Another off the bucket list: Vivid Giya G1 with full DarTZeels + MIT Oracle MA-X
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Joey_V
Posts: 8,519
Introduction:
So, our group went out to listen to a super system - Vivid Giya G1 and full DarTZeel set up with MIT Oracle MA-X and Elrod Systems Statement Gold Power Cords.
It's not every day that you find someone with a set up this supreme. The price on the products are over the top and I doubt there was anyone in our group who could afford the entire set, so we were just ogling at the gear for the most part. We were eager to hear what the Vivid Giya G1 could do and we were very interested in what this hoopla was about the DarTZeel products.
So, it made sense that our next DFW Audio Club meeting was held around hearing this supreme system.
System:
NASDAC, Luxman SACD player (I forget the model) - $18K+
Dartzeel Preamp (newest version) - $38K
Dartzeel 458 monoblocks - $170K
Vivid Giya G1 - $68K
MIT Oracle MA-X with articulation - $60K
MIT interconnects - $8K-20K/each
Elrod Statement Gold - not sure $
Evolution Acoustics Zeel connects - $5K
The Demo:
The room was well treated (though I would have probably treated it slightly differently). The room was approximately 24ftx20ft with 9ft ceilings.
My friends and I took turns at the sweet spot. There were 2 rows of 3 chairs set up, the sweet spot was probably 12 feet from the tweeter of the G1s, and the speakers were probably 10-12 feet apart tweeter to tweeter. My guess is my ears were probably 36" from the floor.
We ran through a bunch of classical, jazz, Lady Gaga, Sam Smith, Beatles, Johnny Cash, Adele tracks. We also played some rock tracks, some I was not familiar with.
The Sound:
I feel like I had a very good feel of the sound of this system as I was able to run the system through a lot of my own tracks, each I was very familiar with on my own system. It would only take me about 30 seconds of each track for me to understand exactly how this system performed. I feel like I have a much better idea of this system's sound than I did when I auditioned the Focal Grande Utopia III system from a few months ago.
Treble:
I felt like the treble was extended while not being sharp. It definitely sounded natural while retaining all the detail without sounding hi-fi. It definitely created a good sense of space, ambience, and allowed for reproducing the "room" to most of the tracks. I also felt that the system had full control of the treble, there was not a sense of forced detail, there was not a sense of individual instruments mixing in with the adjacent instrument.
Midrange:
I felt like the tone and the timbre was just right. Everything sounded like they should, nothing was shelved off or made to sound euphonic. Piano sounded rich, guitars sounded raw, violins sounded ethereal. You can get a sense of the reed being abused when trumpets blare.
Bass:
Surprisingly, it was tight and superb. It plumbed deep enough to give a sense of a full range sound. There was nothing that I missed on the reproduction. The bottom end of the piano sounded delightful. Quick and with minimal overhang. Was it the best bass reproduction I heard from a full range speaker? I think it beats out the Focal Grande Utopia III on their respective systems. But I don't think it beats out the Constellation/Magico Q7mk2 system that I heard late last year.
Soundstaging:
Wide, spacious, lots of elbow room between instruments, tall and surrounding. It's not easy to do this. Not only do you need the appropriate system, speakers and amps... but you need the right room. There is just no way I can replicate something like this in terms of width because I simply don't have the room size this system had.
Tonal density? I think I've heard better. This was not to say that the system sounded feathery, light, inappropriately airy.... quite the contrary. But it was not as palpable as some of the best systems I have heard thus far. I also felt that at times, the vocalist tended to pull up a little, making the stage a little "higher" than I would feel is appropriate.
Instruments were very individualized... the elbow room was astonishing. I thought I knew what blackness around notes were, but this was truly stunning. I bet a lot of it was the DarTZeels playing a part on this one. It's very cool to hear a system where it really allowed each instrument and vocalist to stand alone. The particular individual units were also image-stable. I did not notice a shift of image as each track played through. Many others remarked on this.
Compare to my own:
It was interesting because I've had 3 people from our group hear my system. Ed, Kevin, and Tony. All 3 feel that my system is the best locally without going into crazy money. Kevin and Tony could not make the DFW Group meet, but Ed did. Ed heard my system the night before the meeting - so he had a good benchmark (Ed said that after he heard my system, his system did not sound good).
