Carolina Audiofest Extravaganza
Comments
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So, today I went and hooked up the Musical Fidelity KW750 that happened as a result of going to Trey's place and hearing his on the GU's.
She is still warming up, as she hasn't been played (apparently) in a while, other than testing at the shop where I bought it from.
With that said, I can tell that I am gonna have some real fun with this one. I had a feeling that it would be a treat to listen too but I was (honestly) not expecting what I am hearing.
Over the past couple of years, I have made some significant improvements in the rig and much of that resulted in rather significant improvements to the end result as to what actually hits your ears.
This change, I have to admit.....I think I can say without reservation has made the biggest improvement to so many aspects of the reproduction, I would need to be typing for hours to explain the differences.
On some songs, the playback is so real that I feel as if I could literally reach out and shake the hand of the singer in front of me, walk past him and shake the hands of the background singers....it's so real.
So folks. If you have a chance to go listen to other folks' rigs and get your learn on? Do so.
I told Trey that this was my dream amplifier a while back and during a year where the wife and I were feverishly paying down debt in order to afford our government? Trey allowed me to listen to my dream Amp without me even knowing it.
Now I have it and the sonic differences in my rig are outstanding. I can say with complete certainty that I would not have this Amp playing before me today if it had not been for our GTG a couple of weekends ago.
Tom~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
Can't wait to hear it... Your experience seems to echo mine
But unfortunately I am not sure we can confirm actual existence of it in the system without pics... So for right now, until we see pics, we assume the a3 is still in the rig until further notice- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit. -
Whatever putz.
So, I ask my wife.....who knows NOTHING about audio whatsoever if she hears any difference...
Mind you, she is 50' away, listening in the LR. Her answer? " It sounds more crisp".
LOL, I don't know what that means in audiophile terms but knowing her? I know exactly what that means. Audio vocabulary is not her specialty.
Tom~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
Lol, she must know the a3 is still installed since she hasn't seen the photos- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
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He sent me a photo directly... I'm having it authenticated as we speak!- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
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Tom
~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
2-channel: Modwright KWI-200 Integrated, Dynaudio C1-II Signatures
Desktop rig: LSi7, Polk 110sub, Dayens Ampino amp, W4S DAC/pre, Sonos, JRiver
Gear on standby: Melody 101 tube pre, Unison Research Simply Italy Integrated
Gone to new homes: (Matt Polk's)Threshold Stasis SA12e monoblocks, Pass XA30.5 amp, Usher MD2 speakers, Dynaudio C4 platinum speakers, Modwright LS100 (voltz), Simaudio 780D DAC
erat interfectorem cesar et **** dictatorem dicere a -
Whatever putz.
So, I ask my wife.....who knows NOTHING about audio whatsoever if she hears any difference...
Mind you, she is 50' away, listening in the LR. Her answer? " It sounds more crisp".
LOL, I don't know what that means in audiophile terms but knowing her? I know exactly what that means. Audio vocabulary is not her specialty.
Tom
Think of it as a GREAT bottle of Wine!!"Sometimes you have to look to the past to understand where you are going in the future"Anger is just anger. It isn’t good. It isn’t bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters.
You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice. Jim Butcher
Harry / Marietta GA -
FYI Tom: Based on this listing I saw on eBay yesterday, there could be one less Musical Fidelity KW750 in the world because of current events.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/114470029031?hash=item1aa6f206e7:g:VagAAOSwtmlfjEWu
"Sometimes you have to look to the past to understand where you are going in the future"Anger is just anger. It isn’t good. It isn’t bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters.
You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice. Jim Butcher
Harry / Marietta GA -
"This package may be delayed due to shipping carrier service disruptions".
That's an understatement. BTW, I think that photo has been stolen....er, uh, "borrowed". I recall seeing that photo of the umbilical cords on top of the stack somewhere else a while back. That exact photo too.
So, at about 10:00 last night , I opened her up and let the system play at high volumes. I listened to the Alan Parsons Project's intro, "Sirius" followed immediately by, "Eye in the sky".
I'll put it to you this way. I didn't just listen to the music. I experienced the music. (pretty sure my neighbors did too). I must have listened to 7 or 8 albums yesterday, in their entirety and some of those were double albums.
