from the critical midrange to lower treble. The results are speakers that are very transparent and immediate. The cabinets are not quite as heroic as the Rockports but they disappear just as well (IMHO). The difference in driver dispersion and frequency overlap requires critical room tuning and speaker placement. The rear facing bass driver excites room modes and also requires much care.
The Veritys sounds particularly exceptional with recordings that preserve phase info. (Provided you are playing the correct phase)
Which speakers would take you further depends on your listening taste and priorities, your flexibility and expertise in address room acoustics.
Thank you for your kind words. Your system is great as well. there are much similarities between our systems.
The rockports speakers I have listened to are Aquila, Ankaa, Mira Grand 2 and Antares. I think they are version 1s.
The Rockports are capable of larger dynamic swings and richer texture. They cast broader images. They are very linear with fairly little overlap between the individual drivers. (may be high order crossovers)
The Avalons have more immediacy, and pinpoint imaging, perhaps a trace more transparent. With the wrong setup, they can sound bleached or stringent. The Isis has more than enough dynamics for my taste.
The Avalons are configured with downward firing ports. The ports have fairly low output which allow for less modal excitation and easier placement in my room.
I could be happy with either. Please keep me posted with your search
Ralph, The Luxmans had a rich tonal saturation with a smooth, presentation. The M800a in monos also had more bass impact than the ayre MXR. They usually sound nice with the Avalons with large variety of source equipments and cables.
The Ayre has faster transient attacks and tracks the microdynamics better with more detail. Bass is also quite articulate. However, the amps are very sensitive to vibration control, cables, front end matching. It was easy to make bad sound with the Ayre but after some struggles, I am happier with the Ayre.
I have been satified with the ARC Ref 250 as well.
These three amps were better match to the Isis than many others I have tried: Rowland, MBL, Spectral, Classe, Bryston, Conrad Johnson, Boulder, etc.
Do your custom speakers have similar drivers and crossovers? O/w the amp mathcing experience may not translate.
The luxman XLR is pin 2 negative so be aware in case you go balanced latter. CAT is SE so no problems. Ayre works better balanced. Luxman may have wider bandwidth when using SE connections (see stereophile measurements).
Lapierre- Fuzzmeasure is quite simple to use, more friendly than ETF. I use a macbook pro, behringer microphone, dual mic pre.
Hessec- I did not listen to the 1.1 before buying the 2.1. The more expensive models has stainless steel ring + more layers in the plinith. This reportedly improve bass macrodynamics. I bought mine and the bardo base on a friend's recommend. I trust and admire his knowledge and I have learnt much from him. I had the stage 3 Bardo (glass platter, upgraded PS). The advantage of magnetic drive is apparent in pace and timing. It did not exhibit high torque direct drive issues of my highly modded technic SP10mk2. The Bardo has a low noise floor as the drive does not contact the platter directly. However, the motor is still resting in the same frame (not the most massive) that the tonearm and the platter rest on. I believe the motor vibrations still creep into the analog system indirectly. The Bardo had significantly less bass dynamics than the SG2 due to noise in the low freq.. If you are interested, check out the miiler lab test on many tables and arms on hifi news web site which is very informative. I got better performance from the Bardo by placing them on cerabases (one right under the motor and one near the tonearm mount. They rest on granite platform on top of minus K. I believe this better drains the motor noise from the system and yielded better dynamics. The low torque design can work with minus k or vibraplane type system. The results from Sp10 is not so good as high torque generate motion in a compliant system.
I have sold the Bardo. I strongly prefer the SG2 over the Bardo. I suppose the Oasis can improve on the Bardo. I read somewhere that Stage 3 Bardo or Oasis can have dynamics close to the Brinkmann Balance. Another friend of mine has the Balance and the dynamics are miles ahead.
My friend who recommended the Bardo did not experience significant dynamic limitations. He is really much more knowledge and probably better utilize the equipment yielding better performance.
dev - I have seen pics of my new toy and hopefully not adding too many months to a 13 month wait. I hope to implement the centroid in a different table but the very large arm base is not the easiest.
Thanks for clarifying. You must be aware of the time delay and 2 pi vs 4 pi effect associated with front baffle diffraction. There are many good reads on the internet. Some people went to length proving or dispproving the effect.
Let me share my experience with the Avalons and what I have a handle on. How much is due to curtailing diffraction vs off axis dispersion? I don't know.
I measured the speakers on and off axis, with and without felt, with and without grill.
The felt along the baffle limits the off axis radiation pattern of the high freq more than midrange. In my rather narrow room, the comb filtering effect from the boundaries particular the side wall is markedly reduced. Looking at the freq response with no averaging or 1/48 octave averaging. The amplitude of the saw-toothing is reduced with felt in place. The choice of room treatment material became less critical, somewhat similar to narrow dispersion designs like horns or electrostatics. I am surprised that the effect is also noted alongthe wall behind the speakers and ceiling. Subjectively, felt on sounds more coherent and has more focus in the midrange and bass, treble is less splashy. The soundstage is less wide comparing to no grill no felts. I compensate by toe-in less to get enough reflection off the sidewall to maintain sounstage width.
I supect with the felts on, the off axis dispersion is more limited but more even across the frequency spectrum. This lead to more coherent sound. Ideally one would want the direct sound and reflected sound to be qualitatively similar. Just having wide dispersion without tonal evenness would adversely affect the perceived tonal balance.
