AUDIO AERO PRESTIGE NOW UP ON HRS 'NIMBUS' FEET
Before we get to the comparisons…
We put the Prestige up on the HRS Nimbus ”feet’ which helped dial in the Prestige as it was sitting on the HRS M3 Isolation Base.
Here is the Prestige up with the 3 black diamond racing cones that come with the Prestige as their standard feet lying in front of the Prestige.
More pictures of the Prestige and the HRS Nimbuses, which in this picture were put under the place where the Black Diamond Racing cones usually go, abd you can see that the screws that stick out and screw into the cones are now sticking into the Nimbuses.
We changed this in the current configuration to put the Nimbuses in a configuration so that they would not get stuck… But we haven’t done a sonic comparison to determine any differences besides the aesthetic.
The Audio Note Kegons are also up on Nimbuses…
Just an FYI, here are the controls on the left side control panel of the Prestige
And on the right side…
Sonically, this improved the clarity, lowered the noise floor tremendously, and made the Prestige competitive with the Meitner, albeit with an entirely different sonic flavor. More on the comparison next, and as we moved the Prestige downstairs in preperation for the weekend’s (and Monday’s (today)) guests, replacing the Audio Aero Capitole with the Prestige in the SoundLab U1 / EDGE system, we can now also report at some length on the differences we hear between the Capitole and the Prestige.
I had the nimbus and black diamond #3 and pucks on hand and googled the comparison. I found your experiences with this. I tried everything you had just short of the screws into the nimbus pad. Well I can confirm that with my Ayre CD5xe this configuration deemed the best sound by a fair margin. I am somewhat concerned about damaging the pad but the sound is what we are looking for here. I will A/B without the screw again and see if the two are at all in the same league. So far the bass is far more extended and the separation between the mid to upper bass and into the higher ranges is much more palpable and coherent, obviously a high level achievement. My Ayre CD player sits atop a 3/4″ piece of acrylic which then sits on the top shelf of a metal rack made by Star Sound, Sistrum Platform with brass audio points/disc just beneath the acrylic. On top of all that I have the HRS vibration pads 3 in all on top of the Ayre. This is all hooked up with Synergistic Research Absolute Reference Balanced interconnects and a Audience power cord to a Furman IT-20 conditioner all attached to a Jeff Rowland Concentra II Integrated, same cables to a pair of Sonus Faber Auditor’s (originals). I have a small room so plenty of bass. The AC circuit is dedicated and wired with Cardas Romex in-wall all the way to the panel and a 25 amp breaker. All Synergistic cables are connected to a Quattro. Not bad, I have heard worst with better gear. I have a ExactPower 15A and Richard Gray’s Substation w/ Pro 400 but the Furman is the most musical as is the Audience PC on the front end. I put the Exactpower in a 4th theater in a second home and its great, the Richard gray is all on the home theater, all meridian and revel speakers w/ marantz projection all to great effect. All installation are on dedicated circuits. The fun is in the listening too. Mostly Jazz for me and blues when the kids aren”t around, I don’t want to get them down.
Cheers
Hi John,
First, having the screws poke into the Nimbus/Couplers is something to be AVOIDED. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. You want as much of the player in contact with the soft part of the Nimbus/Coupler as possible. On some of our components here, which have a LOT of screw heads visible on the bottom of the chassis – Neli spends a frustratingly long time [for me, who is impatient waiting to turn things on :-)] finding just the right locations where the NC do not have to touch any screws/bolts/whatever.
Yeah, the blues are kind of counter productive sometimes 🙂 It is so sweet that you do not want your kids to listen to our somewhat more depressing music [they will hear enough of it ‘out there’ anyway – no reason to pile it on – and ‘out there’ the quality is probably so bad they won’t be able to understand the words anyway :-)].
Take care,
Mike.