Its so hard in this mad rush world to wind down and take the time to enjoy music. When I do I am always pleased for the time I spend listening. What I enjoy most is to just close my eyes and hear the musical details of the guitar, piano, violin, bass female vocalist, etc. Of course, there are the fun albums who may not have the best recordings and you just forget about being "critical" and just sit back tap your feet or even sing along.
In terms of system setup, I've moved to separates to hopefully get the best of my music.
The tweaks and power cables are an irresistable must (can't help myself)
System edited: Just upgraded to the MBL's 116. Still running the speakers in but they're incredible. Big step up from the 121's. Resolution and details already apparent from the beginning.
System edited: Huge upgrade in adding the MBL111B omnidirectional speakers. The ProAc's were very good but these babies just take you to another level of listening. Price wise they're obviously a big difference comparitive to the ProAc's but with the newer 111E being introduced mine were at a huge discount so.....
System edited: Replaced the Cardas Golden Reference Power cord with a Shunyata Taipan power cord on the Concentra II amp. This had added a little more focus and improved the bass. When comparing the 2 cords I found the Golden Ref bloated compared to the Taipan which IMS seem a little tighter in the bass area.
System edited: I've been looking for a suitable PLC for the last couple months to power my setup and the search ended with the purchase of a used Shunyata Hydra. Just installed it yesterday and the initial impression was that it really liven up the whole setup (not that there was anything incredibly wrong in the first place!). I could better discern the instruments in the recordings and somehow voices seem to come off "sweeter" if one could use this expression. The build of the Hyda is excellent, I saw a couple of threads mentioning that it may have even been overbuilt, to the extent that the newer Hydra-8 is selling at a lower unit price probably to attract more customers. The unit came with a Sidewinder power cord and the previous owner had upgarded the connector as well as replaced the fuse on the Hydra with a copper slug.
Hi Ben, Had a look at your setup nice pic's and setup (the Ayre combo must be fantastic!)
It looks like you're be spending some time at the dealer auditioning speakers to match the Ayre. I'll be interested to know how it turns out, if you go for the Proac's, Avalons or anything else. Had a short listen to a pair of MBL 111B omnidirectional speakers(German), about EUR20k the other day just for the fun of it, odd looking speakers but boy did it sound good!
Way over anything I can afford though, just a reality check for me on how my setup compares, not a bad idea once in while just to get to know how a reference system sounds like. Have fun in your quest!
Dtanclim-my system is on Audiogon-it's Ayre Acoustics AX-7 & CX-7. I would tend to suspect that your analysis is correct and the D15's would beat my speakers. However the actual list price of the 150's in their day was only £150/200 less than what the D15's are now so rightly or wrongly I suspect the improvement might not be massive.
Ben, for what I already paid for the Response D15 I like to think that's its got the Studio 150's beat (no offence) but that being said I haven't managed an audition of the Studio 150 so its just me consoling myself. Of course, one would expect that generally the Response series of speakers should possess that extra quality.
Which electronics do you use with the Studio's 150? Regards
Dtanclim-thanks for the info there is a pair on sale local to me.....perhaps I may be tempted and end up single again :-(....have you heard them against the studio series by Proac? These are what I have Studio 150's.... Regards.
Hi Ben, IMO ProAc's in general possess clean midrange and accuracy in their presentation. If you're especially into acoustic and vocal music which I am, these could be the speakers for you. This is not say that these speakers cannot play Rock with the best of them.
When auditioning the speakers I compared the D15 against the very popular and well reviewed 1SC, I've got to admit that 1SC's were slightly better in its imaging but lacked the deep base (obvious weakness of all monitor speakers) which is why I opted for the D15. The D15 build is fantastic and with the downward firing ports enabled me to position these speakers nearer to the back wall (I'm living in an apartment so space is always a constraint).
I must admit that the D15 has given me tremondous satisfaction over the last 1.5 years. For what I use them with and my preferences I rate them very highly. Give them a listen.
System edited: Just added a used pair of Cardas Golden Reference speaker cables (replacing the venerable Golden Hexlink 5C). So far have tried using the Golden Ref's on the lower pair of binding posts and the Neutral Ref's on the upper binding posts. Will have to experiment and swap around to find the best configuration but I expect this will be a better match than previous Neutral Ref/Golden Hex 5C shotgun setup. Initial impression of the setup is the base is a kinda muddy but I'll let things settle down before doing more serious listening.