In the stereophile measurements, JA sometimes said that lack of on axis output may be compensated by off axis flare in the same frequencies. I would not want a speaker with this particular characteristic if I can help it.
It really sounded bad. Those shelfs extended the measured RT60 of 40hz to 150hz to 0.8sec. Without the shelfs, it was 0.45 to 0.55 sec. Bass was muddy, diffuse and hanged in the room forever. No punch or pace. I suspect our ears are more sensitive to the dynamic leap of each note rather than just constant sound pressure. If the previous note never went away, the dynamic leap of the next note is diminished. Not to mention the in and out of phase interaction.
I do not know the exact mechanism of this. Maybe the shelfs are partitioning the room leading to different reverbs in two zones. Another possibility is the shelf actually acted as diffusors with bandwidth extending into the bass. I remembered reading some expert opinion regarding an ideal frequency point to transition from absorption to diffusor. So diffusion in bass freq may not be desirable. A third possibility is shelfs are vibrating. I would appreciate it if you can shine some light in this.
The records also absorbed too much high frequencies.
Prolonged bass reverbs with disproortionately dull highs makes for the disaster in sound.
I use the Raven more often as I like to tinker with different arms. The Raven is a more flexible platform as armboard can swing to accomodate arms of different lengths. The arm adapters on the Raven is much cheaper as well. SG2 only takes 10inch arms like the centroid and Graham with 10" wand.
As a package the SG2 centroid is very unique. If used with the new line Lyra carts: Atlas or Kleos, the alignment is already set using the tiny hole at the top. I normally would not trust this as carts tend to vary in stylus/cantilever alignment. However, all the lyra I have: Atlas, Titan, Kleos are to spec in terms of channel separation and stylus cantilever alignment. I have tried using other protractors but did not better the preset alignment. This is quite critical as the ultimate azimuth and antiskate setting will change depending on alignment. Poor alignment contributes to additional skating force that needed to be compensated for. It also limits channel separation as the stylus contact point is not optimized (like a train not perfectly aligned with its tracks).
The sonics of the table is very reflective of the designs. They are both great performers to me. The Raven is the heavier of the two and motor noise is very well isolated from the platter. It is richer sounding and has more bass macrodynamics. I suspect bass pitch/drive is very dependent of speed stability but bass dynamics freedom is also somewhat dependent on the low freq noise floor of the table.
The SG2/centroid combo has more focus and is more detail/specific souonding of the two. It also portray wider tonal contrast. A lot is due to the centroid arm. In terms of turntable contribution, a more constant relationship is preserved betw the arm, motor and platter. The graphite composite platter does a great job in resonace control. Friction bearing may contribute to great speed stability as relative fluctuation of sytlus drag is lessened. THis all translate into the most focused sound I have had in my system. The bass macrodynamics is slightly limited comparing to the Raven but not far behind.
I may not be understanding your questions correctly. Cabinet shelfs created problems for me by extending resonance in bass and lower midrange. This resonance is probably not in the same phase as the listening space. This muddle up the sound. The use of felt (probably need to be pretty thick) may alleviate this. I suspected it may reduce high frequency reverb disproportionately.
I now store most of my vinyl and cds along with wood trunks, box and shelves out of the listening room. Just a few open racks needed for gear.
The Isis are more dynamic than Isis at all listening levels in my medium size room. I suppose due to higher sensitivity and bigger woofers.
Subjectively I feel the Isis has a more organic rich sound comparing to the Diamond. I am not 100% sure on this (factory does not publish crossover pts). Judging by my measurements, I suspect the crossover is around 150Hz in the Isis as the larger ceramic midrange can handle lower the the range. I suspect the crossover for the diamond with the 3-4" midrange is around 300. I feel 200-400hz are quite important for maintaining a wood tone in string instruments and prefer to keep the crossover below this range. Human hearing is also quite sensitive at these frequencies as these are the lower frequencies of the male voice.
Pettyfeversk -
The ARC/Pass combo is quite satisfying. The dominant strength is a very organic, rich, tubelike sound. Soundstage depth is very good with lots of body but not the most image specifity. It has zero listening fatigue yet lots of macrodynamcis.
There is an imped mismatch at the bass freq as ARC preamp has rise of output imped at the bass which may soften the bass slightly.
Within the context of my system and comparing to the best of SS, the combo lacks the last bit of transient attack and low level resolution. The bass is not as iron fisted as large MBLs, Luxmans, Boulders. The bass alignemnt is partly due to zero feedback design of the pass amps ( likely not power related), a slight tradeoff at the interface with ARC preamp ( Ref 5 better than Ref 3; 5se and 40 anniv may be better yet). The PRAT of this combo is not the most pronounced as a result of the very full decay.
I am overemphasizing the differences as the tradeoffs are quite small and many visitors actually prefer ARC preamp/phono in my system. If your speakers are very damped in bass alignment or have powered subs, the bass issue may be irrelevant.
Dev - I changed out the apex cones from Avalon for the Finite Elemente Cerabase which reduced floor shake and allow cleaner bass. The sistrum would be excellent but I am worried about speakers falling off. The center of gravity is a bit posterior and can tilt given the (im)proper circumstance.
Shane - Thank you. I enjoy your system as well.
I like the Kleos very much for its natural timbre and I believe it can resolve some midrange details that I previously did not hear with the Titan. However, I prefer Lyra Titan i and the Dyna XV1T because these are more resolute in the last half octave of bass and retain more macrodynamics. I got a VDH XGP Ref and it is a nice performer as well. Of the carts I have tried, I feel Lyra have the best QC + sound so I will be joining the line for the Atlas soon.
