Isolda : Revisited

Im sure people will remember me being not so impressed with my recent acquisition of Isolda.
Well as i found out shortly after my initial reactions, there was other problems in my system (namely knackered solder joint in my amp)

So a month on and an update.

Well, firstly its here to stay!
The effect it has had is not subtle (after the amp repair).
It has done what i have been wanting, and for a blind s/h purchase i consider that a damn good bonus!
The souns stage has improved a lot, maybe not wider but the third dimension has been added. Drums are now positioned at the back as opposed to just being quieter before. I think the width will never improve until i get a better room

Bass - that old cliche, is it less bass or more controlled. After throwing as much music as i can at it i have come to the conclusion it is one hell of a lot better controlled. Maybe it is less but i am enjoying the way it is. I use to find on vinyl in particular that the low end was wallowing in places and had a job getting itself up off the floor. Well it positively bounces along know with a tune

Treble - This hasnt changed hugely from before, maybe clearer and better defined. But with the better bass control it is now much more balanced. detail is a lot better and things like cymbols sound more real.

Mids - Again not a massive difference but well in timeing with everything else, a sweet midrange that has added some substance to the music.

All in all it has that magic that can keep me up way past bed o'clock and regretting it in the morning.
I now feel that im one positive step closer to being very content with my sound

 

I know ju2002 has been trying some on his Naim amps and B&Ws.

What did you think Ju?

 

i'm still giving it some thought. in comparison to my old knackered naca 5.....
the bass is slightly warmer and fuzzier - i think this is one of the reasons that people find it hard to move on from naca 5, for all it's other problems it does impose rigid control on the bass.

mid is a lot sweeter and cleaner than before

treble no longer strips the wall paper on badly recorded cd's cymbols crash and tizz with the best of them - a little sibilant but then so was the naca 5.

i'm still trying to decide whether the trade off is worth it. i had a bit of a lynard skynrd session this afternoon and the bass on swamp music was lush however this doesn;t equate well with some of my more, shall we say, upbeat choices in music. gabba and some hard techno / trance / psytrance sound like the bass is a bit behind and disjointed which it never did with the naca 5.

i'm going to play with my speaker positioning over the weekend a bit and see if that can fix the problem. if not then i've got some serious thinking to do - maybe reterminate my naca5 with some of those double wbt's and biwire....... or maybe not.

cheers


julian