Mark Knopfler's Privateering album is one that gets regular rotation in the rig and was also one of the double albums I played from start to finish. While much of it was the same (because I am very familiar with it), I experienced a plethora of new sounds and new instruments that I may have "heard" before, but they were definitely NOT as prominent and as much a part of the rest of the music as they were yesterday. No straining was necessary to hear even the subtlest/faintest of instruments/noises.
Horns and string instruments, like the Cello, violin or sax? Words cannot describe just how wonderful they sound. They sounded great before but NEVER like this. I was in so much appreciation at how well, musical and accurate these instruments played, I actually pulled out some of those dreaded "audiophile albums", so I could give them a spin.
The level of detail the system now presents (and it wasn't a slouch at all before) is unreal, it's so real, especially when fed a stellar recording. Troy had mentioned that, "Good recordings are rewarded". Yeah, that's an understatement now. With that said, even less than stellar recordings have much more music to the......well, music.
I even managed to fit in a decent meal whilst listening. All in all? A good day.
Yes, I know, I need to work on my "plating" skillz.....I was hungry man. Cut me some slack. Agenda for today? Figure out this network crap, so I can finally get to hear more than 4 minutes of music off of the Vega G2.
Tom
~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
The kw750 is a true beast. The list of what it could not power would be much shorter than what it can.- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
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Back at it again!
Great time today!
@Reagan brought his ANK dac to @treitz3 place for a shoot out.
We cleaned records, compared digital streaming, CD, vinyl. Tested tubes, rolled tubes, a little bit of everything. Listened to some absolutely phenominal music!
Fun day had by all
I forgot to take pics but one
- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit. -
The day started out at my place (photo above) and I had just made the final adjustment to tuning the speakers to the room the night before. This photo was taken while we were doing a direct comparison to vinyl and the new Mo-Fi RB/DSD of the Car's self titled album (vinyl sounded much better) before we set @Rick's ANK DAC into the mix. Using a mid-level Transparent digital cable, we went straight from the Marantz SA-7S1to the ANK.
The difference in detail was astonishing but I believe that the biggest difference was the air, sound stage, spatial locationality cues, 3D imaging and ambience. This was basically a direct comparison to Marantz's TOTL Reference player (as of about 5 years ago) and Rick's brand spankin' new ANK DAC that hasn't even been burned in yet and we were using a signal tube that was inferior to another one we tested when we went to Rick's place to listen to his rig.
This was no subtle difference either. A most pleasurable difference! It only took me a couple of seconds to realize that this was something special...and I was off axis. When I sat down in the sweet spot, you should have seen my reaction....a very enthusiastic, "WoW!!!". If only the ANK would decode the SACD layer. That's it's only drawback for me but for RB? Holy crap, Batman!
So, we go over to Rick's, listened to some more vinyl, swapped a tube on the ANK DAC for S's&Giggles after comparing some of the vinyl to digital and soon we had the pleasure of meeting up with another member of the group, a gentleman by the name of Mike, who arrived after a couple of song selections. He had driven up from the Spartanburg area and after a few pleasantries, we dove right back into the music.
Now at this point, we were all hearing some rather funky phasing issues. It seemed as if the L sub was putting out more substance than it should have....but it wasn't the sub. Some of the aspects were rather cool but there was something that was off. It turned out that the stock tube that came with Rick's ANK was bad. So, we swapped that out and put in another kind of 12AU7 tube.
That one was right up the correct alley for Rick's system. All of a sudden, we went from listening to music (even with the first working tube that was in play at my house) to a much more musically engaging system. The phasing anomalies were corrected (all of them) and instruments were way more palpable. After much discussion and joking about rearranging Rick's office to provide the ultimate sweet spot (He's got a great listening room with plenty of real estate), we headed over to Trey's.
Trey had some selections already picked out, so we all listened to music for about 25 minutes and then the requests started. I gotta add this in here....this has nothing to do with music but everything to do with the word and definition of "adorable". Trey's Mom was watching her granddaughter when we got there and let me tell you....that little girl LOVES the heck out of her dad (Trey) and she is the living definition of adorable. She was even nice enough to offer me her sippy bottle.
Okay, so there wasn't much writeup on Trey's system when everyone was here listening. While there was quite the improvement on the top end and some other aspects since the last time we were there? There was a (and this is very hard to describe), shall I say, "unwanted artifact(s)", that affected the midrange in his system. Did it sound good? Absolutely. Could there have been improvement? Absolutely.
