ADMIT YOUR DEADLY SINS. (PT1 of 7)

Here's a thing,

I've been scanning other peoples systems, you know how you do? And in doing so tried to fix in my head how they will sound, and I suppose by extrapolation (if that isn't the word do let me know)work out a bit about the owner.

In doing so, and without the feeling beibng related to such things as cost, size, etc I feel there are some systems I really would like to listen to, and would perhaps never have thought of assembling myself.

More questions follow like, how did you come to collect all these particular bits together? What is it about the whole that sounds so good to you etc. And I suppose it could all get a bit dull, having to wade through the boring bits about kit history etc.

And the particular systems I am really interested in?

Sugden A21 -Audio Physic Spark
Rotel 1070 -Isolda DCT 300
Kimber IC

and this one....

wadia 301
eastern electric minimax
vac auricle mkii
thiel cs 1.6
power cables are 2/3rds nordost shiva (to be completed)
and interconnects are RS audio silver

I'd be surprise if they didn't sound brilliant, but would never have arrived at those configurations left to my own devices. Maybe the owners will comment?

 

that be me...........

right,where to start

I have a had countless cheapo systems over the last 20 years,and have always been a frustrated by them (although the Denon mini was incredible for the money) so started building a "decent" separates system 5 yrs ago.Unfortunatley,this coincided with a project to renovate a house,and i was about a trillion pounds out with my estimates (plumbers,they are all rich,believe me) so...........I bought second hand.
And I was still frustrated.I had an Audio Analogue Puccini and CDM1 se,but i just couldnt ignore the system,it coloured the sound to varying degress at different volumes,so i was determined to upgrade as soon as we moved again,which i am now doing (great components though,just didnt do it for me)

however,second child on way,money needed yet again for bigger house,but bugger it,I NEEDED a system i could live with and forget about,just to enjoy music,so i started auditioning in dealers and found nothing that excited me,with a budget of 3k I was disapointed to say the least (obviously i heard beter systems than mny own,but not enough to blow a family holidays worth of dosh on it)

so I just stayed miserable reading net forums for inspiration,until I gained enough confidence to ask.It seems that the universal opinion is that the B&Ws like to be driven hard and dont sound too great when at low levels,which is what i have to listen too most of the time,but..............the wife was insisting on no stands in the new lounge,had to have small floorstanders.Luck would have it,Jeff in here was after some small monitors because he has moved and his lounge has shrunk,so his Sparks were for sale.So I took a punt.

As I did on a 2 year old boxed A21a for £500,with receipt from a dealer and an enthusiast owner who was upgrading.

I was lucky,the combination is wonderful.The Sugden has to work hard with the speakers,86bd into an average of 6ohms (dont drop below 4),which Mr Sugden himself feels is the right way to work the A21,hard,it sounds better according to him.

As for the Isolda DCT 300 cable,Michaelab was joining the growing band of disbelievers in cable magic and offered them up half price,and i knew that Sugden recommend them,so bought them as well (Kimber was a cheap Ebay purchase)

As for CD players,well,i will be a bit controversial.I am like Tones is with stands,i cant hear differences in Cd players.I heard many £500 players and they all sounded the same to me,so I went up a notch to £1000 and still couldnt hear any difference.So I bought the one I thought I liked the best,the Rotel,got it s/h again and bought a boat load of new cds with the saved dosh.

So,I got my £3500 system for the princely sum of £1400

And the verdict? dunno,I havent heard my system,all I can hear is music

I have varied tastes,hard seventies rock,female/male vocals,blues and now becuase I have a decnt system,a love of classical is blossoming,particularly Bach.