Cymbop - Glad you enjoy the read. I have done many more experiments with room acoustics and hope to post results when time permits.
Sorry for the delayed response. I had a busy week.
Tried the minus K because a friend had excellent result with vibraplane. Went for -K as I prefer not to have an air compressor and -K has a lower resonance frequency and offer vertical and horizontal isolation. The - K increased resolution of vinyl play in all frequencies, clean up the bass. The soundstage is more precise. I am quite sure this is due to reduced transmission of acoustic feedback. I am on suspended wood floor but did not have severe foot fall issues before the -K. When I measured crosstalk while adjusting azimuth, there is tiny signal from the cartridge when someone walks around the room. The -K largely eliminated this effect. Without the -K, my speakers shake the floor during dynamic passages and acoustic feedback limits the performance of my system.
The minus K comes with a standard top plate which I think is made of thin aluminum. I ordered mine without the top plate and use my own. I have tried maple, acrylic of varying thickness, layered granite ( Adona). My primary goal was to get the load close to the maximum specified wt for the minus. At near the maximum load, the -K achieve the lowest resonance freq and hence the best isolation. The different platform material also sounded a little different. Maple slight emphasize the wood tone ( surprise), acrylic and layered granite are neutral and not very different.
I have gone from one motor to three motor ( see pics for specific items) so I tried different thickness of acrylic to compensate for wt change. The thinner and thicker acrylic did not sound sig. different.
The -K is basically a complex well designed spring loaded suspension system. It worked much better than the one featured in my previous Avid Acutus table. It can be a little tricky as the center of gravity of the load (table, arm, motor, platform, accessories like ring & clamp) needs to sit at the center support which is about 3"x3". If the load is not centered, the suspension will tilt and so will the table. I think this is a disadvantage comparing to a stable equllibrium of hanging suspension (like your SME or Basis).
Lapierre - I would choose the larger room as the are more options for speakers/listening location placement. The reflected impulse from room boundaries would also arrive later and with smaller amplitude in the larger room. This would make for cleaner impulse response and better resolution.
Good luck and please report on result.
Mapman-Thank you for the complement. Anyone can do this with measurment tools. One does not need to dive into the theories and mathematical modelling. (though it helps). Good results can be obtained with trial an error. The more difficult part is to discern which compromises to make to achieve the sound one want. I do not pretend to be an expert in this area but the Handbook of Room Acoustics is very good read.
Sorry for the delayed response. I had a busy week.
Tried the minus K because a friend had excellent result with vibraplane. Went for -K as I prefer not to have an air compressor and -K has a lower resonance frequency and offer vertical and horizontal isolation. The - K increased resolution of vinyl play in all frequencies, clean up the bass. The soundstage is more precise. I am quite sure this is due to reduced transmission of acoustic feedback. I am on suspended wood floor but did not have severe foot fall issues before the -K. When I measured crosstalk while adjusting azimuth, there is tiny signal from the cartridge when someone walks around the room. The -K largely eliminated this effect. Without the -K, my speakers shake the floor during dynamic passages and acoustic feedback limits the performance of my system.
The minus K comes with a standard top plate which I think is made of thin aluminum. I ordered mine without the top plate and use my own. I have tried maple, acrylic of varying thickness, layered granite ( Adona). My primary goal was to get the load close to the maximum specified wt for the minus. At near the maximum load, the -K achieve the lowest resonance freq and hence the best isolation. The different platform material also sounded a little different. Maple slight emphasize the wood tone ( surprise), acrylic and layered granite are neutral and not very different.
I have gone from one motor to three motor ( see pics for specific items) so I tried different thickness of acrylic to compensate for wt change. The thinner and thicker acrylic did not sound sig. different.
The -K is basically a complex well designed spring loaded suspension system. It worked much better than the one featured in my previous Avid Acutus table. It can be a little tricky as the center of gravity of the load (table, arm, motor, platform, accessories like ring & clamp) needs to sit at the center support which is about 3"x3". If the load is not centered, the suspension will tilt and so will the table. I think this is a disadvantage comparing to a stable equllibrium of hanging suspension (like your SME or Basis).
Ambience- Nice moniker. I only use GIK bass trap at the corners. The rest are wood/paper q7d diffusors. Yes, the GIK bass traps absorb quite a bit at 200-300hz range. Surprising the RPG skylines/hemifusors/abfusor/BAD arc also possess this unintended quality. That is the reason I use diffusors of mixed contruction. I am considering the RPG corner traps which has less absorption at the lower midrange.
Dev- Room can be extremely difficult and I was suffering a lot. I have friends who happy and unhappy with Rives or other any other acoustic consultation service. Consultants are kind of like gear, they have their own priorities and rationale in choosing compromises in room design. I had lots of questions after reading the Alton Everest's book and they were answered by Rives and Bob Hodus. I did many field experiments in my room and treated it basically like a case study. In this way, both consultants added to my fund of knowledge. We as audiophiles are so difficult to please. On retrospect, I feel no consultant can tailor to my taste via remote control/consultation or even via a few short visits, let alone a short visit from the dealer. It is quite a task to learn the characteristic of the room and the intended and unintended effects of the acoustic tools at hand (traps and diffusors of different constructions). Rives' strong points were having construction recipe for diffusors and traps. He was also instructive on how to interpret the data. Which measurable problems is more noticeable during subjective listening. My main disappointment was that they would not look at measurements generated with softwares other than ETF or their measuring kit ($1K). I respected their preference but maintained that lots of data can be distilled from other programs like Fuzzmeasure. IMHO, the fuzzmeasure are more reflective of subtle changes in RT60 and easier for manipulating the data: gating time, 1/3 to 1/48 smoothing, self correction. The Rives comes with a better mic but Fuzzmeasure counters with self correction.
