Teck, from Singapore, played a female vocals CD in our room, and likely a few lucky other rooms as well, at RMAF, and kindly and generously sent us a copy of it:

And, uh, it is surprisingly difficult to render well. The second track, specially, the singer has lotssssssss of sssssss’s in her ssssssinging that can caussssssse ssssssibliance when played back [i.e. sharp S sounds instead of delicate, sweet s sounds]. Luckily, the completely optimized system we took to the show played everything perfect, but some of our experimental systems, that otherwise play flawlessly [more or less] have difficulty here, and truth to tell, the playback in general on this CD could be better.

I think the answer will turn out to be a combination of the fact that we are playing it LOUD [what? L-O-U-D!!! Anybody else have these strange conversations when the music is loud? That usually end in “Forget it. I’ll Tell!… You!… Later!…”. “WHAAAAT!?”], the equipment is sitting very nearly right in front of the speakers, and the bass needs adjusting because the room is so large - we got used to using an integrated, and I do not think we have used solid-state on the main towers for over a year.

So we struggle, changing power cords, cleaning the CD, changing cables etc. to try and figure out what thing[s] are responsible. Everything to avoid having to move things or put a rack between the speakers [on the other hand, Neli is happy as a clam to have Mike move things, including racks, to and fro, fro and to].

System 1

Lamm L2 linestage’s power supply

Lamm L2 linestage. Just about everything is on HRS M3 Isolation Bases.

Emm Labs CDSA CD / SACD Player.

Anyway, that is what’s happening here. The Vidar has not yet arrived so we are not burning in anything that needs to be burned in. So, we are circling the field waiting to land.

System 2

Audio Note Ongaku integrated amplifier

Audio Note DAC 4.1x Balanced

Audio Note CDT Three transport

And, yes, Teck, your other CD arrived to [Thanks SO much!]. But, uh, I accidentally left it in the Emm Labs CDSD SE which, uh, is unplugged and at the moment away from an outlet, and I need to find a power cord for it somewhere [can I use a stock $2 Belden power cord? Of Course Not ] and plug it back in so I can eject the CD [See, I TOLD you all that I do this ALL THE TIME. Don’t know what it is… some kind of curse because I ‘let’ Neli clean all the CDs (and records, too) or something… ]

We like the CDs. We are certainly playing them a lot. The soundtrack is a little like the Gladiator soundtrack… I mean, doesn’t it seem like soundtracks have their own genre -they’re not classical and they’re not pop. Cool depth of field though, and amazing drums.

Been moving things around some.

We are trying to setup things so that we have two systems we can wire with all Nordost ODIN cables [hopefully here next week], with 2 interconnects and one speaker cable [we are ignoring the Coltrane Surpreme’s bass tower speaker cables, at our own ear’s risk, of course - but our pocketbooks and wallets thank us].

Edge Signature One solid-state amps driven directly by Audio Aero Prestige, with Brinkmann Balance turntable and Lamm LP2 phono plugged in to one of the inputs on the Prestige.

Unfortunately, the limitations of the $14K Prestige’s built-in preamp [linestage] is evident, things being a little muddier than what we are looking for [especially in comparison to the pre in the $85K Audio Note Ongaku we were using before ]. The Prestige’s built-in pre is fine for things up to, say, $40-50K speakers, at which point the decision on whether to get an outboard preamp has to be made on a speaker by speaker basis - and the size of one’s wallet. The Kharma Mini Exquisites like a little more oomph of the extra pre, the Marten Coltrane speakers do well with either.

I’m sure the Audio Note M10 linestage on the Kegons would be great, as well as the Lamm L2 linestage on their ML2.1 amps, but then we are talking about 3 interconnects for digital instead of 2, and so no 100% ODIN setup.

Downstairs, we have the Emm Labs CDSA driving the Lamm L2 linestage into the Audio Note Kegon amplifiers. Interesting mix of brands, I know, but it sounds re-e-e-e-al good - and it allows us to swap in different amps for demos.

But, since that demo has been postponed, and in the interest of limiting this system to just 2 interconnects as well, we will setup the Emm Labs CDSA player [and/or Audio Note CDT3 transport and 4.1x Balanced DAC] connected to the Audio Note Ongaku integrated into the Kharma Mini Exquisite loudspeakers.

If we just had ONE more pair of ODIN interconnects… and another speaker cable for the bass towers on the Supremes [probably open up their bass something wonderful], … but, no, we can’t go there. That way lies madness.

A final shot of the Audio Note amps.

We hope to have an 100% Audio Note Sogon cabled system - with some of their SOTTO thrown in as well before too long. I anticipate completely different sounds from these systems using these different cables And we already did the 100% Jorma Design Prime system [at the RMAF show].