So, I was privately speaking with Trey about these "unwanted artifact(s)" and we started talking about what options he would have to do/what he could possibly do to change it. During this discussion, Trey looks down at his phone and jumps up like he just won the lottery or something. After a mad dash out the door, he comes back in with this little box. I'm thinkin', what's he so excited about?
Apparently, he had ordered a 1.5 meter digital cable. Little to my knowledge, apparently the length of the cable is just as much, if not more important than the metallurgy or build quality because of feedback issues. Who knew? Well, apparently he did. So, we unbox and unwrap this cable, shut the system down and within 5 minutes, the system was back up and running, new digital cable installed.
We didn't know what to expect but man, that cable made a pretty remarkable difference in Trey's rig. From top to bottom, the clarity, texture, detail, definition increased in spades (not a subtle difference) and it removed "unwanted artifacts" that were present in the midrange drivers, so you were able to hear things that were always there, but masked. Much more musical information was now easily heard and we both heard things that we did not hear just an hour or two before (or ever on his system).
Everything I was relaying to Trey that was in need of attention got taken care of within 5 minutes. Now, everything is in crystal clear focus with great clarity, texture and definition. Up and down the spectrum of frequencies, there was a noticeable difference.....but that critical midrange issue? Gone. *Poof*. Like it was never there. Now I really wanted to stay!
All in all, a great time, cool tunes and great company. Rick's wife and even Mike's wife were there to enjoy the music as well. Looking very forward to the next GTG.
Tom
~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
Notable Quotable from this event -
"That lid's coming off like a prom dress!" - Trey AKA "Sid the Kid"
Tom~ In search of accurate reproduction of music. Real sound is my reference and while perfection may not be attainable? If I chase it, I might just catch excellence. ~ -
Great write up Tom, seeing your face and hearing your reaction to the ank was pretty hilarious.
Excellent time had by all of us. Interesting how since we started doing this, all of our systems are sounding more and more similar- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit. -
Ok now you bastages are making me want to upgrade to the ANK.Gustard X26 Pro DAC
Belles 21A Pre modded with Mundorf Supreme caps
B&K M200 Sonata monoblocks refreshed and upgraded
Polk SDA 1C's modded / 1000Va Dreadnaught
Wireworld Silver Eclipse IC's and speaker cables
Harman Kardon T65C w/Grado Gold. (Don't laugh. It sounds great!)
There is about a 5% genetic difference between apes and men …but that difference is the difference between throwing your own poo when you are annoyed …and Einstein, Shakespeare and Miss January. by Dr. Sardonicus -
Was the ANK built by the owner or the factory? If the owner, how difficult was it?
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Mine and Ricks were built by ANK Digital Pete. I chose that route for resale purposes. In my experience, "DIY gear" is near worthless unless the builder has a track record/history.
I can say it is easily one of the best sounding DACs I have heard to date.- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit. -
Thanks. Good to know.
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Great writeup....and I know I missed a GREAT time. Now that I know what the ANK is....can't wait to listen to it next time!!I plan for the future. - F1Nut
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what was the new digital cable he got in?Amplifiers: Norma IPA 140, MasterSound Compact 845, Ayre v6xe, Consonance Cyber 800
Preamp: deHavilland Ultraverve 3
Dac: Sonnet Morpheus 2, Musical Paradise mp-d2 mkIII
Transport: Jay's Audio CDT2 mk2, Lumin U1 mini
Speakers: Rosso Fiorentino Volterra II
Speaker Cables: Crystal Clear Magnum Opus 2, Organic Audio Organic Reference 2
Interconnects: Crystal Clear Magnum Opus 2, Argento Organic Reference 2, Argento Organic 2
Power Cables: Argento Organic Reference, Synergistic Research Foundation 10 and 12 ga.
Digital cables: Crystal Clear Magnum Opus 2 bnc, Tellurium Q aes, Silnote Audio Poseidon Signature 2 bnc
Puritan PSM156 -
https://www.carousell.sg/p/audiolund-digital-cable-spdif-xtreme-series-1-0m-1088801316/
1.5m with furutech bnc
Extremely well built. Prices are Singapore dollars- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit. -
Why is Tom always barefoot and wearing shorts? Gross.
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He has a shoe phobia- Not Tom ::::::: Any system can play Diana Krall. Only the best can play Limp Bizkit.
https://youtu.be/TOHoaP36hgA