I did the level 2 consultation at $3K and spend $1K on the Rives measuring software and tools. I occasionally feels that it is quite expensive. Can you believe level 2 comes with only a single measurement from local dealer and none to verify rectification of problems during or after construction. Your friend's $200K experiment made me feel a lot better. I have since visited quite a few friends. In measuring their room and optimizing them, I have answered a few more questions. Early on during consultation, the mid axis cancellation was attributed to the door in the middle or leakage to the room/space above or below the listening space. This view was also shared by a few experts/dealers who have visited my room. To Rives' credit, he did figure it out midway thru the consultation. The quarter wavelength cancellation is well documented in the Alton Everest book or other websites. I have later measured three rooms of similar dimension but different in door location, concrete foundation/suspended wood and with/without space above/below listening room. Neither of the above factors made a difference. In one case, the side wall has an opening to a kitchen and this cancellation completely disappeared. I am now convinced that if I ripped out part of the side wal . I can fix this completely. I have not mustered up enough courage for this project. Boarding up all the windows was bad enough for me. One thing, Bob Hodus taught me about room acoustic: lots of things are unpredictable, no one knows till you try. I am thankful to my group of friends that steer me right. When many opinions converges, they are almost always right. Most of my friends, local dealers have good ears but where they differ is problem solving skills: in isolating the problem and in solving it. I sucked at analog setup and had many comments like speaker too big for room, suspended floor means poor bass. Meanwhile, it was due to THD from maladjusted VTA.
Audioblazer - Yes, that is exactly what I did. Moving the speakers closer to the wall and sitting further away from the wall behind the listener. This worked in my room and in another friend of mine. I am a little skeptical of the Stein product as two friends have the Acoustic Revive blue light thing. I could not hear the difference. I understand you can hear a positive change. Can this be demonstrated in RT60 or any other parameters?
BBB- They are positively addictive/additive. The next book I am getting is one on diffusor design.
The expedit shelve along the backwall was a horrible idea. It was a very effective diffusor but there were too problems. The LPs on the shelves were very absorptive and the RT60 of high frequencies went to 0.22 sec. The sound was very precise but very dull. No sense of space sharing with the music at play. Further more, it muddled up the bass. The Rt60 from 100hz and below went to 0.8sec. I suspect the expedit shelve partition the room into two zones with different reverbs. I was suffering from bimodal decay. Went to GIK q7d diffusors and much better.
Rtn1, You system is amazing and the listening space looks great. In my relatively narrow room, I like it better with more toe in to minimize side wall reflection.
Audioblazer, Sorry to take so long to answer your post. I needed some time to post the data. I hope this helps. Please also refer to the fuzzmeasure tweaks for more graphs.
The yellow curve is my preferred listening position: 10ft from the wall behind the listener. The sound pressure is reasonably even except the last octave (20-40Hz) is a few db off. However, it is very linear and free from room boost. The primary length and width mode are taken out of play (27hz, 40hz). RT60 is also reasonable as is the impulse response. When tuning a room, Spl/freq curve is only one set of data. RT60 and impulse response are also very important.
The purple curve is what Rives audio put me at. 7-9ft from wall behind listener. The severe suckout at around 40hz is probably due to cancellation from sitting at the mid axis of the room. 7ft is the quater wavelenth of 40Hz. At a few inches off the mid axis, this cancellation disappear. Rives' explanation was that RT60 and impulse response are very good . Human hearing involves certain degree of smoothing so a narrow band trough is OK. The primary length mode at 27hz also start to kick in. In listening to music, the yellow curve has slightly better bass weight. Not as much as the graph would suggest.
The Blue curve is 4ft from the back wall. The 40hz suckout has pretty much disappeared due to boundary reinforcement from the back wall. The 27hz primary length mode is in full swing and so are the secondary modes at 50hz 70hz, 80hz. Some visitors prefer this listening location as you can feel these modes in your chest and teeth. This is not to my taste. The impulse response is quite poor. The comb filtering effect is severe. As the distance betw listener and speakers is increased. The ratio of direct sound vs indirect sound is decreased. On the impulse response, you can see the reflected impulse is about 1/3 the amplitude of the direct impulse. The reflection from the back wall is very strong and arrives very close to the direct impulse despite diffusion. I have also tried heavy absorption along the backwall and it is not much better. There is audible loss in transparency and a clean transient response in not maintained. Many audiophiles, dealers like to place the listening location 2-4 ft from the backwall to harness room gain in the bass. I quite surprised that this is actually recommended in the "Get Better sound" book.
Good luck. Alton Everest's HAndbook of room acoustic is extremely informative and relatively easy read. I highly recommend it.
I have not had the xv1s but still think about getting it on occasions. My experience with XV1T is as follows:
Graham 9inch: Very fast transient, well integrated bass, extended highs, I could not get the soundstage as wide as the other arms. I am not sure why. Perhaps slightly more tracking error comparing to longer arm. The 9 inch also rocks slightly during record warps and compromise crosstalk. I always use a ring with this arm.