I wont use hifi mag speak such as soundstage,imaging etc etc,not because,I dont think these things exist,but because I dont really understand them enough to pass comment.But the music just flows out,the bass just fabulous,I think the culprit is the Class A amp,everything else is just a significant step up from anything I auditioned and have ever heard,the realism I now have in bass is the biggest improvement,although clarity and depth have dramatically improved as well,oh I dunno,the whole thing is just massively improved

I don't really feel qualified to try and analyse the system any more than that,needless to say I have started to consider a new cd player,but I have to be convinced that blowing another £1000 will move this system onto another level.

downsides? only one,poor recordings are exposed,massively so.This is prevalent more so with classical,particularly if I listen to a modern close mic'ed disc first.However,a Linn HDCD recording is in a different league,I think I will stay out of Ebay and stick to HDCDs for future classical purchases


anyway,thanks for asking

 

Saab,

You sussed then!

A mate of mine has the Sugden too, but he partners it with Harbeth speakers, didn't think it would work with your sparks, so that was an interesting thing already....then of course you explain about the cd thing, and I feel similarly to you on this point, mostly the sub £100 stuff all sounds broadly similar to me too, though I have to say I settled on a Primare D30.2 as the most detailed, useable and able to offer a solid soundstage (for the money I could find)

Wont say too much about the cables for feasr of starting a row, I have a bias towards Townshend gear, and some suspicions about kimber that would cause a fuss too!

I guess the recording quality issue is pretty much inescapable, which makes the good ones even more precious.

Thanks for your answer, plenty of food for thought there.

 

wadia 301
eastern electric minimax
vac auricle mkii
thiel cs 1.6

and that would be me....

i kind of did it all around the wrong way, to be completely honest.
about 10 years ago now sadly departed friend of mine started me of on the whole stereo thing. he was actually a techy guy who did designed home theatre installations. he actually did larry ellison and george lucas's homes! anyway he actually was for his own tastes, a tube (valve) junky. at various times he had audio research, marantz 9, 8b and others...

well the marantz 9s were the nicest sounding amps i've ever, EVER heard. they are however incredibly rare these days, and the reissue (done for marantz's 40th anniversary) was about 10 grand. they most enjoyable evening i ever had listening to music was however with his 8b. i really fell in love with the way that thing sounded. i was however a student at the time and even 30 years old, the 8b was expensive to a student.

at the same time that the 9 reissue was done, they also did the 8b. the reissues were actually built by VAC for marantz, and after they had completed the run, Kevin Hayes decided that he too appreciated the charms of the 8b, and that it should be maintained in production. for obvious reasons, it couldn't continue as the "8b" and so the auricle was born. a slightly breathed upon 8b. the mkII is a further development, but retaining the 8b dna as it were.

well anyway i decided to get the auricle based on my experience of the 8b and Kevin's reputation and that of his products.

the thiels were Kevin's recommendation, and what he uses in testing his equipment. though he use the larger 3.6. the price and size precluded these from my system (london flat), but the thiel range has similar characteristics, so i checked out the 1.6, which had just been being very well reviewed in a number of magazines.

the minimax was recommended to me by a dealer in the UK as a giant killer if you didn't need more than basic preamp functions. it sounds pretty good, and responds very well to tube rolling allowing you to fine tune the sound. i originally wasn't sure what cd player i was interested in, and tried a number before i settled on the 301. as a result i hadn't planned that i was going to have a digital volume control. due to the wife not liking the stereo loud/on when she's around the preamp allows me to have it much quieter without loosing those bits with the digital control, so it has stayed even though it's not totally needed.

to me the 301, especially at second hand prices, was phenomenal. so much bass, detail and a really big presentation. would love to hear the 861....

the nordost power cables are the only ones i've ever tried...
i bought one cheap off ebay, and was so impressed at what it did plugged into the 301, that i bought another for the minimax... further huge improvement!

a non stereo buddy of mine came over to listen, and i swapped in/out the nordost, with out him knowing what i was doing, and he couldn't believe the difference when i told him "what just happened". i'm planning on getting a vishnu and swapping the shiva from the 301 to the auricle.

later i may get a shunyata hydra 6 to run all of this through (currently it is just on a fairly cheap power strip) as i can really tell the difference between evening and daytime listening at the moment. other than that i'm really happy with it.

if the guy was still around that started me off on all this was still around, i would probably have a new most enjoyable night of music....

he was not a cable believer, and i just know he's spining in his grave at the thought of what i spent on cables!!!

