Home Visit: ARC + Magnepan

Home Visit: ARC + Magnepan

(Written mostly at the Incheon airport when I was returning to the US, but finished in NYC)

You shall remember sowk, whose nice setup I visited sometime ago. Just recently, he became interested in a pair of Adams speakers and we talked. I said if he likes ribbon tweeters why not consider Magnepan, cheaper and most likely better? Imagine my surprise why hardly a week passed and he already had a pair of MG12 in his house. I was very glad sowk was instantly smitten by the sound of the Maggies and said he came to this brand "too late". Well, it's never too late...

The equipment was largely the same as my previous visit. The ARC LS26 is now gone. He bought another LS5 Mk III (the black one), and his nephew added power supply caps in the black box below. sowk also took out his unused AQVOX DAC, for which he bought a Stello transport. Since the AQVOX supports USB, at my prompting he installed iTunes (easiest) the night before and we also experimented with a little CAS. Gears used as of the visit (I understand the CAS stuff is changing fast):

Digital:
--Stello transport to AQVOX DAC
--Meridian 508.24
--CAS-Windows 7-iTunes-USB out to AQVOX
Preamp: ARC LS5MkIII with power supply cap mod
Amp: ARC V70
Speakers: Magnepan MG-12
Connection all balanced.

The MG12 proved ideal for the room. After moving the Maggies out by more than a foot, we were instantly impressed by the clear and refined sound emerging from the setup. Once again ARC proves a wonderful match and the V70 had more than enough juice for even the biggest moments. In terms of overall balance, despite the newness of the Maggies this particular setup moves to the front rank of the Maggies I have heard. Need I say more...

For CD playback, we were quite impressed by the neutrality and evenhandedness of the brand new AQVOX. For the balanced and USB facility and upsampling ability, I think it's a good buy. Most of us prefer the upsampling OFF. However, for overall impression, com-buddy and I think the Meridian one-box still convincingly edges out the separates in musicality and fleshy tonal allure.

As for the simple CAS USB setup, the sound of the 44.1 lossless AIFF and WAV files were quite reasonable, but not quite as good as playing a CD. Again, I have heard quite a bit of CAS, even outrageously expensive setups, and NONE can outperform conventional digital playback of quality. I won't even mention vinyl.

The Yumcha Diaries: 10-10-09

(Click on pics to enlarge)

The Yumcha Diaries: 10-10-2009

Part I. Pondering the evolution of the Republic took second place to music.
LKT, a famous photographer of HK, is an old friend whom I haven't kept in contact much. Recently we met again because of certain hifi matter. 10.10 双十 is a day that should not be forgotten, not because it's Taiwan's National Day, but because it's significance dates back to the old Republic, a day in history. After yumcha, three of us went uphill to LKT's beautiful flat, where we were later joined by mutual friends the Robin couple. LKT is a frugal audiophile who dabbles in DIY stuff. System:

Digital: Eastern Electric (1 tube)
Preamp: Much modified Ming Da tube preamp (5Z3, 2x 12AX7; 2x 6DJ8)
Amp: Bryston 4B SST
Speakers: Proac D28 (jumpers)
Cables: Lots of DIY silver stuff

From the start the system showed a preference to jazz, which had good presence. However, with violin and classical material, midrange was a bit sucked in and sound a little thinned out, though never unpleasant. We were very happy with the various esoteric CDs he played for us (highly recommended; see pics; click to enlarge). After a while, I noticed that he had both the +/- of the speaker cable into the woofer input, and therefore asked him to try having the + going into the tweeter input. Much to our surprise, the sound transformed, much more than usually, into a much fleshier whole. The midrange was no longer reticent, the presence even stronger, and the whole was organic sounding. Not bad at all for a little work! Decent sound! After this, we just spent our time sipping tea, eating the excellent 绿豆糕 from Taiwan, and listening to interesting music. How refreshing not having to listen to yet more "audiophile" albums!

(Click on pic to enlarge)

Part II. From Beryllium to Beryllium
Then everyone went to Robin's place to audition his Yamaha NS1000. I reported a visit in January (click here; check out the equipment list there too) and much has changed since then. The first thing that happened was when Robin (unusually) picked up a Garrard 301 in Taiwan for a good price. he is using it with Audio Technica's evergreen OC-9. The next big change came about when he visited me some months ago. He expressed his reservation about Beryllium and I demonstrated my Yamaha NS1000 to him. He had long been interested in this legendary speaker due to reports in the UK hifi press, like HiFi World. Robin was immediately smitten by its sound and got a pair soon after. recently we have been playing with these and I loaned him a pair of Foundation.

The sound of the turntable was positively one of the best phono setups I have heard (using ARC Sp-11's phonostage, which seems to have more than enough gain for the OC-9). Fully fleshed out sound with beautiful dynamics and a fast leading edge that is just right. I was mightily impressed by the OC-9, which seems to possess the usual AT virtue of clarity and speed but habor not even one whit of AT's somewhat hot treble. It makes me want to take out my ART2000 and install it! Compared to the JM Lab Micro Utopia Be, the Yamaha just seemed so right, and so Beryllium tweeters need not be hot-sounding. Compared to my in-room placement, it suffers little from placement against the wall, sacrificing just a little depth and with a mild boost in bass.