Graham 12inch: Still fast transient but bass is a hair slower than the 9incher. Treble is smoother but no less detail. Perhaps the longer arm tube better damp cartridge resonance. Big difference to the 9inch is the soundstage. Much wider and greater sense of space. Maybe due to less tracking error and it does not rock side to side as much. It does not let go of the bass notes as fast as the 9inch. Probably from increased inertia.
Dynavector 507 mk2: Bass as fast as the 9inch Graham and soundstage like the 12 inch graham. A very focused, calm yet dynamic presentation. Can be a little too calm when not optimized. This high mass arm along with magnetic damping control resonance very well. Only complaint here is that it is tweaky. Need to try different counter weight mass, dynamic vs static balance. The VTA and azimuth adjustments are not as fine or repeatable as the Graham. The shorter vertical moving arm has very small inertia. Baerwald, Logren, Stevenson all sounded very different not only due to different tracking error profile but different overhangs change effective mass as well. Excellent antiskate system as tension on string can be adjusted with a dial. Someone should make a 12 inch version of this as the short wand can keep vertical inertia under control.
VTA is not as repeatable as graham (markings) but I treat the VTA lever like a hand on the clock and record the VTA when needed. They should put some reading on the dial.
TW 10.5: Sounds great as well. Very detailed treble and midrange down to midbass and lots of focus. Soundstages very well. The pins of the XV1T sticks out very far back and creates ergonomic issue. There is not enough room to maintain intended overhang. The work around is to increase PS distance by 5 mm and creates more room. I could not get the low bass to dissipate as fast as the 9inch graham or dynavector 507. I must admit I did not spend a huge amount of time on setup so perhaps the low bass will integrate in better hands. It sometimes reminds me of a Breuer or BRinkmann but with facility to adjust VTA on the fly and azimuth.
Davinci 12 inch: imbue the xv1t with rich glorious wood tone. Soundstages very well. However, it also slow down the trasient of the cart. Coupled with no azimuth adjustment to minimize crosstalk and inconvenient VTA adjustment, this arm is just audio jewellery. I view tonearms more as tools to extract the most from a cart. It is simply more jewel than tool. I cannot agree with the high rating from absolute sound.
Triplanar 7: Not a bad listen but I could not get the same focus as the TW 10.5, Graham, or dyna 507. Very easy adjustments with slightly cumbersome azimuth. THe azimuth rotates very slightly when clamping down the final adjustment. I actually need to set the azimuth a little off so when clamped, it rotates into the optimized adjustment. VTA, VTF, antiskate are very easy.
FR 64S: Surprising very good listen as well.
My favorite arms for the dynavector xv1t are the grahams and dyna 507. I suspect the centroid arm would be superb as well. The centroid picks up where the Graham left off. There are less moving parts and center of gravity is just below the pivot point. IN exchange, it is not as easily adjusted as the Graham in VTA on the fly and azimuth. THe dynavector arm is very heavy and may throw off some suspended tables. Centroid has a very large base and may not be easily fitted into other tables. Graham is not perfect but very ergonomic. Unipivot designs lend lots of focus in the sound presentation. It demands proper azimuth and antiskate adjustment. I suspect if the stylus is not pendicular and tacking at the center of the groove, the force vector exerted onto the stylus will have a larger lateral component. This will rotate the cart along the axis of the cartridge body. The geometry and many listening parameters fall apart in addition to crosstalk.
THe XV1T manages excellent transient but without sending tons of energy into the arm. Overall not too fuzzy in arm matching.
Enzo- Yes, I am an complete nut case in exhausting room treatment options. Boarding up the windows took an entire day and cost >$1500. I still have to pay to remove them and get the room painted. F%^$#!!! At least, I got some questions answered.
Arygo- It is very interesting that both you and I went thru a similar change. I would like to know what you think as well.
The design choices dictate the strength and weaknesses in both speakers.
Sarastros 2: Ribbon tweeter, audiotech midrange, well constructed rear firing woofer, first order crossover, midrange extending very low and very high 5-6Khz. The high 93db sensitivity, first order crossover and individually excellent driver units lend the Sarasto superb transparency, presence and immediacy. Beautifully finished cabinets, flight case with custom foam along with service from dealer, distribute and headquaters are absolutely first class. It played a big yet delicate sound with a relatively small enclosure. ( I can't help but notice some similarities with Kaiser Kawero recently at RMAF). The design also means there are nonlinearities both on and off axis. It is up to the end user to minimize the non-linearities by optimizing room interactions. I guess that is why it includes a visit by dealers or distributor. This can be still be a tall order depending on room conditions.
On the techincal side: The ribbon tweeter is extremely fast and transparent. However, the output at the 4-5khz region is significantly down comparing to the its peak output at 10khz. Other companies use a small stiff midrange which can play up to 6khz without beaming and manage a smoother hand off ( aerial) . The Verity design use a large 6 inch midrange to span many octaves down to midbass (60hz) so the dispersion at 3-6khz of the midrange is quite limited ( beaming) . The tweeter unit has superb lateral dispersion so there is no way to optimize this by toe out. The upper midrange will fall off before the treble does. The tweeter dispersion is much more limited in vertical axis so playing with listening height and tilt are critical. I feel the speakers are really designed for tubes ( esp Wavac ) as high out imped from amps will shelf down the output from the ribbon which has very low imped.. This will even things out. Other things are wave guide or toliet paper which are suboptimal. Stereophile said the hyper up tweeter may work for overdamped room. I don't think this is the way to go as you would be killing high frequency reverb. A price is paid in time domain to compensate for even sound pressure.
