CAT 600.2 Dual Mono Amp Is on Its Way to New Hampshire!

Moose68Bash

Craters & Freighters in San Antonio informed me this afternoon that this amp is crated and on its way to New Hampshire, as of today. No word on ETA of the shipment, yet.



[In its old home!]

oldmodman

What a fantastic piece of gear!

When you get it installed into your system you should post a pic of it's new home.

Moose68Bash

Thanks!

Will do.

cnh

Congrats! That's a LOT of power! 150lbs+? Hope you have some help moving that! Wouldn't touch it without my weight-lifting belt and a prodigious amount of stretching/warm up, lol (Oh, I see I missed the sale thread on this, it's a forum transaction, nice pics of the amp and your space in that thread!).

Enjoy! She's a beauty and a beast!

Moose68Bash

cnh wrote: »

Congrats! That's a LOT of power! 150lbs+? Hope you have some help moving that! Wouldn't touch it without my weight-lifting belt and a prodigious amount of stretching/warm up, lol (Oh, I see I missed the sale thread on this, it's a forum transaction, nice pics of the amp and your space in that thread!).

Enjoy! She's a beauty and a beast!

@cnh,

Thank you!

I like that: Let's call it "bestial beauty!"

Moose68Bash

Late this afternoon the CAT 600.2, dubbed "Bestial Beauty," arrived.

It was extremely well crated by Craters & Freighters, and it took me about a nanosecond to confirm that there was no way I was going to be able to lift it out of the crate -- that is, even if my wife had let me try!

Thank God for my John Deere with a front end loader to get it down the driveway!

A couple of pictures of it waiting for the moving guys to come in and help me set it up.

tonyb

I would be thinking twice about putting that bad boy on a shelf bro....just sayin'.

Moose68Bash

@tonyb,

If I had an alternative at this point, I wouldn't "hide" it. But, now it's either don't hook it up, or install it on the shelf in the basement.

Moose68Bash

nbrowser wrote: »

Moose68Bash wrote: »

@tonyb,

If I had an alternative at this point, I wouldn't "hide" it. But, now it's either don't hook it up, or install it on the shelf in the basement.

Get assistance lifting that bad boy! Lest it drops or worse you become injured.

@nbrowser,

Amen, brother!

An interesting twist: This evening my wife said that we shall probably have to get the moving guys in twice because she likes our current sound and wants the CAT amp to be installed in a temporary configuration for evaluation to make sure it improves sound quality before we permanently displace the Perreaux mono blocks!

I'm very happy that she is getting into this!

PS: How is your girlfriend's mother doing?

DarqueKnight

Moose68Bash wrote: »

It was extremely well crated by Craters & Freighters, and it took me about a nanosecond to confirm that there was no way I was going to be able to lift it out of the crate -- that is, even if my wife had let me try!

That's a beautiful amp. Congrats.

You shouldn't have to lift the amp out. Even if you have help, there is increased risk of dropping/damage by lifting it out of the crate.

Was the crate not screwed together? Every time I have received a large, heavy crated item, the crate was screwed together and I took the crate apart by removing the screws.

Moose68Bash

DarqueKnight wrote: »

Moose68Bash wrote: »

It was extremely well crated by Craters & Freighters, and it took me about a nanosecond to confirm that there was no way I was going to be able to lift it out of the crate -- that is, even if my wife had let me try!

That's a beautiful amp. Congrats.

You shouldn't have to lift the amp out. Even if you have help, there is increased risk of dropping/damage by lifting it out of the crate.

Was the crate not screwed together? Every time I have received a large, heavy crated item, the crate was screwed together and I took the crate apart by removing the screws.

Thanks, @DarqueKnight .

Yes, the crate is screwed together with screws that are about 4" long. I removed enough of them to remove the top and check for any apparent internal shifting of the amp and possible damage.

I don't want to dismantle the rest of the crate till the movers decide how best to get it to it's "final resting place" -- before I dismantle the crate or after.

oldrocker

Very nice indeed.
Read up a bit about them.
Can't wait to hear your thoughts on it.

Moose68Bash

oldrocker wrote: »

Very nice indeed.
Read up a bit about them.
Can't wait to hear your thoughts on it.

Thank you, @oldrocker.

I can't wait to get it installed and give it a listen!

A comparison with my present Perreaux mono blocks ought to be interesting.

oldrocker

Yes, Perreaux.

Had it not been for my horrible "vintage" stage/funk I'm in. I would.

Yes Sir, best wishes and I hope that "Cat" shows her claws and is all that and more..

BTW, the leaves will be changing down here soon...

Moose68Bash

@DSkip,

Thanks!

I'm grateful for your advice.

Moose68Bash

I finally got some movers in to help me install the CAT amp and shuffle the rest of my equipment around.