Ed and I swapped sweet spots multiple times during the meet and I would take the first 30 seconds of a track and he would follow right behind me. What did we think?
Yes, this Vivid G1 system was spectacular... but it didn't blow my system out of the water. Yes, I would say the bass was better, the staging was probably wider and the instruments were given a bit more elbow room. Maybe better blackness between notes/instruments/vocalist...
... but for the price delta? We didn't think so.
In fact, we felt that my vocal reproduction was actually better. My staging is better in terms of height, the singer's mouth was in a more appropriate position. The palpability of the voice was better on my system, more dense, and more jenesequa... more magic. I would say that the singer on the G1/Dartzeel was a little laid back and tucked in compared to mine... we thought that my system reproduced the singer more infront of the speaker baffle/plane comparatively so. Which is preferable? That's an individual preference. You get more pizzaz from a more stage-forward system, while you get better long term audibility and comfort with a system that is a little more stage-back.
I would say, this system was a 9/10 overall, except imaging and vocal density. My system would probably be a 7/10.
So, our group went out to listen to a super system - Vivid Giya G1 and full DarTZeel set up with MIT Oracle MA-X and Elrod Systems Statement Gold Power Cords.
It's not every day that you find someone with a set up this supreme. The price on the products are over the top and I doubt there was anyone in our group who could afford the entire set, so we were just ogling at the gear for the most part. We were eager to hear what the Vivid Giya G1 could do and we were very interested in what this hoopla was about the DarTZeel products.
So, it made sense that our next DFW Audio Club meeting was held around hearing this supreme system.
System:
NASDAC, Luxman SACD player (I forget the model) - $18K+
Dartzeel Preamp (newest version) - $38K
Dartzeel 458 monoblocks - $170K
Vivid Giya G1 - $68K
MIT Oracle MA-X with articulation - $60K
MIT interconnects - $8K-20K/each
Elrod Statement Gold - not sure $
Evolution Acoustics Zeel connects - $5K
The Demo:
The room was well treated (though I would have probably treated it slightly differently). The room was approximately 24ftx20ft with 9ft ceilings.
My friends and I took turns at the sweet spot. There were 2 rows of 3 chairs set up, the sweet spot was probably 12 feet from the tweeter of the G1s, and the speakers were probably 10-12 feet apart tweeter to tweeter. My guess is my ears were probably 36" from the floor.
We ran through a bunch of classical, jazz, Lady Gaga, Sam Smith, Beatles, Johnny Cash, Adele tracks. We also played some rock tracks, some I was not familiar with.
The Sound:
I feel like I had a very good feel of the sound of this system as I was able to run the system through a lot of my own tracks, each I was very familiar with on my own system. It would only take me about 30 seconds of each track for me to understand exactly how this system performed. I feel like I have a much better idea of this system's sound than I did when I auditioned the Focal Grande Utopia III system from a few months ago.
Treble:
I felt like the treble was extended while not being sharp. It definitely sounded natural while retaining all the detail without sounding hi-fi. It definitely created a good sense of space, ambience, and allowed for reproducing the "room" to most of the tracks. I also felt that the system had full control of the treble, there was not a sense of forced detail, there was not a sense of individual instruments mixing in with the adjacent instrument.
Midrange:
I felt like the tone and the timbre was just right. Everything sounded like they should, nothing was shelved off or made to sound euphonic. Piano sounded rich, guitars sounded raw, violins sounded ethereal. You can get a sense of the reed being abused when trumpets blare.
Bass:
Surprisingly, it was tight and superb. It plumbed deep enough to give a sense of a full range sound. There was nothing that I missed on the reproduction. The bottom end of the piano sounded delightful. Quick and with minimal overhang. Was it the best bass reproduction I heard from a full range speaker? I think it beats out the Focal Grande Utopia III on their respective systems. But I don't think it beats out the Constellation/Magico Q7mk2 system that I heard late last year.
Soundstaging:
Wide, spacious, lots of elbow room between instruments, tall and surrounding. It's not easy to do this. Not only do you need the appropriate system, speakers and amps... but you need the right room. There is just no way I can replicate something like this in terms of width because I simply don't have the room size this system had.