 

blakeaudio,

That's a hell of a story, and obviously a well informed series of decisions, glad you explained the pre + volume conundrum, you don't mention how much difference in sound quality you can discern between the wadia volume reduction, and the pre's.

I'll keep an eye out for the vac gear, it sounds like an underrated product.

It's those 'most enjoyable nights of music' that make all the expense and buggering about worth it, I expect your old mate would be most impressed.

 

well sure enough just as wadia say in their brochures, keep the volume in the 65-99 range. if you have it really low, ie for background music, you do noitice a loss of detail, though i have to say that you really can only notice it below say 30, so even then you would normally have plenty of volume range.

in the states it's actually very well regarded. they are a really low volume producer. most of their gear is in the 5-20k range and exquisite. check out their website www.vac-amps.com if your interested. Kevin the owner / designer is also a really nice and helpfull guy and takes as much time as you need with him on the phone to help you with whatever issue you might have. (incidentally he also suggested that a preamp in his opinion did tend to add a little something. he said this was to do with impedence and helping the stability of the amp - i don't know enough about electronics to argue....)

well i'm certainly always reminded of him when i have one of those stereo moments!:MILD:

i'm curious what it was in particular that interested you about my set up? i have to say i've looked through others systems and thought there were an awful lot of really nice set ups, many far more impressive than mine!

 

blakeaudio,

Yep, I guess you could say there are more obviously impressive systems, and that is still in the realm of the 'ear of the beholder' or perhaps the 'eye of the beholder' the latter counting for very little IMHO.

The two I settled upon were of interest since they didn't follow the fairly obvious recipes we all tend to settle on, perhaps through convergence of opinions, or advice, or availability.

I've been able to listen to some pretty 'impressive' gear myself, and often been totally amazed by how poor it sounds. That seems pretty scarey doesn't it? I bet we have all seen a great system then heard it sound like two skeletons ####ing in a dustbin. So the important thing is to listen and only take on the best advice.

Hope that explains it, me snooping for ideas as to where to take my listening next, and paths set by people who evaluate music with their ears and hearts rather than through glossy ads, $$ shaped glasses, or willy waving.

As Baz L said, "Read the instructions even if you don't neccesarily follow them"

 

well,not so much sussed as took a risk based on what I auditioned,read in here and in the mags,and my own personal tastes

and luckily,it worked

I am still in a tither over cd players,I might syphon off a few quid after the house move and audition some,so,watch this space

I suppose what is unusual about my system is the sensitivity of the speakers when matched to the A21-I certainly didn't expect so much powerful sound to come out and I didnt expect Mr JES to suggest it could be the best match,due to the A21 being at its best when pushed hard,and possibly so are the speakers.Dunno,but I like it

 

well i have to admit that the minimax was purchased on faith! as i say based a recommendation and then a little research of various forums and checking the input / output impedance was a reasonable match. it does sound pretty good, with just a little in the power supply to sort as i said. i have found myself thinking about the vac standard preamp, second hand of course!

where is "the near east"? are we in fact talking about essex or kent?

 

Blake,

If you arn't a high high volume listener, you could hit the dip switches (internally) down to 2.2 or 1.1V (if the input sens of the Vac amps are up to it) this will give you 'more time spent in the smile range but with maxium resolution and less overall volume, so you could listen comftabley at higher number 'Numbers on the display' greater resolution, less volume.