After some frightful missteps -- errors of omission, so to speak -- that proved to be humorous, albeit damaging to my ego, my wife and I sat down for an initial listening session.

Let me just say about these "errors of omission" that there was one more button to push to turn on this "dualmono" amp than I was able to manage on the first pass, leading to a serious concern on my wife's part that the left channel was not producing any sound. Turning on the switch for the left channel helped immensely and immediately.

I'll post more, with pictures, later, but our first impressions are very positive.

With a coy smile on her face, my wife finally confessed first off that even she noticed improved bass -- that is, more bass, tighter bass, more palpable chest-moving bass. This was one thing she had wanted to improve in a system that she had repeatedly told me was "really good," always followed with the question, "so, why to you want to change it?"

We both agreed that all instruments and vocals are clearer, with more distinctive characteristic timbres.

I was very pleased with the incredible speed of this amp in rendering transients in, for example, rapid fire passages of clarinet music and bagpipes on Yo-Yo Ma's "Songs of Joy and Peace."

We put on Vangelis's "Chariots of Fire," the original 1981 CD, because we had both been disappointed with the SQ of this CD versus more contemporary recordings and had, therefore, not listened to it for some time. But we were both curious about how the combination of the CAT amp and PS Audio DirectStream DAC would render this "vintage" CD. We were both pleased with the depth and clarity of the sound. The music came to life again.

One factor that seems to have diminished is the breadth of the soundstage. With the pretax mono blocks the outer edges of the soundstage were often 6-8 feet outside the speakers, depending on the recording. The CAT seems to be more in the range of 2-4 feet. The depth seems about the same.

But, I haven't put the CAT to what i consider the toughest test -- Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Moose68Bash

Here are some pictures of the CAT amp installed on the shelves in my basement, immediately below where my Family Room rig is installed above.





The pictures show the CAT 600.2 amp, the Silver Circle Pure Power One 5.0 power conditioner, and the Dreadnought on the shelf above.

On the shelf below are the Perreaux Prisma 750P mono blocks.

My wife and I are still listening and thinking about the new sound. I still have not put on Solti's Chicago Symphony Orchestra recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, which is my final "challenge" for equipment.

hochpt21

Congrats on the new gear.

That's crazy/awesome. So let me get this straight...you have the amplification in the basement and then some speaker cables running up through the floor? What about the preamp?

Can you post some pics of your listening area? Must be a clean look if most of the gear is in the basement.

EndersShadow

hochpt21 wrote: »

Can you post some pics of your listening area? Must be a clean look if most of the gear is in the basement.

Subtract the rack from the middle and you get the idea....

Moose68Bash

hochpt21 wrote: »

Congrats on the new gear.

That's crazy/awesome. So let me get this straight...you have the amplification in the basement and then some speaker cables running up through the floor? What about the preamp?

Can you post some pics of your listening area? Must be a clean look if most of the gear is in the basement.

@hochpt21,

Thank you.

Ender has it right.

When I purchased a pair of Perreaux Prisma 750 mono blocks and built a Dreadnought a couple of years ago, I struggled with what to do with this "big" equipment in my rig, because the cabinetry was "non-negotiable," if you get my drift.

After considering suspending shelves from joists in the basement, among other options, I settled on the industrial grade shelving you saw above. Then, I installed brass floor boxes in the cabinet base and floor behind the speakers and routed the cables, including the SDA interconnect cables, to the Dreadnought through the floor.

I also built power cables (dual runs of Supra cable to achieve the equivalent of 9 AWG cable) for the pr, DAC, and Transport, and these, too, pass through the base of the cabinet to be plugged into the Silver Circle power conditioner. I had to build the cables "on location" because they would not go through the floor box "portals" with plugs on them. I used Furutech plugs, which are good-sized.

The PS Audio DirectStream DAC and PerfectWave Memory Transport and the Perreaux SM6P MKII preamp are in the cabinet. See the picture below, which is as the set up looks now without the rack (cart) in Ender's photo of my temporary set up while I was figuring out what to do.

I installed CAT 6 cables to two ethernet jacks that I installed in the back wall of the cabinets, behind the TV These two jacks are used to connect the DAC and transport to my LAN and the NAS on the LAN.



The picture below shows the locations of the electronics inside the cabinet. Obviously, all the cabling passes through holes in shelves where necessary.



This arrangement keeps me happy with the equipment I want, and keeps my wife happy with the aesthetics of this room, whose primary role in our house (well, maybe that's a matter of opinion) is to serve as a family room!

One of these days, I hope to have a dedicated listening room, but that's not in the cards right now.

cstmar01

Love the clean look and congrats on the amp!!

Moose68Bash

cstmar01 wrote: »

Love the clean look and congrats on the amp!!

