We have so many things in the queue … so many things lined up to try, that it gets a little overwhelming. The exact sequence of things gets a lot of discussion and seems to be updated on an almost hourly basis.

We have:

1. Compare the charged ELROD powercord that has been on the Nordost ViDar cable burner to a charged ELROD that has not been on the burner - i.e. How does the ViDar affect performance? We already did the cold (uncharged) Vidar’ed ELROD compared to the hot (charged) un-ViDar’ed ELROD. [Note, ELRODs take about 3 days or so to charge up their capacitors]. While this was ijntersting, and we will report on it, not being the brightest bears in the woods, we finally realized that this was kind of confusing [I bet you are confused, too, by now ], overloading the charged versus uncharged test with the Vidar’ed versus un-Vidar’ed test.

I said it was fun. But it also requires a degree in Research Methods… apparently.

2. Compare the Kegon Balanced with the old high-gain Kegons. We can do this on the Kharma Mini Exquisites - which we anticipate will show that 1) … well, let’s not make any predictions [see, I’m getting smarter. Maybe there is hope…]. But the Kharma is actually quite hard to drive, especially the bass - especially if you want that big open Kharma sound [Kharmas always sound exciting and delicious and big, but not always that room pressurizing wrap-around that many people crave like hot butter on potatoes].

3. Compare the Nordost ODIN speaker cable to the Jorma Design PRIME speaker cable on the Marten Coltrane Supremes. This will be… well, there may not be a winner. I expect the ODIN to be more dynamic, which the Supremes love, and the PRIME to be more detailed, which the Supremes love. But for all I know I am getting it exactly backwards. That’s what shootouts are for. Proving it one way or another [at least with respect to the equipment we have here - we do try to perform part of a shootout on a completely different system to make sure that out results more or less reflect the general case].

4. Compare the Kharma Mini Exquisites to the Audio Note SEC High Efficiency Signature speakers. OK, yes, completely different… but both are 2-ways and, well they were the same price but now the Minis are $60K [seen the dollar lately?] and, well the AN speakers are… we’ll know when Neli gets the price list out [uh, oh, she’s gonna smack me when she reads this… I am already bracing for the impact… hurry up and finish this so I can delete it before she sees it ]. I expect the Kharmas to be more detailed and the AN more dynamic. Duh. AN is almost horn-like and Kharma has that legendary midrange resolution. But what else will we hear?

5. Compare the M1 phono stage to the Lamm LP2 phono preamplifier. OK, Neli thinks this test is stupid too… but I want to hear the difference in character between the two. We’ve had a number of other inexpensive and expensive phono stages in here, so this is not all THAT outrageous.

6. Compare the old EMM Labs CDSA to the new one with the upgraded transport and feet. We should be getting close to getting 700 hours on the new CDSA soon now, one would think [I don;t have a little 700 hours cooking timer on it or anything].

7. Oh yeah, we still have to do the interconnect shootout where the signal is quite large, between the preamp and the amp. We actually point to a system periodically and say ‘oh, this would be a convenient time and configuration to perform the aforementioned test’ [well, we don’t use the word ‘aforementioned’ in casual conversation, sorry]. But do we sit down and do the shootout? Noooooooo. It does take about 6 or 7 hours of focused concentrated listening, so it is hard to find the time. But soon….

8. We want to compare the high-power ELROD powercords to the low-powered ones on the Lamm ML2.1. At what point to low-powered amps draw high-power? Just what IS the difference in sound between the two?

9. I am sure there is a 9. And 10….

These are just first impressions… and we are still looking forward to a direct shootout between the CDSA with the upgrade [mostly the new metal transport] and the CDSA without.

But the sound seems more refined, more finesse, more smoother, more transparent than the old CDSA. The old CDSA was a little rougher, but a little more dynamic than the CDSD and DCC2 combo. The upgrade seems to put it closer in sound to that combo - and hopefully without loosing any of its old dynamics and ‘life’.

Sounded pretty good yesterday… anyway. The transport definitely has a more ‘uptown’ feel to it. Nice.

Our CDSA just got back, a few days ago now as we let it warm up and start breaking in… again, from getting the latest upgrade offered by EMM Labs.

The upgrade consists of a new German transport, new machined feet for the chassis, and a new bezel on the transport door. The upgrade retails for $1500 and is available only for CDSA’s and CDSD’s made in the last year or two. The CDSA is now shipped only with the upgrade and now costs $11,500 USD. The CDSD SE similarly goes up to $9,900 USD [these are only two in a raft of price increases we are receiving from most manufacturers].

