c£15k budget for DAC based system, ideas please

You may be right. I found the 2905 to sound a little gritty in comparison to the 989, but now you make me think about it, I have not been too impressed with the amp I heard them on. It does seem to sound comparatively harsh next to other amps. The 989 were on Quad amps.
Still I think the Jamo might be the answer with the very nice low distortion midrange unit in open baffle and big pro woofers for good dynamic range.

 

I don't know about the DACs you mentioned but I will check now the MSB DAC. The one I mentioned is by far the most intelligent approach to a dedicated PC-playback DAC I've ever heard of. A computer is just a storage place and nothing more: USB transfer between a PC and CrazyT DAC is purely a wav file transfer and nothing else. Hardware player is a part of the DAC (and not some lousy piece of software) therefore no jitter imported from the computer by the DAC. It's a battery powered, utilizing a charge management so you don't care about it (as in my case with Altmann's car battery).
According to those who heard it, the performance is spectacular and the price quite realistic in comparison with the competition (3.5k E - 2.5k UKP).

 

Hi guys, here is my listening update!

We will get the bad news out of the way first! After a frustrating session trying to get rid of the harshness in leading edges we discovered that it was the glass Quadraspire table!!!!!! I should have realised this from my previous extensive research into hifi isolation when I bought my Hutter.

Anyway it is difficult to be conclusive as everything sounded 'wrong' to my ears.

First I listened to Quad CDP99 as a transport as it is similar in quality to streaming from my Mac. Dac was Chord 64. Pre amp was Audio Research SP17 and power amp was Krell KAV400xi. Speakers were Wilson Benesch ACT. This had considerably better detail retrieval than the Ayon/LSA/2905 combo I had heard previously. It was clearly a huge improvement - not subtle - I heard instruments playing on discs I knew very, very well that I had not even heard before.

Changes to the above were then to try to get rid of the harsh leading edges so we changed the power amp to Quad II-forty. The sound was actually more natural - especially the drums but there was a lost of detail, it was a little bit 'safer', less exciting, loss of magic fairy dust. Still that bloody 'glass table' sound though - but we did not know this!

Maybe it was the Quad CDP99 transport? We then compared the Quad CDP99 with Chord Blu transport with the above components still in place and the difference was considerable so continued with the two Chord units. We had the 'lost' detail back, more control and dynamics.

We then substituted the ACTs for the Quad 2905s. (Harshness was still there!) In comparison to the ACT the Quad was better in some repects - openness, midband lushness - and probably not a lot worse in much at all but by now I was getting very frustrated with not getting rid of the harshness.

Final change was to substitute the CDP for the Audio Research CD3 that is considered to sound very much like a T/T. No improvement in getting rid of the harshness. We now had one of the smoothest systems going and as Sherlock Holmes said "if you have considered everything else whatever you are left with is the answer!" That glass table!!!!!!!

I will go back for another listen. I think that the Audio Reasearch CD3/AR SP17/Krell KAV 400xi/ACT or 2905 combo could be very good indeed. I have decided that the 2905s are really too tall so will try the smaller model. The ACTs share many qualities with the LSA L2 tower signature model but the LSA is £3000 cheaper.

Many of the products that you guys have recommended are not available for audition with the two dealers that I am using; SoM and KJ. Do you have any experience of comparing what you have recommended with what I have been listening to?

Many thanks D

 

Dom did the dealers bring the gear to your place? Keith.

 

I'm not a fan of Krell, I have always thought the midrange had a slight hardness to it. A bit like an 80's style council recording. As i mentioned before better to have a home dem and know what its going to sound like in your home, I wouldn't like to guess its the shelves, unless you had a play around during the dem.

 

That is indeed the problem with the gear I use. It's impossible to hear it at any UK dealer - as it was for me I hasten to add. I have had the opportunity to compare the amplifier I use with TOTL McIntosh and Audio Research and it frankly made them sound broken. The difference was only so funny because I hadn't just dropped serious money at a London dealer on the Absolute Sounds gear -otherwise I would have been furious I suspect. Robbo and Bottleneck heard the same chasm in sound quality. I'm afraid I find most of that exotica to be mostly show and little go these days.

 

Dom,

When next at SoM ask to listen to the Hansen Audio 'Knight'. It is definitely one of the better sounding speakers I have heard there. Its RRP is £13,000 which wouldn't leave much for amp and CDP but I'm sure you could do a deal on a full system like that - John is the distributor for Hansen so he has a fair margin to play with Don't tell him I said that though lol!



Edited to add: You could also ask to listen in the Amadeus Audio room where there are some nice acoustic treatments

 

I did shotlist the Jamo myself, I enjoy what open baffle speakers give you, but depreciation on these is very high and they are not easy to move on either from what I heard.
next time your down SoM have a listen to the 2905 with the LSA Sig I think you may revise your opinion the damm things are fussy beggers !!

