The shop is back to halfway operational now… finally … after CES 2015. And after both of us getting sick…. *cough* *cough cough* *SNEEZE!* … and now mostly recovered.

Since we took the HRS SXR rack to CES, and there was nothing sitting between the massive EMM Labs MTRX amps all of a sudden… we took then opportunity to move the larger HRS MXR rack up front.

This gives us 4 shelves instead of the 3 we have on our  SXR.

Room for… the  famous 2-box M9 Phono audio Note pre-amplifier. The Audio Note CDT-Five transport. And the Audio Note DAC 5 Signature DAC.

So… level Five, one step below the top-of-the-line Audio Note into the killer EMM  Labs MTRX 750 watt drives-the-poop-out-the-speakers amp into  the Acapella  Atlas hyperspherical-horn speakers.

So, now, everybody expects me to write about how it sounds. Neli wants me to tell everybody about what it sounds like.

You know, this thing we do in high-end audio…  where we change something in the hifi system and the sound changes and we evaluate the differences,  hopefully enjoying the differences…?

We do this a  lot. Most of you do this a lot.

The sound after we change something – it does not have to be all that much better. Just different. It is quite entertaining for it to be just different.

It can be…  well, let’s face it: it is  ALWAYS thrilling when the change makes the sound way better.

But it is also ALWAYS entertaining when the change is just a change.

And this change for the sake of change is what drives a large percentage of the industry, especially the used marketplace.

And it provides for seemingly endless fun here at Audio Federation as well.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

Changing RCA interconnects out for XLR (or visa-versa).

Maybe the component likes XLR better?

Maybe one component handles ground differently than the other?

Maybe the XLR part of the circuit is not broken in yet?

Maybe the better connectors on one  versus the other is  making all the difference?

Maybe that extra 3dB of the XLR is doing some good?

Perhaps the RCA is better shielded and the  XLR is getting too close to a transformer?

Maybe it is better to put the superior interconnect on the Source as opposed to the Amplifier?

….

Or maybe not.

Let’s try it and see!

Sometime I will try and write an exhaustive list of these things to play with and try in our systems.

[But for now… for this post… today… Sorry, I just couldn’t bring myself to write another description of yet another awesome sound of this what is becoming a very good-sounding system. Hope you enjoyed this non-post :-)].