Pre-amps, I'd say a 50/50 split for most Wadia owners, depending on what your goals are.
I personally have only found one pre-amp I would say yes thats better, Spectral DC 30 MkII, how much better?, humm if you factor in another lead (power) and I/c's, isloation plus the pre-amp itself (used about £5-6K) then the law of dimishing returns kicks in with avengence
Else buy a Lavardin IT Ref.
The Thiels 3.6's are nice speakers (Owned these 2), however an American size room is rquired for the potential to be realised.
So I'd imagine the 1.6's are a good match for your room
The Hydra's are fair, but can be beaten for lesser investment.

 

NOT if you like what Shunyata does it can't mate. I'm up for the challenge anytime

 

No problemo

 

Blakeaudio,

Nope Suffolk, about an hour from Redbridge, between Cambridge and Ipswich.

 

rewster,
i'm actually based in notting hill, if you ever venture down to london and fancy a listen, drop me a line.

as far as the dip switches, on the 301, they're actually on the back of the unit. already set to the lowest setting. the vac is fairly sensitive, i think it's 1.4v for full power.... can't remember for sure without finding the manual.

1. the wife really doesn't like the stereo / music. she listens to radio 4 constantly, but doesn't like music she even used to be a music journalist, so i really don't get it. so i need to be able to listen really quietly when she's around (often even this doesn't fly) luckily for me she starts work much later in the morning than me, but consequently finishes much later giving me an hour post warm up to enjoy in the evenings. such short sessions must be killing my tubes though!

2.the vac, though to me wonderful, is still their entry level unit. the minimax definitely punches above its weight, and seems to cope admirably. though it is stuffed full of NOS tubes (actually i replaced the stock VAC driver section tubes with NOS RCA cleartops too.) and there's the rub, the VAC Standard preamp, is supposed to be a reference item, but i wonder if it's charms would be lost with the auricle, or if it would be that much better than the minimax to justify the 5 times price differential (what i paid that is...) not being distributed in the UK, it's not possible to demo VAC equipment, and i don't have any previous experience with their preamps to make an informed guess.

back to the laws of diminishing returns!!!!

so tell me what would you recommend besides the shunyata? i was told that the combination of the hydra's passive operation worked a treat with the nordost cables.

 

Aw shucks,

Thanks for the invite, hey its like Jim'll fix it on here sometimes!

Best Regards,

Rewster

 

Blake,

Sorry I forgot it was a 301 .
The Hydra 8 is better than the 6 (inho), input p/c can have a noticable change in presenation, and are proberbly the most critical part of the chain.
I had a valhalla power chord, (before RG got to tell the world about them), yes its good but not earth shattering, its fast, but very top endy, quite bright (ala' nordost), bass just didn't go as deep as I'm used to, quite finicky about what it was partnered with.
The stateside wadia boys love their Shunyata King cobras's and Anaconda's, they do give a rich full bodided texture, and they do have a marked difference on the W's.
Other chords that really do show the nordost, BMI whale supreme, Anaconda Alpha (not as quick, but a better more rounded and relaxed sound),Ultra Khan Statement II's, yes nice trade off between the 2, Virtual Dynamics Nite David II is good also, KAS silver Meastro? not bad either, JPS alumatra thingy, jury's out at the mo (I'm evaluating this one at the moment)
Other conditioners, worth a mention in this range, Chang Lightspeed better middle & Top than the H8, just about equal on bass, Audio Magic Stealth 'XXX' better all round Equiptech Balanced power units damn fine also.
All of which means nothing, until you've heard em' in your own system over a few weeks.
About a year a go, we were given the Nordost Valhalla is the best Myth by a leading light in the world of audio spin this was soon disbanded & his face was a picture. There is better out there for a lot less, you just have to dig a bit deeper than normal, but its worth the effort.