I love audio tech midrange, very naturally texture, there is a suppleness that is rarely found. People rave about the radial midrange in Harbeth. There is really no comparison. I owned and sold a pair of M30s. I cannot bare to play them next to the Sarastros.
Cannot really talk about bass without the room. In my room, rear firing arrangement excited the longitudinal modes at 25hz, 50hz, 80hz much more than front or downward firing config by additional 5db. I can choose different sitting location to take one of these modes out of play. I am still left with two peaks. The company's philosophy in coupling with the room to get more powerful bass has succeeded. If my modes from other dimensions ( width, height and diagonal ) slots neatly in between, then it would have worked better. The woofers go very high (200-300hz) if i remember correctly, please refer to stereophile as they tested version one and version 2). THe midrange play down to 50-60hz. This is largely the result of first order crossover. Stereophile said there was output drop off due to poor implementation of crossover. I am no expert but suspect this is incorrect. It is not the crossover or poor electrical phase integration. It is acoustic phase integration which is impacted upon by boundary interaction. At some speaker locations, I have measured a 200-300hz drop off similar to stereophile. After shifting the setup across the room, this had largely disappear but not completely eliminated. Having a large overlap region while having drivers in different location make this very sensitive. The drivers are in phase but different boundary interaction of individual drive units can produce out of phase cancellations. Using RPG optimizer is helpful here. The 200-300hz suckout is not present when I measure the drivers individially.
A simplistic summary would be "my room sucks" or I suck or I made the mistake of "large speakers small room". I would not deny it. More accurately, my room is not large enough to allow for more speaker/ listening location possibilities to compensate for all the above issues. Two of the room boundaries are incomplete with lots of bass leakage so low bass can be extremely linear and free of boost. In moderate sized room the modes tend to crowd in the mid bass 50-100hz and it did not complement the coupling with wall philosophy. Not to mention, I subsequently have an even larger speaker that worked out.
They sound much better in my friend's living space. The larger dimension has primaries modes that are lower in frequencies which complemented the speaker better. I can still hear the relative strength and weakness of the design. I honestly still miss them when I see them, almost like an previous relationship. (Good thing my wife never read this forum)
Isis: This is a more linear design on and off axis, top and bottom. The black diamond tweeter can go high but more importantly, it can also handle the lower end of the spectrum. Every company talks about pushing tweeters into 50Khz and above but how about a tweeter that can still do 2-3khz while maintaining those specs. The dispersion of the tweeter ( no grills) is still wider than the midrange but this is controlled by the felt that surround the tweeter acting as off axis absorber. The dispersion is evenly distributed as I measure on and off axis. Despite having two 13 inch woofers, the room modes was half the amplitude of the Sarastros 2. I removed half of the heavy bass traps. All drivers on a single plane. Overall a much more coherent sound. I had some reservations about the ceramic midrange. Although they have excellent transient attack, i have previously found them to be over damped, thin sounding and lack texture or suppleness. I had Avalon diamonds before and I like the larger midrange in the Isis much better. I suspect the smaller 3-4 inch midrange in the Diamond move less air and forces the woofers to play into high frequencies. This is the primary reason why I did not choose the Avalon Time. Tidal, Kharma, Martin Design don't the small midrange in their better models. Having said that, a lot of it may be due to poor impulse response and lack of proper diffusion in my room when I had the Diamonds. I noticed a lot of dry ringing sound at RMAF when ceramic drivers are in use. For some reasons, other drivers have less of this issue.
Subjectively, the resolution in the midrange and treble is similar. Bass resolution is better but perhaps less exciting ( more accurate). The Verity used to kick me in the chest and rattles my teeth. There is a certain immediacy and presence that I miss. Ultimately the coherence, linearity and balance allow for more insight into the recording.
System edited: Went thru Rives consulting and additional consulting with Bob Hodus. Read " Master Handbook of Acoustics" and "Sound Reproduction: Room and loudspeakers". Rearanged the entire room to opposite end. Experimented with different diffusors: skyline, hemifusors , abfusors, BAD ARCs on all surfaces except the wall. Learned to use ETFs, BARE in addition to Fuzz measure. Installed a 2inch solid wood door with sound proofing. Boarded up all windows and subsequently removed all the boards. New blinds/curtains, shelf units serving as diffusors. Will post pics and new results. Replaced Verity Sarastro 2s with Avalon Isis. Sold Davinci and triplanar tonearm. Added TW 10.5 & Dynavector 507 mk2. Added modified SP10mk2 ( Chris Thornton) and soon to add Brinkman Bardo. Dedicated subpanel Romex 10G wires. Sold the cagefull of Shunyatas including three Anacondas. Replaced with Furutech and Oyaide bulk cables. Added Purepower 2000 + soon to have pattery pack. Capable of running all front ends on battery for short duration. Joined local listening group and received tremendous help in analog setup. Learned to adjust azimuth and antiskate by ear instead of using low crosstalk method. Adjust VTA by ear instead of USB microscope.
THe pics were taken over a year ago when I was starting to consult with Rives. They were on small rugs for easy repositioning. They sound worse on the rug as they excite the floor more.
