by Michael

Finally, the Coltrane Supremes are upstairs

Took us long enough, huh?

Well, we had an excuse, with the huge horn speakers hogging all the space up until May.

Then Neli’s sorry excuse for a husband was under orders not to lift anything heavier than 25 – 35 lbs. for 6 weeks – which we determined actually did rule out 300 lb bass towers.

And then we had audition after audition – and everyone really loved the Audio Note Ongaku on the Kharma Mini Exquisites with the Jorma Prime cable. – so we were hesitant messing with perfecttion [but this system will be downstairs, so we’ll see how much the size of the room contributed to the sound – it IS a small system, after all]

We had some concern – and numerous, numerous, numerous to the point of ridiculousness – discussions about how to get the speakers up to the main room. How to wrap them, ho wmany layers, how dirty the blankets could be, using a hand-truck, going outside instead of up the stairs, I was about to die with all this talking – what is WRONG with me that I was the one who started the conversation half the time?

Here is the stairs we carried them up. Neli did great carrying the top of the speaker up, and we did take off the 40lb or so spiked feet – but otherwise we ‘just did it’, like Nike keeps telling us to do, though at least with the second bass tower, we wrapped the banister with towels to prevent any ‘accidents’ – which luckily we didn”t have (whew! and yippee!).


We put the EDGE Reference amps on the main towers (800 watts on top, and the built in 2000 watts on the bottom – these boys go LOUD – so far I haven’t turned it up above -32 on the Capitole CD player – which is already over 100dB). Well, we wanted to wake up the speakers and this should do it.

Positioning still sucks.

And now starts the long journey to finding the magical combo of components that will make these speakers sing the way we know they can. This currently ain’t it, not the least reason of which is that the Capitole player needs vibration control bad – there is some serious BASS going on and it is just sitting on the Black Diamond Racing cones, right there next to the speakers, poor thing.

in Edge / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Marten Design / Showroom 1 0 comments
 by Hifier

Current state of things

First off, daughter got successfully married to her first husband (hey, one can’t ignore statistics – or heredity :-), relatives have come and gone, and time to get back to work….

I’m writing this in Firefox, which has a built in spell checker, so if all goes well my posts will read a little more like English and less like Mikeish.

So… the ro0ms are pretty much the same as they have been…


We have the Kharma Mini Exquisites upstairs waiting to be tried with the Audio Note Ongaku, Driven by the Emm Labs CDSD/DCC2 (the CDSA is out on audition – for those that want transparency and musical truth, this is an amazing deal at $10K, the bar has been raised significantly).

The Mini’s are somewhat hard to drive, so we’ll see if the 25 watt Ongakus do it or not.


The dream system – Marten Coltranes driven by Audio Note Kegon amps and the Audio Note M10 preamp (with an Audio Note digital front end – CDT3 and DAC 4.1x Balanced). We’ve taken most of this system to Rocky Mountain Audio Fest shows – but not with the M10, which adds C-O-N-T-R-O-L. Kind of a Kegon++ type sound. A slightly rounder sound than the Lamm ML2/L2/Coltrane/HRS system/Jorma Prime – our other reference Coltrane system – we might take the former system to CES next year.


The equipment rack. Duh.


The Marten Supremes need to go upstairs – yes – at 300lbs for the bass units (includes the 50lb spikes on the bottom) Neli is pressuring Mike to get the to a gym…. but we might just hire some guys we know – who handled the Triolons several times and will be happy to see that these are REASONABLY-sized speakers for a change.


Finally, out smaller system room. The Audio Aero Prestige CD/SACD player into the Audio Note Otto integrated into Audio Note speakers. Very nice and immediate and uncompressed. Otto still breaking in though….


The closeup view…

in Audio Note / Emm Labs / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Showroom 1 / Showroom 2 / Showroom 3 / Showroom 4 0 comments
 by Michael

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.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Showroom 1 / Showroom 2 / Showroom 3 / Showroom 4 0 comments