 

rewster, just let me know if your down here. offer is open.
wadia-meister, so where is the best place to start. with the whole cable thing? as i said i already have shiva on the pre and the 301, adn i was as already said, planning on getting a vishnu for the 301, switching the other shiva to the auricle.

i'm afraid i don't have the budget to go valhalla or something else in that price range (currently renovating my flat. it was a struggle to get the stuff i have past the wife as is!)

would you actively avoid completing this plan? as i said i was impressed with what the shiva did in my system, though that was pretty much my first foray into pricey cables. again as far as the hydra went, i was only planning on the 6. many would suggest that i've already spent an awful lot of money on my hobby (though probably not here!) and i was kind of thinking that the vishnu/hydra6 would be about enough to round it off.

i was thinking the vishnu for the 301, because it had been suggested to me that this would smooth out the sound of the digital source whilst the shivas would help give the tubes a little snap. am i going the wrong way with this thinking?

 

Blake,

First off, the expensive ones, always buy states side especially with the £<>$.
Tubes are pain to get right, with Power chords, I'm afraid it's trial and error, and there are few guys here who would be more than horrified about you even mentioning the fact of p/c on Tubes :duck:

I'm puzzled you felt the 301 was digital?, if any quite the opposite, for me. Not my favourite wadia, but not digital though.
Though I had a customer recently tell me an 861 SE was 'Ragged' at the top??? so who knows??? Although they do respond well to power leads.
I feel if you can get the power leads on S.O.R. and give them a good couple of weeks and you'll have a feel if it's going to do it for you
Which is the Shiva £250 version?, vishnu £450, The difference between the £450 one and the valhalla version in *most systems* is very small, you need a quality set up system to extract the best from them.
As with a lot of recommendations, system dependantcy/room/what your preferrred sound is have a bearing here, ultimately its down to you.
Sorry to be so Vauge, but it has taken me a long time to strike the right balance, and every system is different. Wm

 

to be completely honest, and this might horrify some out there, but i've never actually heard a decent vinyl setup. to be honest i don't think the 301 sounds particularly digital, in fact i chose it because i thought it was smooth whilst detailed. i like it very much, but then i also haven't heard the more expensive wadias.

what do you not like about it?

i'm not even going to duck when i say that the p/c made a big diference in my system! as i think i may have said previously, other non hifi people have heard and been amazed by the difference!

so you think the vishnu is good bang for the buck? i have bought most of my system state side, except for the 301 which i picked up used for half price and the minimax came from the european distributor at non retail price! in all i've saved about 4 grand on my system by doing this!

you can actually find vishnus in the states for the cost of shivas over here!

 

Blake,

Do I think the Vishsu is good, Humm well I'm not going to comment here, as I've heard/owned them, but I will point out I make cables and power equipment for a living OK.
So although, I've earlier mentioned those I have liked, this is a very small amount out of a large number.
You don't have to convice me about cables, however a few weeks back we(z/g) were under going big does it/doesn't session, that was rather interesting
This will induce people to post I feel
" think i may have said previously, other non hifi people have heard and been amazed by the difference!"
Anyway valves are buggers to find the right cable for, took us a few goes to get it right
What don't I like about the 301?, first up a lot of guys who like the 301 go onto an 861, I'm not particurally keen on the 861 either (unless its the SE & modded) Its still very good, but its potato/patartato
I find the 301, too nice, pleasant,soft, no get and go/detail light (power leads help here), bit of a damp squib, this is my view, I have a few guys who won't part with them for love nor money, its a personal thing, only speakers are more personal.
The last 301 I bought was $1800+shipping black one, took a bit of work to get right too. the display is no great shakes either, also not much room inside those unlike the 800 series.
A decent Vinyl set up will destroy all but the very best CDps' (and thats from a digitalhead).
Best digital sound I've heard wadia 270 se transport (modded) MSB platium sig/all the mods plus some serious psu's mods that seem to take forever
One of the very best sounds I've heard Well tempered Ref/Keotsu cart/manley steel heads phono/amps superb
I paid $1k (US) for my Valhalla just over the vishnu here.
You may find things different to the way I did, so trails are the key Wm