It will be so much fun hearing all the differences.

This is what life is all about: enjoying the differences this world has to offer, and experiencing the fruits of expert craftspeople in the pursuit of excellence.

Richard works at Audio Note and does many things including the website and, apparently, playing guitar through the Audio Note U.K. Ongaku integrated amplifier and Audio Note speakers.

If the video maker does not allow embedding, and there is no video above, clicking on the link below will take you take you to the video on YouTube.

The Video

Cool huh? And not a bad job playing the guitar either.

[Hopefully, some of these techniques apply to other speakers as well, but regardless, perhaps you might find them interesting as a study in What is Possible with the right design and tools].

This setup in our main listening room is more or less the setup we used at the show [well, the bass towers are on the inside, and there are a few cable changes, but….yeah, the same. Kind of.]

This is part of the Marten ‘Coltrane Supreme’ speaker system. It contains the amp, for the bass towers, and, most important for this current discussion today, the active crossover.

On the back of the active crossover there are controls for the phase and the bass level (volume).

Because we were / are using an integrated amplifier (the Audio Note Ongaku) to drive the main towers, and no preamp in the system, we are forced to change the bass volume every time we change the main volume on the Ongaku.

Turn up the volume on the Ongaku, then turn up the volume on the bass amp. [For some reason, I always think about turning UP the volume, but it is the same when turning down the volume, when and if that ever happens].

So, that is the situation, we are forced to keep adjusting the bass when changing the volume because of this particular system setup we are using.

We keep having to judge what is the EXACT right amount of bass… for a particular volume, and sometimes for a particular song (have to turn it up the bass for reggae, Mon).

OK, here’s the thing. With one person adjusting the bass and others listening to the result, certain behaviors are noticeable.

* The resulting sound is linear, by which we mean that it smoothly changes in response to the change in bass volume… EXCEPT at a particular point

* At this particular point in bass volume, the sound suddenly ‘fills in’. It reminds me of something like an old TV / CRT - like the beginning of Outer Limits - the ‘picture’(i.e. sound) suddenly grows from nothing to fill up the entire soundstage (room?).

* At this particular point, and this is weird [well, it is weird to me, along with being an awesome side-effect] certain in-room distortions disappear.

At this particular point, where the bass level is just so, we could increase the volume to our (my) pain threshold and every note was clear and separated and positioned perfectly - whereas at a lower volume, when the bass was not just so, it was a little bit confused and not completely enchanting, shall we say.

Well, that is all we have to report to this date - we have not tried this here yet, we still have a way to go to position the speakers correctly [ Yeah, we’ve been busy here, which is good, but…]. And we only learned this the last few hours of the show when we felt that it was OK to get a little wild and experiment a little.

Hey I think one lucky room visitor did to hear all this… Perfect Circle, perfectly rendered at 110 - 120dB and something else which I always forget the name of…. But I imagine people outside in the hallway, and in the nearby stairwell between floors, well, not sure WHAT they thought…

Maybe this has to do more with the ears and not room interactions. Maybe we are just nuts. We’ll let you know when we try the same thing here, in a vastly different space.

We got this player in a few months ago. Its only about $3500, but… for my money, this is all the player you need unless you want to go up to the $9+K range of the Audio Aero Capitole / Prestige and Emm Labs CDSA and the other Audio Note players. [Yes, I know there are others, but pay attention to what I am saying, not my memory-challenged brain… ]

So much music!

Here are a few photos….

In this price range you just don’t get soul-rendering detail and finesse and harmonic structure. Sorry. [So many people believe that if they just buy enough of the players in this price range, they will find THE ONE that is as good as the $10K+ crowd but sells for 1/4 the price it could bring in a market economy. And they are not just looking for stupid manufacturers who make wonderful CD players either - but wonderful stupid amp manufacturers and speaker manufactures and … ]

But what you do want at this price range is livability, enjoyability, musicality, harmonic insight, everything a person needs who wants to listen to music and is not obsessed with having the BEST they can afford (or not afford as the case may be for all of us pushing the limits of fiscal responsibility),

This player. This is what I would have if I weren’t crazy.

In the Audio Note room this year we are planning on a modest system comprised of pieces totally about $15K + turntable cartridge step-up transformer and cables and rack.