This is the current setup with the upgraded CDSA SE. It is actually sitting on tall HRS Nimbus Couplers, not the new machined feet, and for lack of an extra platform, on the carpet there. That is a Nordost Brahma power cord on the CDSA and Elrod on the Audio Note Ongaku. Along with Stealth INDRA interconnects and Nordost ODIN speaker cable this is a darn simple system. We like these three piece systems [Kharma Mini Exquisites as the 3rd piece in this case].

They are so, simple. They sound good. They don’t cost a lot in interconnects and equipment racks and are visually appealing.

The name tag remains the same.

The bezel looks slightly different?

The machined feet are significantly more robust, wider and heavier looking.

Now a bunch of photos of the new transport. Much more robust feeling and looking.

A lot more metal and less plastic.

I have no idea what the 6, 9 is doing on the Dire Strait’s Brothers in Arms CD - or even whether it is something Neli wrote or is on all CDs.

How does it sound? Well cold, out of the box, it sounded pretty good - but it has been a few weeks without our CDSA now and we missed it dearly - so I think the old model would have sounded pretty good at this point.

But we will do a better job as it is now warmed up and has 24 - 48 hours on it. A few more days…

And hopefully we can rescue more equipment from all the other shootouts we are running here simultaneously.

We got the:

* New Elrod power cord versus new Elrod power cord with a week or two on the Nordost Vidar cable burner test running.

* We got the Walker Proscenium Gold Signature versus the Audio Note TT3 Reference turntable shootout always running

* We got the Lamm LP2 photo stage versus the one in the Audio Note M1 preamplifier [Yes, I know which one is probably going to win, Neli, but I want to hear HOW it wins ].

* We still have the rerun of the recent interconnect shootout but not as digital cables, not as tonearm cables, but as honest ordinary interconnects

* We want to do a shootout between the Kharma and Audio Note SEC Signature speakers [yes, I know they are very different, but the new completely upgraded AN speakers should compete in the basic areas of frequency extension and overall resolution, trading efficiency and dynamics for upper midrange uber resolution - but I want to hear that they do].

* And then there is the new Audio Note Kegon Balanced versus the Ongaku versus the older high-gain Kegons.

And we will most likely have an older 6 month old or so CDSA here to do a shootout against the upgraded CDSA quite soon.

And the real problem is many of these have to run on one of the two major systems [and we like to be somewhat familiar with the sound of the system in a large sense to do the shootout in order to have a slightly higher level of confidence in our findings - so we can’t do too many changes, too fast] -and so we got a complex traffic jam on component substitutions planned that we really could use an advanced project scheduling tool to manage - if we didn’t hate these tools so much [long story, to do with idiot managers… need we say more? ].

Well, moving the equipment back about 3 or 4 inches away from in front of the speakers solved most of the sibilance problem [note to Mike: do not put equipment in front of speakers] … could probably move it back further… but too impatient and went on to the next experiment and put the Audio Note M10 3 box linestage in the system replacing the 2 box Lamm L2.

Oops, the CDSA is back in front of the speakers again. Well, what can I do? In the short term I mean. Eventually we could put up high rises (racks), overpasses (elevators), bypasses (longer runs of cables, especially power cords in this case), etc. But for now, we just listen.

Emm Labs CDSA CD/SACD player in front, Audio Note M10 line stage (center) and its power supplies (flanking) in the second row, Marten crossover and bass tower amp with Edge Signature One amps flanking.

Neli wants me to remind people that she is not inn favor of the CDSA player being in front of the left channel bass tower that way.

The system sounds bigger, stronger, more forceful with the M10 linestage. This is more of a ‘room pressurizing’ big overwhelming sound than the more measured stately sound of the Lamm L2 linestage.

The Marten Coltrane Supremes at morning

The Marten Coltrane Supremes at morning. The redishness is the sun reflecting off of our bright red leather couch.

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…

First off, daughter got successfully married to her first husband (hey, one can’t ignore statistics - or heredity , relatives have come and gone, and time to get back to work….

I’m writing this in Firefox, which has a built in spell checker, so if all goes well my posts will read a little more like English and less like Mikeish.