 

It was the LSA Sig I heard them on... pretty poor amp IMO. Lots of build, but a very sharp and unrefined sound. I demoed a few amps to someone at the shop early last year and the BAT, T+A and one I forget the name of (Kmac here bought it in the end!) all sounded far better balanced.

The 988 in the next room with Quad electronics sounded 100% more coherent and sweet than the 2509 and LSA amp. Hence I suggested the 989 for Dom.

Do you still have the BelCanto pre and power?

 

Hi Tenson

thanks for the opinions. A question about BAT - how popular are they? I have just done a quick Google to judge secondhand prices and a dealer has a 6200 amp that retails at £8500 for £2500. This does not necessarily mean that it is bad but probably that there is very little demand for it a) because it is an aquired taste b) there are reliability issues c) brand problem d) etc etc. caterhams are good cars but not mass market - they do hold their prices though so whats the deal with the low price for the BAT?

Having done a few searches for secondhand gear it would appear that on almost all brands there are good deals to be had with many nearly new items selling at 50% of retail. Apart from the 2905 which is new - I like the Classic finish - it would seem prudent to shop for secondhand items and get more for my budget.

 

Hi Dom,

I can't really answer that to be honest. Simply judging by the forums and magazines though, I would say that they are not very well known. That is not to say they are 'unpopular' as that implies people have a negative impression. I think they are simply not too well marketed. Most of their stuff does sound nice though

Amps... I just realised that the AMR AM77 is in your price range at £4.4k. Though you won't get it from SoM if you want to get a system deal. Real Hi-Fi distribute it in the UK.

Oh, and a hybrid Pathos was the other amp I was trying to remember. You almost have too much choice in your price range!

Now if you simply gave me £15K to blow I would get:

A pair of Musikelectronic Geithain (MEG) ME320K active speakers - http://www.me-geithain.de/index2.html?eng

A Music First TVC preamp - http://www.mfaudio.co.uk/index2.htm

A Cambridge Audio 840C CD Player - http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summary.php?PID=112&Title=Azur+840C+Black+Fin+DSP+upsampling+CD+player

 

There are three HiFi shows coming up in the next few month, Manchester, then Bristol ( end of Febuary ) and the Heathrow show in April.

 

The CrazyT is a different, not beforeseen, device. It has nothing in common with the before discussed machines.

A battery, optional AC, supplied NOS-DAC based on a new technology.

The DAC is dedicated for HDD stored wav files to be treated in a seperate platform with a HW player.

Hence the SQ is merely based on how good the Hard Ware player is to be found in there.
It's a 0 jitter device. A 2 high quality clocked low phase noice design with external oven-clock to adjust for 0 Hz difference between them.
The route of data is:

PC HDD -> via USB ->CrazyT DAC buffer -> clock pick up -> (HW device serialize data stream to HW device) this is the player it self -> clock -> NOS-DAC -> output trafoes.

Hence no USB/SPDIF conversion takes place.

It is meant for replacing MOBO's and OS systems influence on OS-based SW players in order to provide a 'unpoluted' sound that derives from a PC platform no matter how much it's tweaked.

As this is interfacing to the PC-HDD's via USB only and no data treatment takes place before it reaches the internal HW platform statemachine, it's obvious that this is supperior to any other device for wav data treatment.

I can however not gurantee for bad rips becomming good rips.
The ripping of a CD must of course always be first class.

What you gain from this is unheard of purity and Master Tape sound that rivals IMHO any other device that deals with data for sound.

Gerner

 

I suspect that would be a very good system...

 

Music I like to listen to

MEG seem to be sold through pro-audio shops like KMR so getting a decent demo at home should not be a problem. Would you describe the MEGS as being 'musical'. Monitors are not designed to be 'musical', they are designed to be flat otherwise they are difficult to mix on.

I listen to Goldfrapp, Air, Genesis, Roxy Music, Matt Munro, Sinatra, Herbie Hancock, Santana, Weather Report, Bill Evans, Jobim, Heatwave, Jacksons, Bill Nelson, David Sylvian, Mozart, Vivaldi, Numan, Vangelis, Marvin Gaye.

 

I've only heard the RL901K, but it is basically the same thing as the ME320K without the domestic face on it.

I wouldn't describe any speaker as musical. The instruments and performance you play through them is musical, and the MEG reproduce that exceptionally well. As do the Quads having very low distortion, so you obviouslyl ike this approach.

However, if you want to add a bit of colouration to the mix then I think the source and pre-amp are the place to do this anyway, not the speakers. I would not object at all to the MEG being run with a nice valve pre-amp.

 

Not any more, loads of detail with the B/C but dry and clinical in the extreme no groove similar kind of coldness I tried to describe to you when you used those Manger drivers in your speaker build last year.

the comment above relates only to the Quad 2905 pairing, the earlier evo Belcantos still cut it and are serious VFM on the used market

 

Thats exactly what I found with the Bel Cantos!

 

I would sell you my system for 16k.:MILD:

Levinson,passx350,revel kimber 3035s ect.