Description

After years of status quo I’m feeling the itch to explore again.
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Components Toggle details

    • Aurender N10 N10
    Muy Bueno. Balanced out to Berkeley which also serves as volume control.
    • Berkeley Audio Design Alpha
    Once I put the demo in my system, I new that I was sold. This one is worth its weight in gold and the only item that I have that I gladly paid retail price for.
    • Jeff Rowland 7M
    These came from a very nice guy up the road in Austin.
    • Audio Physic Scorpio
    Got these here. Beutiful. Want to add the center if I can ever find it used.
    • McIntosh men220
    I know that room correction isn’t cool but this was fast, easy and super effective.

Comments 22

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Owner
I took my berkeley dac to a friend's house to listen to it in his system with his x01 ltd as a transport.
In the process, we a/b'd the esoteric unit alone, and as a transport to the berkeley.
We did not control for all variables but the esoteric sounded so much better that I will be pulling the $ to pick one up just to try it in my system.

jimmy3993

Owner
System edited: I think htat everything has turned over in the past 12 months except that I am commited to pursuing a competer based front end. Till my kids are old enough that I can get into records anyway...

jimmy3993

Owner
ok guys. I really must be losing my mind. I moved the sorbothane pads that I had under my amps to under my pre and my dac.
I really do think that I am hearing better leading edge definition. This is crazy. IF it is not all in my exceedingly suggestable imagination then why on earth would the engeneering folks at benchmark or jeff rowland do all of this work to create high quality product and then leave off such an inexpensive last touch???
It just seems absurd to me.

Mind you, I will not be removing the pads.

Thanks!

jimmy3993

Owner
will not be the strangest thing that I have tried. Is there a cheap way to give it a try? I am not up to multi $$$ cryogenic quantum feet. (unless they work of course...)
I guess that I could move the ones from the amps to the dac/pre.

jimmy3993

Owner
Really? To be honest it sounds so much like voodoo to me that I never bothered. I really need to get new pictures up as well...
Well, that is not really true. I did sorbothane pads under the nuforce amps. But I guess that I could try something under the Benchmark and the Capri s well.

jimmy3993

Owner
Good point. No, it didn't sound real to me. The experience was more of like watching a good magician and asking "hey- ho did you do that?" I really couldn't believe my ears. But it was more about the parlor trick and less about sound quality.

jimmy3993

Owner
Hi musicfile. Im not sure that I got a deeper soundstage from the speaker change. But i did get a more complete rendition of what was recorded in terms of range. I never was happy with the integration of my sub.
And I got a tweeter that is a little less forward than the b&w was.
I found a couple of things that did add to soundstage depth. The first was moving my listening chair in closer - getting away from walls and eliminating the reflected sound and the second was experimenting with SACD and DVDA. I am guessing this is because somewhere in the greater information packedon to an sacd is more subtle detail about the room that the recording was made in that can give spatial cues. Not really sure yet.
Still, the most startelling experience that I have ever had in terms of depth was at a dealer's who carried magnepan. He had a couple backed right up against a was and was playing some moderatly priced arcam electronics and my brain kept telling me that the sound was coming from 2 feet behing the back wall.

jimmy3993

Owner
System edited: I replaced the 805s with audio physic scorpios after an audition roadtrip to austin where I was able to head guido c's first rate set up which was a great exterience and visit a few dealers (which was less great). I hope my wife never finds out how expensive this stuff is!

jimmy3993

Owner
System edited: Here are some photos. Thanks to the forum folks helping me get set up.

jimmy3993

Owner
System edited: swapped out the mcintosh integrated for the capri and the nuforce amps. sharpened up the imaging a bit.

jimmy3993

Owner
Brought in a chair that I can slide agains the wall when not in use. Being closer to the action made a big difference.

jimmy3993

Owner
System edited: Got rid of the PS audio power products and power cords. just couldnt hear any difference. Added the Ayre player after demoing a few - cambrigde and esoteric sa-10. Liked the price/performance tradeoff of the used ayre the best. I am afraid that i am running at the limits of a very large listening space. I dont thin kthat there is more to be had unless I am willing to use a larger speaker. The room is 16x20 or so and the floor needs to be open. Might try and bring the 805s's to a smaller room and see what a floor stander would do in a space cthis large.

jimmy3993

Owner
System edited: Just added the ps audio quinessence and extreem plus SC power cables. not Tweaks, but not sure where else to put them. Have not had time to A/B yet.

jimmy3993