So… the ro0ms are pretty much the same as they have been…

We have the Kharma Mini Exquisites upstairs waiting to be tried with the Audio Note Ongaku, Driven by the Emm Labs CDSD/DCC2 (the CDSA is out on audition - for those that want transparency and musical truth, this is an amazing deal at $10K, the bar has been raised significantly).

The Mini’s are somewhat hard to drive, so we’ll see if the 25 watt Ongakus do it or not.

The dream system - Marten Coltranes driven by Audio Note Kegon amps and the Audio Note M10 preamp (with an Audio Note digital front end - CDT3 and DAC 4.1x Balanced). We’ve taken most of this system to Rocky Mountain Audio Fest shows - but not with the M10, which adds C-O-N-T-R-O-L. Kind of a Kegon++ type sound. A slightly rounder sound than the Lamm ML2/L2/Coltrane/HRS system/Jorma Prime - our other reference Coltrane system - we might take the former system to CES next year.

The equipment rack. Duh.

The Marten Supremes need to go upstairs - yes - at 300lbs for the bass units (includes the 50lb spikes on the bottom) Neli is pressuring Mike to get the to a gym…. but we might just hire some guys we know - who handled the Triolons several times and will be happy to see that these are REASONABLY-sized speakers for a change.

Finally, out smaller system room. The Audio Aero Prestige CD/SACD player into the Audio Note Otto integrated into Audio Note speakers. Very nice and immediate and uncompressed. Otto still breaking in though….

The closeup view…

We had somebody come by who wanted to hear the Adagio loudspeakers in a larger room… and it was easiest to bring them upstairs…

.. and put them on the Audio Note Ongaku integrated amplifier…

… driven by the Emmlabs CDSA single-box CD / SACD player.

After we got over the initial shock of how much efficnet these speakers were than the Audio Note speakers they replaced…

They sounded pretty darn good!

We know some system builders like to put cheap amps on expensive speakers… well, this is the other side of that coin.

And in this case I think it worked better, as there weren’t any nasties… mostly just limitations on dynamics, mostly midi- and micro-dynamics, and various subtlties that we in the high part of the fi like to have along with our music.

These speakers, this system, actually does fill up the room with sound. It is amazing.

Not quite the easy open bass the Triolon bass towers had- but few systems have THAT large of a sound.

But the bass goes down on both this and the previous system to about the same frequency, and with about the same resolution… so there ARE similaritities.

And here, the soundstage is a more reasonable 6 or 7 feet tall, instead of 20 feet - so it is, as always, about tradeoffs. And at about 1/4 the price… we are happy with this being the primary system… for awhile.

I will have to take more photos of the Ongaku on the Rix Rax outpost amp stand. It was just a kind of accident that this got set up this way - the HRS going out on a local audition this week - but this looks really … farout man.

The two are about the same size and it is as if were made for each other. And Neli polished up both of them, which doesn’t hurt the visuals either.

Sonically… we are playing with power cords and have a $2 OEM cord on the Ongaku to establish a frame-of-reference… so can’t say anything yet.

Still breaking in. Wordpress lost my first post on this. So let’s try again, although somewhat worse for wear …

We have a somewhat interesting setup here - but right out of the box, the CDSA sounded pretty good, albeit in a constipated and compressed sort of way.

That is the CDSA on the bottom shelf. It is running, using the Shunyata (P)ython Helix Vx power cord into the never-before-used-as-far-as-we-can-remember analog inputs on the DCC2, connected to each other with an Audio Note SPX interconnect.

[After losing my post a second time, it has become obvious that the word p-y-t-h-o-n causes Wordpress fits, as it is also the name of a computer language that WP must be screening out. Stupid BDS.].

All this is run into the Audio Note Ongaku integrated amplifier, bypassing the DCC2 built-in preamp. The wonderful sound of this amp is probably helping a bit with the breakin blues…

If I were to describe the sound at this point, it would be that the sound of the CDSA, in this un-optimized setup, is slightly more dynamic and controlled, and a little less smooth, than its bigger brother, although at this point the decay is too aggressive. Still with the purity and truth of the Meitner company-sound. And once again, although the sound of the CDSA appears in this Silly Setup ™ to have quite a bit of detail - any comparision with the competition would leave egg on their components from the perspective of anyone who values Real over Impressive Deluges of Detail.

The CDSA appears to be definitively NOT inferior to the DCC2 SE and CDSD SE combo - and can be thought of as more like the combo minus the built-in Switchman-quality preamp and analog and digital inputs. In a single-box.At half the price.