Thank you for takig the time to post. You are right on many counts here and side firing is probably better than rearfiring for my room. The Verity did not match well with my room and I have sold them to a friend. They sounded much better at his place.
The system config is old and I have since been thru Rives consulting and another local consultant. Both parties contributed significantly to my knowledge of the room and the sound of the system. I did a lot of reading and room redecorating and got better sound from the Verity. I was still not very happy. At the end, I found another pair of speakers that suit my room better.
Now I have sold the speakers and many other items. I should find time to detail what I went thru.
I post some opinions on the carts but my skills in setting them up are quite deficient. As I am closing on being done with the room setup, I currently making an effort to learn how to setup analog playback chain. I ordered the USB microscope but more importantly, I need to learn what to listen for when making adjustments.
I feel I am overly dedicated (especially financially) to stereo but my dedication pales in comparison to yours.
If you ever come to the SF bay area, please look me up as I have many questions for you regarding analogs + more.
LOL. I have young children at home and my wife would occasionally come in and chew the living S#*& out of me when the music woke the kids up. Talking out being at the edge of your seat while listening to music. Hiring a babysitter and sticking out a man cave were my first steps. A friend of mine started bringing a whole listening group over. She was not thrilled at first but she knew better than to embaress me in public. After a few times, the kids just slept thru the music and she also warmed to my friends.
I think this hobby is overly expensive but still reasonably conducive to a long term marriage. It beats drugs, skiing, golfing, car racing, extramarital activities, scuba, guns, various night scenes etc.
Yes, I was surprised at Philip O Hanlon's demo with luxman integrated driving Wilson speakers. I went thru a few amps before settling on them. I have a pair of cremonas which I occasionally setup with the Luxmans. They do play well together. You are absolutely correct that while the cremonas are sweet and beautiful, they are slightly behind in dynamic freedom and transparency. My wife likes them the best so they are mostly on HT duties in the living room.
You are kind with your comments but the room has many acoustic challenges (side windows, large doorway at middle axis of the room). I have since worked with two different acoustic consultants and made some progress. Rack is out to the side and speakers setup on opposite wall. The posted frequency response graph is in 3rd octave smoothing which hides some ugliness. If you ever come by the SF bay area, come by for a listen. I value friends' opinions especially negative ones. They help in identifying problematic areas that I have not paid attention to before. Sometimes, I get so obsessed with fixing one problem and compromised the big picture. Friends also make this hobby fun and broke my wife in.
Thanks for the comment. I read your thread frequently and really appreciate your various experiments and tweaks. I hope you will find happiness with the JL subs. I was about to put in an order for two F113 and then read about input imped issues in your thread. Are you rolling off the bottom end of the dali when crossing to the subs or running them to augment?
Changster, I sometimes think I could be happier with Rockports. The ASR is transparent, neutral and very extended in the bass. It does not have the rich midrange of the Allnic. I feel the ASR is slightly more detailed than the Einstein phono and more neutral. The Einstein phono has very strong macrodynamics but slightly lean in my system. I am surprised because I use the Einstein linestage.
Jfrech, I tried the cerabase under the rack and prefer it without.
Dgad: You system is awesome. Black Night is mind blowing and I especially like you suspension system. I don't know if you recall. You have previously helped me with your advice on cartridges too. I don't know how to account for our differences on the PC1 but if we could agree on everything else, that is a minor miracle on the Audiogon. Allaerts, ortofon and Benz are the few I have not tried yet. Can you recommend a particular brand of LED magnifying lens? I currently use the 5 & 10 times lupe from mint lp but very hard to implement with Koetsu.
Jfrech: Love your Maxx3s. I share your opinions on the Purist vs Stealth phono cable too and I am getting more & more Purist cable in my system. I have the triplanar 7 (not U2) and Phantom 2 ( no bubble). The triplanar generally is a warmer, more fluid sounding and the Graham has more focus with cleaner bass and faster transient. They are equally easy to adjust as far as VTA, VTF and overhang. The azimuth on Graham is a bit easier as it is magnetic. The triplanar needed to be unclamped and reclamped. During reclamping, small rotation occurs and needs to be anticipated for. As far as Lyra goes, I am with most folks prefering the Graham. Lyra is very lively and benefit from fine tuning with damping fluid for resonance control. Triplanar arm plays best with no damping. At the same time, I feel the triplanar's performance is less hindered by suboptimal Azimuth adjustment as it is gimbal bearing.
You have tons of nice toys as well. I think you need two tables with two arms each. Each additional arm on the same table introduce a new level of difficulty with ergonomics. I have a real tough time sticking my big head in between two arms while looking thru ten times lupe. ABsolutly backbreaker.
You have so many interesting choices. I would be very tempted on the Cobra (so much buzz but so expensive) or TW arm (we like the table). Graham is great arm but two grahams are overkill as they have exchangeable arm wands ( I find the VTA and VTF pretty repeatable, azimuth marking are too coarse).
I recently got the Coralstone because I need to trade something in. I am surprised to find myself liking it so much. Not slow or fuzzy at all. Very detailed with clean transient. Bass is not up to titan or xv1T standard but not too far behind. I was told the stone body ones sound similar.
I like both the titan and XV1T best on the Phantom (over triplanar & Grandezza). Both carts have great transient attack and detail, slightly less decay or texture comparing to ultraeminent BC. I thought the Davinci arm would add some texture to make a perfect combo. It actually did just that but it also softened the presentation a bit. The relative weakness (purely subjective) of these carts were remedied but the strengths were also abated. Just make for a less memorable experience.
