by Michael

Jorma 'Prime', Soundlabs, and more Marten Coltrane Supremes


Kharma Mini Exquisite speakers on Audio Note Ongaku, driven by Meitner CDSA CD / SACD player, 100% cabled by Jorma Design Prime cables.

Very small, very exquisite system.

Upstairs we had the player across the room, so always connected it to the system using he 10m Valhalla interconnects. So this was the first time we heard the Kharma speakers, and later the Marten Coltrane speakers, in a 100% Jorma Prime system.

Yummy.

Sonically, it was just more of what we heard upstairs, taken to a higher level. Specifically, more PRESENCE. Voices were just THERE. Bass seemed even tighter as well, though that might be the smaller room.


The chairs are turned away so that people can hear the Soundlab system in this photo.

Later, we put the Martin ‘Coltrane’ speakers in this system. First time we heard the Ongaku on the Coltranes. Compared to the Kegons, the Ongaku seems to control different frequencies, … differently. It is sweeter than the Kegons – but not sweet in the sense of warm, but perhaps in the sense of more color, and a better sense of the ‘right’ note decay.

The Kharma and Marten are worlds apart in this kind of uber-system, and, to generalize, the Marten in a more neutral speaker, more even top to bottom, soundstage behind the speakers, and the Kharma is a more exuberant speaker, very high-resolution in the mids and upper mids, soundstage in front of the speakers, and probably can’t be beat on vocals.

Also, the Kharmas prefer larger rooms and the Coltranes smaller.

Again, just generalizing.


The soundlabs!

Finally, the SoundLabs get a chance to breathe…. Nice to have them back out from behind the Coltrane Supremes…


And speaking of the Supremes… here we see them all nicely polished up by Neli.


The aesthetic of these speakers, tall vertical, wooden, in this room with its tall vertical wooden beams – is striking now that we are getting used to the whole idea that they are FINALLY up here.

in Audio Note / Emm Labs / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Jorma Design / Kharma / Marten Design / Soundlab 0 comments
 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 Michael

Showroom 2 and 3 swapped their speakers…

We moved the Marten Coltrane Supreme speakers over to in front of the Soundlab U1 speakers and the Marten Coltrane loudspeakers over behind the Kharma Mini Exquisite speakers. The ‘Supremes’ are slowly making their way upstairs.


The Marten Coltrane Supreme speakers driven by Lamm ML2.1 amps and Lamm L2 preamp. Source is the Brinkmann Balance turntable with Lyra Titan cartridge and Audio Aero Prestige CD / SACD player / linestage.


The system sounds good – at the volumes we play it at (i.e. below 100 dB) the bass tower’s rear-firing ports did not seem affected by the proximity of the SoundLab speakers. The main towers, being sealed, also did not have too many adverse affects [we still need to move the bass towers farther back, away from the front of the main towers – which improves imaging significantly].

The thing about these speakers, which has been unexpected, is how ‘intimate sounding’ they are. Unlike most (all?) other speakers that produce a large soundstage, which have a somewhat dominating influence, distancing the musicans from the here and now in some way that is hard to explain right now – the listening experience here is more like listening to monitors. Like the musicians are playing music Just For Me.

Still don’t know what to make of this – or whether other people will appreciate this or not. But there is a lot more ‘affection’ for the music in this context – it is much more approachable.


On the other side of the room, behind the listening chairs, is the now sparsely settled showroom 2 with the Marten Coltranes waiting behind the Khamra Minis. This will be the configuration we will use, along with a pair of Audio Note speakers standing by, when the ‘Supremes’ make it all the way upstairs into the big showroom #1.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Marten Design / Showroom 2 / Showroom 3 0 comments