@cstmar01,

Thank you!

mikeyb128

Very cool idea with the amps in the basement. Love the clean look as well.

Moose68Bash

@mikeyb128,

Thank you.

This set up also affords opportunities for a little humor when I'm asked how I get such good sound out of such a small amplifier. Some visitors who are unfamiliar with stereo equipment mistake the preamp for the amplifier -- "out of sight, out of mind," you might say.

hochpt21

Wow, very nice!

Moose68Bash

Thanks, @hochpt21!

VR3

Excellent Phil! Would love to hear the setup in the future!!

Moose68Bash

@VR3,

Trey, just plan a road trip to New Hampshire!

It would be great to see you up here.

Phil

Moose68Bash

My wife and I sat down for a bit of critical listening this evening.

I put on one of our favorite reference CDs:



We focus on three tracks: Track 1 - Dona Nobis Pacem; Track 18 - Renée Fleming's "Touch the Hand of Love;" and Track 20 - Amelia Kirin-Brown's "This Little Light of Mine."

So far, my wife seems pleased with the CAT 600.2. As I posted before, v. the Perreaux mono blocks, she believes the bass is more palpable and tighter. The voices are clearer. Overall, the sound is richer. There is better definition and separation of the sound sources.

When the first track began playing, we both immediately noted more base and richer base from Yo-Yo Ma's cello, as well as even more of the distinctive timbre of the cello.

She doesn't tend to pay attention to the soundstage, but I do. The Cat throws a somewhat narrower sound stage, but it appears to be equally deep and high v. the Perreaux mono blocks. The lateral boundaries of the soundstage with the CAT are about two feet outside the speakers. With the Perreaux mono blocks the soundstage was as much as 6-8 feet outside the speakers.

This difference was particularly apparent to me while listening to the balaphon on Kirin-Brown's track. With the Perreaux mono blocks the "ringing" of the balaphon notes, as I recall, is well outside the left channel speaker and is at about the same height as the speakers.

With the CAT, while the characteristic timbre of the balaphon is, perhaps more discernible and clearer, the image of the sound is at the outside edge of the left channel speaker. I won't know for sure till I reconnect the Perreaux mono blocks for a listening session.

I want also to verify this narrowing of the soundstage with a Chesky recording, such as "Cobb's Corner," which includes a diagram of positions of the instruments during recording.

I would also say that the rendering of rapid transients is more precise with the CAT. Regardless of the tempo of the music, each note is clearly discernible.

Also, characteristic strumming and sliding sounds of stringed instruments being played are more realistically rendered by the CAT. This observation was more apparent while listening to Rebecca Pidgeon's "The Raven" as I compose this post.

My wife has actively participated in this listening session and has offered insightful opinions especially about the difference in sound when the album is streamed from my NAS v. played from the PerfectWave Transport, as well as about the differences between the CAT amp and the Perreaux mono blocks, as noted above.

There is a noticeable difference between the NAS streaming and the transport spinning a CD, and the Transport wins this "shoot out." The music is richer and more engaging. By comparison the NAS/streaming sounds a bit veiled and, in her words, "metallic."

The CD gives better separation and imaging.

The sound stage is pretty much identical between the two sources.

In summary, at this point, I would say that the CAT amp renders music that is more engaging and realistic, albeit with a bit warmer "signature," than the Perreaux mono blocks.

Perhaps, the most obvious difference for me is that music which I played at a volume level of ~12 with the Perreaux mono blocks must be played at a volume level of 16 to 20 with the CAT. (This is on a scale of 0-59 on the Perreaux SM6P MKII preamp.) I'm not sure what this indicates. Time will tell.

cnh

Nice review! Also a Ma fan, met him twice. A brilliant musician and wonderful human being!

Love the idea of housing the amps below and running the wires upstairs.

Enjoy!

Moose68Bash

@cnh,

Thank you for your complimentary comments -- both about my review and the way I've improvised to set up my system.

We have also been lucky to have come into contact with Yo-Yo Ma, who, as you say, is a great musician and fine human being.

We first met him at a concert in (of all places) Columbus, Indiana, in the mid-1980s, when he was a rising star. A local philanthropist was one of his "patrons" in NYC and was able to bring him to this out-of-the-way community of ~35,000 people in southeastern Indiana for a concert. We were fortunate enough to have met him briefly at that time.

More recently, by sheer coincidence, his daughter Emily shared a stand with our daughter (both violinists) in the New England Conservatory's youth orchestra for a year or so. He attended performances and waited with the rest of us parents to retrieve our children after rehearsals. He was always open, kind, warm and willing to talk with all of us "mere mortals."

My humble opinion: He is one of those rare human beings who is truly a gift to humankind!