My favourite combo is Davinci with ultraeminent BC. This combo floats the soundstage best and convey the most ambient info about the recording space. Transient attack not as fast as the other two but follow up with a punch.
PC1 and the supreme do pretty well on both the above arms + triplanar. These have the most quantity in bass but a little less refined or detailed than the above.
Only tried Koetsu with Phantom so far. Sounds good so far but I see large woofer excursion. May be low compliance cart + low effective mass are pushing the resonant frequency higher. Will try Davinci or triplanar next.
Really subjective at this level, my friends have different favorities amoung them.
Thanks for the kind words, C1ferrari and Rugyboogie.
I don't have any great links on the Fuzzmeaure but just read the SMUG forum . There are technical support that answer your question in a timely manner.
I did not directly compare the Grand Prix to Finite Elemente. When I get the amps off the ground onto the GPA, there is increased clarity and I was quite happy with the improvement.
I used to have a Steve Blinn rack which also got me more clarity from my old $300 rack. I went from a Steve Blinn rack to the Finite Elemente. I expected drastic difference due substantial expense. I could not hear a significant difference and was a little disappointed. Dealer and some friends suggested I need cerabase under the rack. Currenty, I just use the cones that come with the rack. Dealer also suggest a heavy kit for the system due to high weight of the system. Maybe I will try those tweaks in the future.
Many thanks for the encouraging comment. I enjoy the Sarastro 2 much. I previously own JM lab, Avalon and the Sarastro comfortable exceed them in musical pleasure. No regrets here.
Argyro: I have not tried the petite so no opinions here. How do you think Tidal compare to Verity?
Tuboo: I have listened to the Lohengrin a few times and there is more transparency and stunning dynamics in the bass. Do you think it will overload my room: 22x14x10ft? How big is your space and have you heard Lohengrin in a mid size room I have talked to Verity about this and they think Sarastro is the biggest one that my room can tolerate. Both Avalon and Rockport feel the room can use the Isis or Altair.
Eddie,
I use a Behringer 8000, Art dual pre with the Fuzzmeasure
I have tried single wire into the monitor and jump to the bass module, single wire into the top binding post of the bass module and jump to the monitor, single wire into the lower binding post of the bass module and jump to the monitor. I also tried two pairs of cables seperately into the monitor and the bass cabinets. On top of that, I tried a pair of biwire Stealth dream connect to the top binding post of the bass cabinet and the monitor.
No surprise here, best is two separate runs. At the same volume setting, bass and mid bass is louder with more decay which also enhancement the 3Dness of the soundstage. I called Sergei about this. His explanation was the woofers feed interference back thru the cable and interfere with the clarity of the midrange. There is also the advantage of having more conductors.
Singlewire into the lower binding post of the bass cabinet is second best because it is very coherent. The marginal gains achieved with two separate runs are not worth the money. The cables I like is a factor here. My means are very limited and I had already been extremely financially irresponsible. I have directe the money towards a Coralstone.
Single wire to the monitor and jump to the bass is the worst. Bass sounded disrupted and loose. Surprising biwire using the top binding post of the bass cabinet also sucked. Bass is still very boomy. I had spoken with John Quick about this and he said that it is ok to do. Most biwire cables cannot span the distance betw the bottom binding post and the monitor. I suspect connecting to the top binding imposed additional distance or whatever circuitry betw the SC and the woofer and resulted in boomy bass. May be the added distance increased the total impedance seen by the woofer and lowered the damping factor. I am just guessing and please correct me if I am wrong.
I did not try other jumpers except for stock. I have also used different SC into monitor and bass. Not very successful and not worth talking about.
I have out some setup info above. Glad to find someone similar in taste. Shindo is great stuff. Shindo has a stunning crytalline clarity that is rarely heard.
If toe in fires the woofers closer to the corner, it may increase excitation certain modes (possibly diagonal modes).
I used to live in a >70yr old house with suspended floors. The bass character is indeed very different . I had the Acutus and I had to move around like a Ninja when playing Vinyl; otherwise the needle would jump. I am still on suspended wood but the house is newer and better braced.
Thanks for taking interest. I will get some pics in the next few days.
I like the Davinci arm with the ultraeminent BC the most. I am mostly a classical listener. It the most detailed and at the same time very natural. It convey the most ambience of the recording space. The notes had the most natural decay and it reveals the most microdynamics. It is not without weakness. If I use the Allnic, the transient attack in the bass is behind the XV1T, Lyra and PC1. I could only load the ultraeminent to 270ohms with the Allnic. The distribute had Mr. Park built a new resistor pack for me so I will soon be able to try a 500ohms setting. With the Einstein, bass transient is back. This cart is also slightly dark sounding.
A few friends have heard my system and each have their own cart/arm preference.
The universe sound was delicate and detail,comfortably better than the airtight in these area. However, it was not convincing because it lacked macrodynamics and power. I prefer the PC1 which is more powerful but paint the music with a broader brush (kind of coarse). Both the XV1T & MSL equal or better the universe in detail, and microdynamics but add power and transient attack. Titan has the most articulated bass and was never lean in my system. It sounds very intense with good transient attack and vivid tonal color. It is not state of the art in conveying tiny detail but not far behind. Sometimes, it is too intense as some calm music passages are not as soothing as it can be.
