Current Showroom Setup
The main listening room is the same as last week, with the Audio Note Ongaku driving the Audio Note AN/E SEC Signature speakers, but with the Emm Labs CDSD / DCC2 SE digital as source replacing the Audio Aero Prestige, which has moved downstairs…
This room did experience a major amp shootout, more in the next post about that…
The showroom #4 is also the same, with the Kharma MP150 amps driving the Audio Note speakers, which at 98 dB are very eifficient… with the Audio Aero Capitole CD player / linestage as source, this system sounds really good. I’d like to hear any other digital amp, or most solid-state amps for that matter, do that.
Showroom 2 has seen lots of changes…
First we had the Emm Labs CD / SACD player with built-in linestage driving the Audio Note Kegons into the Kharma Mini Exquisite loudspeakers. THAT was nice…
The we moved the Meitner upstaitrs on to the Ongaku (can you say transparency? separation? purity albeit not as warm and enaging as the Audio Aero Prestige, but more convincing. So many flavors.) and did the front end with the Audio Note DAC 4.1x Balanced and CDT3 transport and M10 preamplifier.
Much more control and control and, uh, control. Everything was as it was supposed to be. Unfortunately, the 18 watt Kegons have found their first speaker that they just could not get the hang of – at loud volumes – and we’ve driven just about everything here with the Kegons except the soundlabs. The 18 watt Lamm ML2.1 also has problems with controlling the Kharma speakers at loud volumes. Based on what we have found, they really sound best, if you want them to go loud, with the Edge Signature One and Kharma’s own amps (the MP 150) if you want transparency and openness and control, and the Lamm ML1.1, a 90 watt push-pull tube amplifier, if you want tube musicality and openness and control.
We have yet to try the all powerful Ongaku at 25 watts on these though…. Maybe tomorrow?
For showroom 3, which is in the same room as showroom 2, we have…
The Soundlabs taking a break, but not the Marten Design Coltrane speakers, Lamm L2 preamp, LP2 phono stage and Brinkmann turntable / Titan cartridge. Audio Aero Prestige is performing digital source duties.
This is one of our favorite systems. However…
We had to position the Coltranes in front of the Soundlab U1. Impromtu but it seems to work pretty well. I mean, needs lots of trweaking – but we think it will work! The Coltranes like being close to the front wall, and the Soundlabs are kind of a wall…
Now Neli wants to move the Supremes over here on this side of the room [and in front of the Soundlabs!?] , as the dedicated circuits on the other side seem like they are picking up FM radio, secret transmissions from Mars, and other weirdness on several different systems that have lived down at that side of the room.
I now think it is ghosts.
But Neli, if her expression is any indicator, thinks otherwise.
