System Updates – finally, home.
We’ve been moving stuff around a lot lately.
Here we have the Audio Note UK TT2 Deluxe turntable running into the M9 Phono pre-amplifier into the Audio Note Kegon amps into the Acapella Audio Arts Cellini High speakers, all on HRS equipment racks.
Yum.
After we found the right power cord and umbilical [between the M9 and it’s power supply] combination it was more than yum. It was revelatory.
It allowed our ears to go back, way back, when we had the larger Acapella Triolon speakers [and a bigger room :-)] and do a mental comparison. We heard that old system so many times… never will forget. And this system, really optimized like this, was of-a-kind compared to that sound. The Cellini High is ‘exactly’ like the Triolon, with the handicap of having a smaller horn [not as efficient and notes don’t blossom the same way] and smaller base unit [bass not as open and deep] and several other things of a more minor effect. The point is that we are darn impressed. And so happy that we can have most of THAT old sound here, in this space.
[Oh. I guess I should have mentioned that for many reasons, most of them seriously stupid, this is the first time we put the Kegon amps on the Cellini High. The Kegon’s 20 watts on the older models of the, similar in profile, Acapella Violon speakers would not have worked well at all. Also this was the first time we tried the Sogon umbilical – instead of the Lexus – with the M9 too. Oh, and the SOOTTO power cord on the M9. It was a day of wonderful discoveries]
When a person downsizes, comparisons like this can make a person feel sick. But for the first time in a very long time, we really felt like this was home.
Of course, a couple of those cables had to be shipped out the next day – fate has to have the last laugh – but we now know what we need to order next… 🙂
Beautiful system, but I imagine that room treatment is an issue?
Hi Jim,
Yep. Especially as the volume gets over 85 to 90 to 100dB+ [the last couple of days gave us a lot of sample data in this regard :-)], but at lower volumes not so much.
We have plans to address this over time, but we want to do it in a customer-living-room-friendly way – i.e. it needs to look natural, like anybody’s living room, not like an anechoic laboratory. Most people’s living rooms look like this – especially if they have an Eichler home out here [well, maybe not with their Christmas lights still up in March :-)].
We do have lots of carpet and big furniture in the room, and are looking at several other options [like hanging some kind of very large piece of woven art on the rear wall, thickening the carpet significantly, etc.]. We are also open to any ideas other people may have…. 🙂
Take care,
-Mike