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October 11, 2006 by Michael

Audio Note U.K. M10 3-box Preamplifier

The Marten Design ‘Coltrane’ loudspeakers, Audio Note Kegon amplifiers, Audio Note M10 preamplifier, Emm Labs CDSD Signature transport and DCC2 Signature DAC, Brinkmann’s Balance turntable, Lamm’s LP2 phono preamplifier.

It kind of spreads out acorss the floor, doesn’t it? Cable length issues dictate that the Meitner CDSD Transport be out front with the Kegons. Then we have the two ‘Galahad’ power supplies in the row behind them. All are on HRS ‘M3’ Isolation Bases. Shunyata power cords and Valhalla cables adorn the floor space between the monoliths.

We do now seem to have a equal numbered set of both silver faced and black faced equipment. What to do… what to do.

How does it sound? Even though cold? Even with the M10 not broken in?

We haven’t heard the Kegons on this system in a long time, the Meitner for an even longer time. But given what we know about the Kegons and Meitner together – and these speakers – and we know a bit….

This is a big step towards the sound we have been always looking for.. engaing, magical, sophisticaed, natural, dynamic, exciting,,,.

The guitar on Radiohead Amneeeeesiac now sounds like my guitar upstairs. Never noticed that it didn’t sound quite exactly right, tonally, until now.

The soundstage is much more dynamic – like the recording engineer intended it to be – things not only more solid, but moving much more fluidly around while maintaining their solidity, keeping the part of one’s brain, that ancient part that keeps an ‘eye’ on things in one’s immediate neighborhood, which was suspicious before about those solid-sounding singers and instruments that were seemingly invisible, at even fuller attention. [uh, sorry about all the commas in that sentence…kind of a parsing nightmare… but onward…]

And we have two more big steps to go until we get to our RMAF Show system:

1. Putting the Jorma Prime cables on the system…

2. Replacing the Coltranes with the Coltrane Supremes.

Holy ‘How am I supposed to get any work done NOW?’ Batman!

October 11, 2006 by Michael

An (Almost Pure) Audio Note System

Listening room #3 with Audio Note AN/E SEC Silver Signature loudspeakers, Audio Note high-gain Kegon SET amplifiers, Audio Note M8 preamplifier, Audio Note 4.1x Balanced DAC, Audio Note CDT-Three transport, all on a Acoustic Dreams equipment rack.

First we put in the M8 preamplifier into the system with the Lamm ML1.1 amplifiers. But something was wrong, the timbre was messed up to these ears (Neli didn’t hear anything wrong). Well, I’ve never heard Lamm sound off key, so it was kind of a mystery… until we put the Audio Note Kegon amplifiers into the system in place of the Lamm.

Ahhhhhhh……..

For some reason the M8 and ML1.1 just did not work well together. But with the Kegons….

The one thing that Audio Note does better than anyone else seems to be the reproduction of Music – with a capital ‘M’. There is just something ‘right’ about the sound that is quite unique. More on this when we talk about the M10 preamplifier that arrived today – but I think it has to do with some very subtle cues from the music that other equipment seem to obscure a little – cues like very fine gradiations of harmonics,

This system, sorry or glad to say, not sure which – sounded WAY better than the Audio Note systems we have heard at shows – both Kondo and U.K. I guess we are just addicted to what vibration control and fat power cords will do for a system – which both of those camps eschew (though Kondo did use some kind of platforms at CES 2006 – they also used a loudspeaker that just…did … not… work).

Our Kegons are the high-gain Kegons. Our Kegons can drive a rock. The newer low-gain Kegons however have more finesse and micro-dynamics, especially on efficient speakers like the Audio Note speakers.

This system actually had too much bass – to keep these amps on here any longer we would have to move the speakers out from the wall, or reposition them in some fashion.

We also used Nordost cables in this system which caused our system to sound leaner in comparison to one cabled with the Audio Note cables, whcih are very rich, and emotional sounding cables.

So, we didn’t get to a 100% pure Audio Note system. But we got a glimpse of what it would be like. We got a glimpse of our future.

Listening room #3 – The listening couch.

in Audio Note / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Reviews / Showroom 4 0 comments

October 10, 2006 by Michael

Our Blog has been active for about a year now…

… and we have plans to expand its scope over the course of the next few weeks and months.

Yes, we know that we review something when we get it, saying we will say more when it is broken in, only to pull a Harry Pearson (sorry HP 🙂 ) and never end up getting back to saying anythnig about it. It is not that we don’t have anything to say, but there just really hasn’t been the context – something else is always going on.

Well, we have ideas on how to fix this – so we will have sections in which it makes perfect sense to ‘get back’ to components. Hopefully this will help get me in the head-space required – none of our products here suck, or we wouldn’t carry it (which I think makes us unique, but I digress) – but it still requires some effort to come up with the necessary delicacy to talk about plusses and minuses, and just exactly where something fits into the n-dimensional sonic character space that we call high-end audio reproduction.

Coming up:

* We got the new Sound Lab Ultimate 1 loudspeaker upgrade in today. We will write about the before and after….[we know from other reports on the web that the efficiency is better, but we have heard nada about how the sound has changed – I guess it isn’t important? A big WTF to all those people.]

* We are getting the Audio Note M10 preamplifier, which finally squeeeeeeeked through customs today, in tomorrow. That is going into the Marten Coltrane system, along with the Audio Note Kegons and the Emm Labs CDSD and DCC2 digital equipment on the HRS MXR rack, with Brinkmann’s Balance turntable (with Lamm Lp2 phono preamplifier) heading the show. Anyone else notice that this will take 7 – 8 shelves? And we have 4? Should we add this as a Fundamental Law that the number of shelves will always be exceeded by the number of components?

[The solution is to put the 3-box M10 on the floor on HRS M3 platforms with the Kegons (and Balance powersupply and heater). Can you just see is dancing a jig to get to the turntable through all the cables and powercords and platforms for 5 (five) f-i-v-e components? Too bad my daughter isn’t here… at least SHE took ballet lessons and knows a little about tiptoeing]

* Harmonic Resolution Systems is sending out a MXR equipment rack, in silver paint, to the show for our room (thanks guys!).

* The Marten Coltrane Supreme loudspeakers should be in Denver tomorrow to start their squeeeeeeeeeezing through customs.

* With the Audio Note Kegon amplifiers on the Marten Coltrane speakers, we will move the Lamm ML2.1 amplifiers, which were on the Coltranes (a match made in heaven, and I think most people who visit would agree) to be on the Audio Note AN/E SEC Silver Signature loudspeakers. I am not sure this has ever been tried before – never heard of it anyway – so this should be interesting.

The Acoustic Zen Adagio loudspeakers have been playing 24×7 since we got ’em. Seems like it has been awhile… so we will take a more serious listen – before the Sound Labs take back that system in listening room #2.

There is probably more…. Comcast has been down for 5 out of the last 7 days (they are usually down just a day or two a month). Kind of puts a crimp in our surfing habit – but we have a dial up connection through Earthlink that allows us to do this blog and write and answer emails – to do just about everything except post show reports…..

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