My goal is looking for a natural and realistic sound that replicates the dynamics and realism of direct music in an auditorium. The scale, calm, yet strength of different instruments playing together, combined with the refinement and little details and nuances of solos and slow movements or pieces.
Decided to change the system and take it to a higher level, since I was able to achieve very fine music, details and rhythm, but the real thing was elusive.
It's been since that moment 3 to 4 years or so.
First thing I did was get proper room acoustic treatment after some time wasted (and a bit of money) with isolated solutions offered that proved useless at best.
I hired an acoustic engineering company that came home and took measurement. They then designed a treatment with products from Viacoustic. They simulate the response with different treatments, and through different iterations come up with the optimal set of elements. They took care of the installation and fine tuning of the bass traps for optimal response.
That was a great improvement in itself and something I recommend highly to anyone.
Second step was to decide on a set of speakers. Tried as many as I could including top models from Magico, Wilson Audio, Sonus faber and others. To me the TAD R1 were clearly the best for my taste, room and goals. Actually the second best were the TAD CR1... These speakers are really fantastic.
I went on with amplification. Also tried several models. As many as I could. After much listening went with the TAD M600. They are very natural, and transparent to a point that is beyond imagination. Needless to say they perfectly combine with the R1s although I would recommend anyone to listen to them regardless of speaker brand. I have not listened to a more natural and true set of amps, yet with th dynamics, punch and bass extension when needed.
After that I went on for a preamp. I use to have the great ARC anniversary. However for the system I am building up an my goal, I felt that although very easy to combine, it felt a bit short in transparency and details. Here the decision was simple in my case: went on with the TAD C600; this is a remarkable preamp, and combined with an all TAD system gives all the goods of a tube preamp, in terms of saturation, music flow and so on, combined with the advantages already described of the TAD gear.
Last change I made recently was to swap the fantastic Esoteric P02/D02/G01, with the new Esoteric Grandioso 5 pieces P1, 2 mono DACs D1 and the clock G01. This is quite new, and still early times. But I can say already that this has been the greatest upgrade just right after the speakers. The quality of sound of this source is beyond imagination. And still improving.
As cables I am using Siltech for all analogs, both power cords and interconnects plus speaker cables. I am moving on from lower series to Double Crown models. Almost there. I have pending the speaker cables and the interconnects from preamp to amps. May consider here the DC or TC if I can listen to them and see is worth it.
For the Esoterics I am currently using the Mexcel 9500 power cords which are the ones they voiced the Esoterics with. Same for clock cables.
Another change that help big time was to take out power conditioner and replace with a good power bar. It is connected to the dedicated line that goes directly to the breaker panel. The gains here are also relevant. Better flow of music, more natural, with no downsides.
Lastly for now I am using the Tripoint Troy grounding system. This deserves a very special mention. You connect it to the groun post of all the devices, and to the mains with a very heavy PC only with earth connected. It really cleans up the sound. Gets you much closer to the real music sensation. This would deserve a full page in itself but all I can say here is that I strongly recommend it. You don't know the noise you have until you get rid of it.
Not many tweaks in the system. Or any really.
Still have some things in mind, but for the most part I am there for now.
Really enjoying the system and looking forward to getting more hours on the 01s. In any case the sounds I am getting now are really the best I have heard, and very close to the real thing I was looking. Always room to improve and looking forward to it but the level of joy this system gives right now has no precedent in my particular case and experience.
grounding system: not a tweak at all. This is something very special.
Artesania Audio Reference
Double chassis suspended rack
Siltech Empress Double Crown
1 meter from DACs to preamp
Siltech RS King
1,5 meters from preamp to amps
Esoteric Mexcel 6100 II BNC
3 cables 75 Ohm BNC from clock to transport and DACS
Siltech Emperor II
2 Meters Speaker cables
Siltech Octopus Double Crown
Power Bar
Siltech Ruby Double Crown
POwer cords from wall (1 meter 20A) to Octopus, and from Octopus power bar to Preamp and mono amps (1,5 meters)
Mexcel Acrolink PC 9500
Power cords from Octopus Power bar to digital system. (Transport power supply, DACS (2) and clock. 1,5 meters each.
Viacoustic Room acoustic treatment
A acoustic engineer took measurements and designed and installed a comprehensive room treatment made of baribass (variable bass traps, diffusers and absorbers). resulting measurements after job was done was a great improvement
Eelii08,...thanks for posting your updated a system! The pics being upside down may be the result of how they were imported from your camera, most probably on a Windows laptop. You can go into the directory where you store them on your hard drive and bring up the file explorer (explorer.exe) on Windows, set the view options for the directory to one of the tiles-view choices so you can see the photo tiles and select the each one that is not showing right sight up and use the right-mouse-button pop-menu to 'Rotate Clockwise' one or moe times until the previews show correctly. After that, import them again into the system build on Audiogon.
You are also not seeing any pictures on the top of your system page as that requires you to scroll all the way down in the system builder to near where you've entered your system description and select the System Photos button and import up to 6 photos that would appear at the top of your listing....questions, please let me know. Ping me on Audiogon in-mail and we can figure out how to get in contact to help you...
Thanks Knghifi. Yes all TADs I've heard are excellent indeed. The EVO with ARC I heard it. Is is very nice. Musical yet full of detail and punch. I still wonder why these speakers are not more widely sold. At that price point, in my personal experience, you have to expend much more to find something similar in performance. Don't know about ELAC. I don't think he will have the resources he had at TAD. Is a shame the divorce. But he is really a great designer and what he did at TAD was very hard to achieve. All the line is great each at its level, and hard to find something better for my tastes then the reference series for what I listened to.
Thanks Jon. Very kind. The pics are already there aren't they.
I don't know why, next to some components you can read in blu pic, but you don't see the pics at the top of the page like in other virtual systems. Have to be doing something wrong but don't know what it is.
Eelii08, You've assembled a beautiful system. TAD is also my favorite speaker so we have similar sound preferences.
I have Evo 1's driving them with ARC Ref250 or Hegel H30 amps and VAC SigMKIIa pre. I totally agree with your Evo 1 comments. My next MAJOR upgrade is R1 probably next year unless Mr. Andrew Jones creates a superior masterpiece at ELAC. :-) My dealer offered me an excellent trade in last winter but timing wasn't good plus we had record snow fall so can't get speakers in or out of the house until May.
Yes TAD are really good. I've listened deeply into almost all their line: Evo 1, CR1 and R1. All are really great. The Evo 1 is a speaker that has not gathered a lot of attention, and I'm surprised. A its price I have not heard anything better by a wide margin.
Esoteric is a great brand and I'm sure you are enjoying yours. I had many of them from x03 all the way up to the 01s and I did enjoy every single one of them.