Audio Note AN/E Spe HE
Audio Note OTO Phono SE
Audio Note TT2 turntable with Arm Three
Audio Note AN-S4 moving coil step up transformer
Audio Note IO1 moving coil cartridge
Interconnect: Audio Note AN-Vx
Speaker cable: Audio Note Lexus XL
Acoustic Dreams 4-shelf equipment rack
Audio Note CD 2.1X/II CD Player

Anyone else using the new MS Word? It comes with your new PC (remember, ours got fried by lightning, so we both got a new one), even if you do not get Vista (which I didn’t). There is no ‘Save As’ option so I had to go out and into Windows Explorer and manually copy and rename the file. Geez.

… is shaping up…

We are now running the Emmlabs CDSD transport through 10m long optical cables to the DCC2 DAC/Pre into the Marten Coltrane Supremes Crossover/ Bass amp into the Audio Note Ongaku and finally to the Marten Supreme speakers.

The key is that the cables are all Jorma Design Prime and one Stealth INDRA interconnect. Less cable, better cable, sound.

Now. This sounds better. But is REALLY sounds better running the DAC direct to the Marten box, not going through the DCC2’s preamp.

When I say ‘really sounds better’, it is both somewhat subtle and somewhat not subtle at all. There is an energy that was present without the extra preamp in the loop that was amazingly hypnotic… but it is hard to hear this when just listening to frequencies and dynamics and other audiophile-type attributes. I guess that is why we call it magic.

Anyway, without the preamp, to change the volume requires changing the main tower volume on the Ongaku and the bass volume on the Marten box. We are running with unity gain into the Marten box, but the bass volume knob works really well. Neli think this is too weird for a show. I think it is no weirder than having two knobs, one for each (left and right) channel, We just have a top and bottom channel instead.

But is is a pain to walk up to the front in a large room like we have at RMAF and adjust the volume all the time, along with syncing up the bass volume to the midrange volume - so it is unclear if we will use the optimized setup at the show (and we want to support use of a turntable as well). But when we get back… This is just too good to pass up.

………and then perhaps swapping out the INDRA for more Jorma ‘Prime’ cable, or Nordost ODIN, or Audio Notes new SOTTO …. How much fun!

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest here in Denver is just around the corner. October 12th I think. I hope. Better go look I guess.

Anyway…

We are planning on taking the Coltrane Supremes, like last year. But this time using the Audio Note Ongaku integrated amplifier to drive them. ‘How Sweet it Is!’

We were using the Edge Reference ‘pyramid’ amps you see there in the photo, but not any more, so just delete them somehow with your visual cortex.

The sound is quite sweet and beautiful, the first time we’ve really achieved this with the Supremes (they are finally breaking in, hurray!), which are, to put it simply, the only competent speaker made today. All other speakers have serious flaws in comparison. Not that people don’t LIKE some of the flaws in those other speakers, and they’ve certainly got used to them, but, well, there you have it.

The source equipment consists of the Meitner CDSA and the Audio Note M10 preamplifier. We’re thinking the system may be a little too laid back and are planning on replacing the Shunyata Anaconda Helix Vx with Nordost Valhalla power cords, something closer to the Belden OEM cords the factory recommends , to try to get the system to lively up itself a little bit.

I mean, it is close, but people at shows… its hard to figure them out. Some want rooms to be LOUD and IMPRESSIVE (esp. in this price range ) some want it to be REAL, … etc. just like they do with their own systems. And our goal, and I think we can achieve this, is to make it excel in all categories.

The problem is in the subject flavor - how to flavor the system right… down… the…middle.

To please as many people as possible. And us too!

And then there is the let’s just take the EMM Labs CDSD and DCC2 and the Ongaku and be done with it. No preamps, no second rack. No turntable. No second digital source. … Mt arms feel better already

Of course, there is our second room, the Audio Note room. But that is a small room, a decent-sized system, and adds only a few gray hairs to the noggin.

Kharma Mini Exquisite speakers on Audio Note Ongaku, driven by Meitner CDSA CD / SACD player, 100% cabled by Jorma Design Prime cables.

Very small, very exquisite system.

Upstairs we had the player across the room, so always connected it to the system using he 10m Valhalla interconnects. So this was the first time we heard the Kharma speakers, and later the Marten Coltrane speakers, in a 100% Jorma Prime system.

Yummy.

Sonically, it was just more of what we heard upstairs, taken to a higher level. Specifically, more PRESENCE. Voices were just THERE. Bass seemed even tighter as well, though that might be the smaller room.

The chairs are turned away so that people can hear the Soundlab system in this photo.

Later, we put the Martin ‘Coltrane’ speakers in this system. First time we heard the Ongaku on the Coltranes. Compared to the Kegons, the Ongaku seems to control different frequencies, … differently. It is sweeter than the Kegons - but not sweet in the sense of warm, but perhaps in the sense of more color, and a better sense of the ‘right’ note decay.

