I just last week purchased the 101e's replacing the Alto Be's I had. Thought it would be fun to show the start of a major upgrade, and then as I am adding room treatments, changing the decor, and changing equipment, to show the changes and the thought processes behind it. I have an open architecture house, with glass along one side, and as this is our living room, a way to figure out the aestetics. Challenges await! Comments or suggestions welcome. I got the MBLs primarily because the kitchen, family room, and dining area are all pretty much open, and I want great sound whatever we are doing in the primary listening space. To me, the best music should be for all my family to enjoy, even my daughter with her AFI fetish. The sweet spot matters, but more important to me is when we are having dinner, or hanging out, everybody gets to enjoy the music. The MBLs are worlds bettter than the Alto's in this regard from the first time I fired them up. I had a very very nice, clean system with the EmmLabs direct to the MC2000 and then the Altos, but I felt I was missing alot, and there is a ton of slap echo in the house. So here's the start. As I add, subtract and change, pix will follow. Thanks for looking.
My open architecture house mates well with omnis. My number one reason for purchase
HRS mrx 1921-3v
two shelf, in real curly maple. Visually stunning, and works well at vibration control
EMM Labs dcc-2, cdsd
non-SE units. The best I have had in my system but I have a problem giving somebody 5000 usd for an upgrade 6 months after I buy a unit.
Symposium Series 2 RollerBlocks
under the 101e's. Better inner dynamics than the bigger ones by far, and much better than spikes on hardwood floor, the bass locks in and is more tuneful, three under each speaker
MBL 6010d bal/w/mc
Preamp is about worlds better than running the Meitner direct to amp... I got it balanced, with MC cartridge module, it is just a fantastic pre-amp in every way, plus it adds the ability to quad-amp.. so I am trying tubes on top and solid state on da bottom!
MBL 9011
Monoblock amplifiers, I have tried, Halcro DM-88, MBL 9008, Accuphase, McIntosh MC200(still my fave amp of all time) AR vt100mkII, ref210... and the winner was... the big monos. They visually overpower the room, they are bulky, my wife says they look like coffins, but, Houston we have ignition
Tara Power Screen
replaced Shunyata Hydra. Instruments sound like instruments now
Tara The One bi-wired
After trying a ton of cables, this was the best. I still want to try 0.8s though.
Tara 0.8
As the Meitner sounds better balanced, but the preamp has less circuitry single-ended, I am trying both.. the balanced is punchier, more dynamic, the single ended is fuller, more harmonically rich, still can;t decide
Transrotor Tourbillon
3 motor, 3 arm potential turntable, I bought a used version, so it does not have the magnetic conversion
Graham Engineering Phantom
tonearm. why? I don't know, had to start somewhere
Transfiguration Orpheus
so far, I like it, very smooth, but I have to do something with the bass. I am just letting it run in right now
I am relatively new to this high end audio game, but recently found a dealer that I trust. I had BAT tubes first. Sweet high and midrange, but could not control the bass. I first demoed Bat vk600se monos. At first they were horrific! It has been said that they have a long break in. I had them for about 12 days. I had to decide to keep or return after about 10 days and they were finally starting to sound quite good, but not good enough to warrant the extra cost vs what I had. I bet they would have been fine given their rate of improvement, but I couldn't take that chance. On my dealers advice, I took the leap to the Boulder. From the minute I plugged it in it was very good. The word to describe it was "control". No ouch notes. Not the least bit bright! I would guess the synergy with th MBL would be great. I'll have to look into the idea of the rollerblocks under the speakers. To be honest, I haven't even plugged my REL in yet since the Boulder showed up. The bass is strong and tuneful. I will probably try it this weekend.
Bflowers, Nope, no help, just one at a time, the rollerblock IIs are little, not really hard, the sub was a little trickier, I bet with a Studio you will need hepl, though. No issues with stability thusfar, although I have no little kids around. You are the second person telling me I should check out the Boulder amp,,, but... I am such a tube kinda guy... but... I have never had any uber expensive SS amps like Boulder, Krell Master, or MBL... You like your Maxx's? WattPuppies were my overall favorite before these:)
I have rollerblocks under my universal player at the moment, but once my new transport breaks in I will put them underneath it. You must have had help getting those rollerblocks underneath your MBL's and the sub. I have Wilson Maxx's (heavy!!) and a REL studio III (also heavy). Are there any issues with stability on the rollerblocks? Finally, I just added a Boulder 2060 amp and the results were outstanding. In fact, my dealer has his 2060 on MBL 101's in his personal system. Worth a serious look.
System edited: Added Symposium Rollerblock series 2, 3 ea under the speakers, better microdynamics, better inner detail.. pretty good tweak. Put Rollerblock JR, 4 ea under the sub and the difference was incredible. No more one note bass. The bass drum just came alive.. this has been the best tweak I have ever heard in my system, thusfar that is.
My dealer doesn't have MBL amps in stock, sadly. The more I listen, even with using an amp on the bottom, the Mc just doesn't quite have the dynamics required to drive these properly I think. The reality of dealers, in my opinion, anymore, is that they just want you to buy from the showroom if you can. Have you ever heard of anybody not a dealer able to demo a turntable, a tonearm and various cartridges at home for instance? If you find one that does, by all means let me know. Even here on Audiogon, so many of the ultra-tweaked systems are dealer's systems, not a hobbyist's. I love when scribes of audio magazine's suggest trying out this or that piece, and then they go on to say they don't get the "gestalt" for a month or two, or it had to break in, or a magic cable made all the difference, but that we readers shouldn't depend on what they say. Okay, who wants to loan me 3 five thousand dollar cartridges to play with in case I buy one? And set them up on my table?
Man, with those speakers, I would try MBL amps for sure. From what I've read, MBL works very hard to match the character of the speakers' sound to their amps. Not knocking the McIntosh of course (I am a big Mc buff) but it may be worthwhile to check it out. Did you get your 101s from a dealer? If so, maybe they could lend you some of their amps to try out?
At any rate, it looks great. I really want to hear some radialstrahler at some point.
This is why I put the start of the upgrade:) I may do curtains, or I may get one diffuser/ absorber to put directly in front of the glass for serious listening. The sliding glass door opens up, and actually makes it sound much better, so I have to do something. I am probably going to do the fireplace with wooden diffusers, even home built, but I want to build monoblocks in underneath, so until I pick those out, I cannot do the back wall. Amps I am thinking... I tried the mc2000 with VT100 on th bottom and it sounded terrible. First I am going to try the mc501s as the gain should match with the MC2000. If that doesn't work, then VTL Siegfried, Audio Reseearch monos, MBLs will be on the agenda.
