Update after few years !! Latest are Emm XDS1v2, Gryphon Antileon Signature Monos, and Update of Dartzeel latest updates, version C pre V2 and E power. 30T worth of Music on NAS and Aurender Player with Shunyata Electrical Filters. Of course Speakers are ProAc 100D NOS. Will connect Dartzeel Power to Dynaudio 25 years special soon!
Dave, no unfortunately I have only recently purchased the Dartzeel and I think it is the best thing that has happened to me. Only thing though they do clip if you have bigger speakers, I tried Savoys and could not drive em, Strads no sweat, they have in my opinion the best of Nagra sweetness, Pass Mid , Goldmund Speed and Krell Bass with more detail. You should try em on your eights I really am curious. I drove my Wilsons 7 with Krell FPB 650Mc with ML32 and the older DCS stack. I had a chance to compare them to the B&W 800 and that is when I traded them in. The B&W just sounded more to me. But that is just an opinion. I heard that the 8s is very different from the 7s. I am now thinking of ordering Lumen White Whitelight D 3.0SE with the 3cm Diamond
I have owned the older dCS stack (Elgar/Verdi LaScala) for about 7 years now, of course a couple of upgrade during that time from Elgar to Elgar + etc. The Paganini I have had for three days now, wow the amount of info that is VIVID is ..I mean that sticks out and imaging is outragous. The transport sseems much more solid and it is pretty loud when moving , the solenoid just seems so sturdy. For my taste I love it. I heard the Scalatti at the dealer for couple of hours directly connected to Boulder Monos with Andrea IIs and it sounded nice but just a bit of harshness, I experienced with older stack as well, I believe you do need the preamp in between. I will update you more on Paganini as I hear more , the first impression if a must have !
Sorry for late reply, Bass is one of the reason I kept my Savoys, for one the Strads had a booming effect when playing non classical genre, just could not keep up, but also remember I am Playing with the XA 200 s' and that amp could be overwhelming for the strads. I just moved the system to a much larger listening room so I don't think it is a room tuning thing, The Savoys just played the tight bass in a subtle way where you do not notice that it is playing the bass but there is enough bass too the lowest note where you almost cry. The Bass just is much more detailed with the Savoys and it plays down to a much lower frequency. Now the question is when playing the Cello one of my benchmark instrument, Yoyo Ma's Enrio Morricone SACD. The Strads over all balance is extremely musical and just moving while Savoy geeting extremely close but just a tad of being mechanical. Going to the piano ...Savoy is more Pure ...
Overall I need them both and I am looking to replace something that could cover both these speakers in one unit. I heard the Avalon ISIS and not bad...for now I give 9.7/10 for Savoy and 9/10 for the Stards especially if you play a wide selection of music. But if you love just String Sonatas or even concertos ...strads..
Mitch4t, yes, they are heavy and do not try to move them your self, I mean X-600 is also almost similar and great sounding amps, if I had smaller speakers I would have settled for them. After you spend this much the dealer will do anything for you, if not get rid of them !!.
Chadnliz, thanks for your comments, I would love to share my system with anyone here, kinnda dissapointed that none of my friends are into audio, I must say as for speakers there are a lot of great ones out there, I really enjoy my Savoys which play all kinds of music such a ease and detail, however when I play the strings I must say Stradivari touches my soul, playing YoYoma's Cinema Paradisio just does it, but for over all balance and variety Savoys do it. Recently I heard Kharma's exquisite reference and wow, what a clarity they performed, also I liked the Dartzeel pre/power amp combination with smaller speaker settings, you should try them out...
Thanks guys for all your responses. Regarding P0s VUK which is the most upgraded version with L+R out put ...there was a Audio Conference in Seoul Last week and I attended and the Esoteric Chief came from Japan , what an experience, he pitched the P-01 ...
Now regarding the Elagr plus and Verdi Lascala, The P0s is more laid back and less distortion , The Lascala is more direct and revealing but tracking is really bad compared to the Esoteric. Now, the VUK upgrade is not really applicable to DCS, since DCS is not L+R configuration. Only one out put from CDT is valid... I prefer listening to P0s with CDs than DCS , I dunno why but it seems more natural, the DCS is a bit too harsh for me....
I only have on DA converter, and on DD converter, however, I have 2 transports, and one is for SACD. The only redundancy I have is Krell Power Amp, which I am not using at this time, thinking of trading my Avalon Opus speakers which I am using for AV with Kharma CRM 3.2FE and using my Krells to drive that....