Compared to the LP, the Stello setup seemed rather anemic. Even the host was not too interested. Work is in progress to bring the digital chain up to par with the phono, no easy task.

What a bargain, the Yamaha. For more info, read my observations on my own pair (click here).

Home Visit:: Robin's Nest

Home Visit: Robin's Nest
(click on pic to see full-size. Note gears on window bay)

(17-10-09) System Update here.

Actually a return visit for me, but a first visit for Lascalawong and sokps. We worked towards a common goal and had a grand time.

Robin the Scot is the husband of an old friend. I have known them for almost 20 years, from NYC. Robin is a Scot and an avid music lover, heavily into early music, classical music and classic jazz. For the longest time, he was completely overworked and underpaid. Now, finally with better pay and more time, as the saying goes, 饱暖思音愉, he has slowly but surely upgraded his hifi.

Robin's HiFi journey is rather typical of a UK music lover. He stuck with his GBP 150 pair of Rogers LS7 until they recently gave up the ghost. He had things like an old Naim preamp. The biggest change came a few years ago, when he was in Mumbai, India (scene of recent carnage), where he chanced upon a pair of (UGLY!) McIntosh C-20 preamp and MC-275 amp, with real GEC KT88s! He soon ditched the preamp for an ARC SP-11, acquired an Arcam 73 CD player and got into various tweaks. Yes, a trusty old Rega P3 too.

My Last Visit
I first visited him some weeks ago, when he still had the Rogers LS7. We worked all afternoon with speaker placement and alignment. The gears were on a big old wood chest then in the center front wall . After moving the stuff to the window bay sound improved quite a bit, and so the chest was removed. The most amazing moment came when we filled the center void with a the much smaller and lower red chest you see in the pic, and the sound really snapped into focus. This tells us not to neglect damping the front wall, even if the corners are likely more important. When I left I asked Robin to get a better step-down (than the over-spec'ed "Super") for his MC275. As a footnote, in case you don't know, SP-11/MC275 is a 黄金组合, and the weakest link then was deemed to be the aging speakers.

In the interim, Robin did upgrade the step-down with a Bo Shu special, which made the sound of the MC275 quite a bit more powerful. He also had the MC-275 serviced, and acquired new gears (none recommended by me!) with a speed that alarmed me a little.

pic: Stello with top REMOVED

Now his setup is as follows:

--Stello Transport/I2S/DAC -> Audioquest Diamond (in lieu of Arcam 73)
--Rega P3/RB300 end-stub modified and anti-skating spring removed/Audio Technica OC-9
--ARC SP-11 - > AQ Diamond
--McIntosh MC275 - Supra OFC
--JM Lab Micro Utopia Beryllium Signature with dedicated stands

This Visit
The first thing I noticed when I got into the apartment was how different the sound of the current JM Lab is from the venerable Rogers LS7. Transducers from 2 different generations! The Focal obviously had a lot more air yet was just a little aloof at the start. So we animated the proceedings by "turning over every stone in the chain". Over the course of the afternoon we made the following changes that improved the sound:

1. Removal of most of the tweaking devices from underneath the equipment. Robin is a tweaker, so it was ironic he ran into sokps and lascalawong, both tweakers par excellence! We all frowned at his non-LP related Ringmat devices. We cleared away most of them and sound became snappier.

2. The digital setup was moved from a spread-out position ontop of the preamp to beside it stacked. Cleaner focus.

3. Removal of the acrylic cover during CD playback. More easeful and dynamic sound.

4. Removal of the strange anti-RFI clamps on his phono cables. More life.

5.Re-arranging gears to have the phono section of the SP-11 to be further away from the MC275's MASSIVE transformers. A foot further away resulted in less hum but more is needed to completely eliminate the hum.

6. Re-claibration of tracking weight resulted in less distorted sound, but I think the over-hang may need a just a little more work.

Due to household constraints and time limitation, we actually did not spend too much time with speaker placement. We did try moving them back-and forth and a little with toe-in. Effect was relatively small at this visit.

Sight and Sound
Did I forget to mention the sound? Perhaps there's no need to. In my hifi journey it has always occured to me that the few people who REALLY listen to music, and are passionate about music, and who believe in music's curative powers, usually get good sound out of their systems. Robin is not really your typical neurotic hifi guy, but he pays great attention to his music and knows whether he is satisfied or not. His sound was good to begin with, and just got better by us all working together. In many ways, he is a demanding but not pretentious audiophile, a refreshing change from the usual non-demanding but pretentious species. As an example, he knows what he wants for bass, and in this respect he still finds the system a little lacking (I agree).

Reflections
I mean it, yesterday afternoon was one of the best time I've had recently. I think I can boil things down to totally uncensored, unbirdled passion (captured on youtbe! :-))). Everyone was enthusiastic. It was real. We were genuinely happy that progress was made. The host was totally open and had no pretense, but yet knew exactly what he wanted, and we not so much gave advice as gave our opinions. 没有大佬，没有肉麻，没有前辈，没有奉承， 没有作状。