The Kharma and Marten are worlds apart in this kind of uber-system, and, to generalize, the Marten in a more neutral speaker, more even top to bottom, soundstage behind the speakers, and the Kharma is a more exuberant speaker, very high-resolution in the mids and upper mids, soundstage in front of the speakers, and probably can’t be beat on vocals.

Also, the Kharmas prefer larger rooms and the Coltranes smaller.

Again, just generalizing.

The soundlabs!

Finally, the SoundLabs get a chance to breathe…. Nice to have them back out from behind the Coltrane Supremes…

And speaking of the Supremes… here we see them all nicely polished up by Neli.

The aesthetic of these speakers, tall vertical, wooden, in this room with its tall vertical wooden beams - is striking now that we are getting used to the whole idea that they are FINALLY up here.

I hesitated a long time to write this post. After all, I first thought that the Audio Note just did not drive Kharma very well, especially when the Kegon amplifiers just did not drive the Kharmas to distraction - which they had with every other speaker we had tried them with.

With the Audio Note Ongaku, the Minis were well driven, surprise! and the Minis were able to fill up our large room with sound [more surprise!] , including bass, very nicely thank you. In fact, it was the best we had ever heard the Mini Exquisites sound.

Even though many people who heard this system thought it was the best system we had here, for their taste, [as some did with the AN SEC Silver Sig speakers in this system previously], some of our test tracks, like the 1st cut on the SACD version of Santana’s Abraxus - just did not lite our fire like they had with the previous, Very Large reference speakers we had in our main room.

Then Neli put the Jorma Design ‘Prime’ speaker cables on the system replacing the Valhalla [No, we havn’t heard the Odin yet… tick tock tick tock…]. Usually these cables add detail and ambiance and coherence - all those ‘cable-ish’ things - which these did again. But…

They seem to also now let through more dynamics, like there is more power coming from the amps. The sound wave front is much more bloomier, larger (and it was pretty big before) - the ‘color’ of these cables, orange-ish in my mind - just ADDED to the color of the Ongaku and Kharmas, both exemplary examples of what controlled-color-machines should be themselves.

With the Meitner CDSD/DCC2 digital and 10m Valhalla interconnects as source - the system was given a very pure signal.

Anyway, this is the first system where the sound rivals that of the previous system with those Very Large [Acapella Triolons] speakers… and in such a small package, too!

The soundstage is as wide and about as tall as the 7 foot speakers [except when those other speakers put the soundstage up in the rafters, which it did if you were sitting low in the listening chair] - but more firmly fixed in place.

The resolution is better - something for which the Kharmas have few peers.

The color is ‘better’, which is to say that there is more of it [in general we like a neutral sound, but not too neutral, and this lies pleasantly within our preferences].

The wrap-around sound is better - don’t know why that would be… maybe the Ongakus which we never tried on the previous setup.

The bass is, of course, not has powerful (compared to 8 10 inch woofers, surprise) but it is satisfying enough that we only miss it sometimes [and can you say… ‘Midi’ Exquisites … with their 4 large woofers? I knew you could ]

The dynamics is not the same, compared to that of the 30 inch and 20 inch horms - but it is only in very loud complex passages that it becomes a fault. The punchiness of the amp, and the broadband nature of the Prime cables, seems to make up a lot of ground with respect to the difference in efficiencies.

The only nit I have is that there is the slightest reticence in the mid bass somewhere - and we do not know if this is a characteristic of the speaker, speaker-amp combo, or perhaps lack of adequate vibration control on the source equipment…

So anyway - this is cool. We’ve had a number of people up here who are picky [you know, EVERYbody is picky - what is with that? ] and they seem to agree that this ain’t too bad sounding. So we aren’t going insane. Too much.

What does it mean that one can get much of the benefit of large efficient speakers with a properly driven small speakers [add a subwoofer for that lowest octave, which no speaker can do anyway unless it is the Marten Coltran Supremes - which will be up here presently]?

It might mean that there is a conservation of system cost - you spend it here or ya gotta spend it there - move the money from speakers to amp and cables. But this isn’t exactly true, as expensive speakers needed expensive equipment as well.

It might mean that, given money, you can chose to have a few constraints, like being able to see out the windows - and still have world-class sound.

Or it might just mean that Neli and Mike just got lucky and that there is no deep meaning here at all.

Yeah, that is probably it.

Oh well, party on dudes and dudettes.

P.S. Here we have Neli’s solution to holding up the Elrod power cord going into the Ongaku. Too bad I tore up my Harry Potter box from Amazon in a rush to get the latest book out - we could of used it instead to add a little ‘magic’ to the system…