Audio Federation

May 31, 2006 by Michael

Next stop: Stereophile's Home Entertainment Show

It is in L.A. this year.

We will attend. We will listen. We will photograph. We will report.

The HE 2006 show report home page is already setup.

We will, as always, try to post a bunch of pictures and commentary daily during the show.

After the show it will take a few days, but we will try, as always, to continue to make the Audio Federation show reports bigger, better and more honest than any other show report on or off the net:

* The largest number of photos, in 3 different resolutions (500 x 500, 1000 x 800 and 1500 x 1000), each with an animated and/or manual slideshow option… and more.

* Like both room-by-room photo montages as well as long, floor-by-floor marathons.

* Like more commentary on what things actually sounded like – not through rose-colored ear muffs, but what the roomsreally sounded like.

* Like more about what it felt like to be at the show – the emotion, the smells (not usually so good), the crowds….

We want the show report to be the next best thing to being there yourself!

May 28, 2006 by Michael

Emm Labs Signature editions – interim update

It wil be two weeks this coming Monday since we started breaking in the Meitner pair – about 300 hours.

We figure about one month, or 600 hours, is about the minimum breakin period for these puppies.

After the first week, with all of the improvements over the previous, non-signature editions, the sound was still somewhat lean.

Now, at about two weeks, the sound is already at, oh, at about 90-95% of the full weight of our previous pair. One can still tell they are not completely broken in during really quick percussion transients in the upper midrange which still sound a little brittle.

Our impresions of the overall improvements of the CDSD Signature and DCC2 Signature editions are the same as that after the first few days:

An evolutionary improvement on just about all fronts with no negative side-effects (thank goodness, as sometimes ‘improvements’ are often a very mixed blesing – think ‘Adobe Photoshop’ – but not in this case) with primarily a darker background feeding more detail, especially in the bass, better midi- and micro-dymamics, and in general more clarity feeding the awesome ‘signature’ transparency which is the real revolutionary impact of Meitner ‘s consumer-targetted digital equipment, from our point of view.

We are playing CDs on the Emm Labs pair 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

At night, and when we have guests auditioning other equipment, we ‘play waves’:

This CD is mostly ‘white noise’, with some amount of bass when the waves crash on the beach and some diminutive bird calls in the background. Very easy on the ears and one can listen to it as background ‘music’ over and over and over and….

… without going… batty.

Unfortunately, our 3-week update on the breaking-in process will be a little late… because we plan on attending the Stereophile HE 2006 show!

in Emm Labs / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Reviews 3 comments

May 27, 2006 by Michael

System #3: Marten Coltrane, Lamm ML2.1, Jorma Prime, HRS MXR

The System: Marten Coltrane speakers, Lamm ML2.1 amplifiers, Jorma Prime speaker cable, HRS MXR equipment rack. Also Lamm L2 preamplifier, Audio Note CDT-Two and DAC 4.1x Balanced. Nordost and Shunyata cabling.

We mentioned how amazing this was sounding in our review of the Jorma ‘Prime’ interconnects.

What does does amazing mean?

Here is what amazing means:

The Coltrane speakers are so freakin revealing… The Jorma Prime cables are slightly more forward than their No. 1 and even the Valhalla, and this new effect was already taking hold. Now, with HRS’s MXR rack [we set it up yesterday, much more on this later :-)] in place of the Acoustic Dreams, the system sound is even more ‘present’.

We kind of take it for a given that the Coltrane speakers are a little laid back – given the highest quality, completely neutral components up front. But maybe not…

Witb these two new, admittedly over the top, additions to the system… the sound is much more of a engulfing, in the room type of experience.

Our good Canadian friend, Dave H., [you there Dave? Missed you in Monteal] used to talk about how he wanted the sound to come to him, to not have to focus on listening to what was being played, to have the sound ‘take control’ [my words] as it were.

The system was already subtley sinister in the way it would sneak up on a person and make one stop mid sentence, whether one wanted to or not, as the music Took Control.

But now, …

It is hard to move, much more hard to get up.

It is like ‘if I miss this next note, my life will have been worthless and empty’… ‘I must hear this next note!’

I think this house is going to be much more quiet now… because if we start playing any music, we aren’t going to get ANYTHING done.

[Though I am much more disclipined than Neli, and this system is on the same floor as her office. She, she is doomed. So if you can’t get her on the tele as easily as you could before today, you’ll know exactly why!]

And the new Audio Note CDT-Three transport just arrived. We are doomed! 🙂 🙂 🙂

in Audio Note / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / HRS / Jorma Design / Lamm / Marten Design / Nordost / Popular / Reviews / Showroom 3 / Sounding Off 3 comments

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