Tonal density? I think I've heard better. This was not to say that the system sounded feathery, light, inappropriately airy.... quite the contrary. But it was not as palpable as some of the best systems I have heard thus far. I also felt that at times, the vocalist tended to pull up a little, making the stage a little "higher" than I would feel is appropriate.
Instruments were very individualized... the elbow room was astonishing. I thought I knew what blackness around notes were, but this was truly stunning. I bet a lot of it was the DarTZeels playing a part on this one. It's very cool to hear a system where it really allowed each instrument and vocalist to stand alone. The particular individual units were also image-stable. I did not notice a shift of image as each track played through. Many others remarked on this.
Compare to my own:
It was interesting because I've had 3 people from our group hear my system. Ed, Kevin, and Tony. All 3 feel that my system is the best locally without going into crazy money. Kevin and Tony could not make the DFW Group meet, but Ed did. Ed heard my system the night before the meeting - so he had a good benchmark (Ed said that after he heard my system, his system did not sound good).
Ed and I swapped sweet spots multiple times during the meet and I would take the first 30 seconds of a track and he would follow right behind me. What did we think?
Yes, this Vivid G1 system was spectacular... but it didn't blow my system out of the water. Yes, I would say the bass was better, the staging was probably wider and the instruments were given a bit more elbow room. Maybe better blackness between notes/instruments/vocalist...
... but for the price delta? We didn't think so.
In fact, we felt that my vocal reproduction was actually better. My staging is better in terms of height, the singer's mouth was in a more appropriate position. The palpability of the voice was better on my system, more dense, and more jenesequa... more magic. I would say that the singer on the G1/Dartzeel was a little laid back and tucked in compared to mine... we thought that my system reproduced the singer more infront of the speaker baffle/plane comparatively so. Which is preferable? That's an individual preference. You get more pizzaz from a more stage-forward system, while you get better long term audibility and comfort with a system that is a little more stage-back.
I would say, this system was a 9/10 overall, except imaging and vocal density. My system would probably be a 7/10.
Magico, JL, Emm, ARC Ref 10 line, ARC Ref 10 phono, VPI, Lyra, Boulder, AQ Wel, SRA Scuttle Rack, Bluesound
Comments
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Summary:
I think that this Vivid G1 system was a special one. It is no wonder that if you read up on the Vivid G1 reviews, you run across superlatives and "best ever" comments. However as special as the G1 was, I think the star of the show had to be the Zeels. Unbelievable preamp and amp... it honestly looks like Ironman incarnate. In fact, it is ironman incarnate including the price!
The MIT Oracle MA-X... I don't exactly know how much of the system sound this added, but I'm sure it's good. That said, the pricing of the cabling was really going over my head... it's unfathomable what kind of numbers we were talking about.
It's next to impossible to "afford" these products... but I'm sure there are quite a few out there who swing at this level. It was cool to hear the SOTA. I was not blown away in the end, but I was very appreciative of certain qualities that I know I would not be able to eclipse no matter what I did.... but I was still able to come home and turn on my system.
When I went home, was my shstem as good? Maybe not, but it's good enough for me. And for a few others.
Would I buy a G1? I doubt it, it's not perfect and at that price, I need it perfect. I bet the G1-spirit (flagship) would be pretty close to ultimate status for my ears... but that's an additional $25K ($93K) and that's hard to swallow or justify.
(That said, I think if I had control of the room the G1's were in, I could probably make that system pop and smoke what I got.)
So, which of the Giyas would I look at? Probably the G2, I think it's probably the sweet spot in the line. But even then, I would lose bass extension and the cost of entry is too high to sacrifice that last octave or two.
End of the night:
Ed leaned to me, "I think your next move would close the gap." I think this goes to show, diminishing returns occur a lot earlier than this price point.
Post edited by Joey_V onMagico, JL, Emm, ARC Ref 10 line, ARC Ref 10 phono, VPI, Lyra, Boulder, AQ Wel, SRA Scuttle Rack, Bluesound -
Some pics:
Magico, JL, Emm, ARC Ref 10 line, ARC Ref 10 phono, VPI, Lyra, Boulder, AQ Wel, SRA Scuttle Rack, Bluesound
