A day with Mani and his Tune Audio Animas horns

[spiritofmusic]

Thank you, Marc, for this very interesting and detailed report!

I agreed with you on the Animas we heard in Munich in 2017 with the (absolutely amazing looking) Trafomatic tube amps (fuzzy-sounding on rock). And here you liked the Animas on solid-state playing digital!

Mani -- Congratulations on a great room and an obviously great system!

PS: I wish somebody on this forum would buy Avatons!

Ron, you remember the day we travelled to hear the Liszts on Tron 211s? When you were skeptical they could sound better on SS? Well, in the basis of that demo, that was true. So I'm not so suprised Mani's Animas sounded so good on these First Watts.

On the basis of the poor horns/SETs demos I've been to, syrupy triodes commit bigger sins than SS.

However, I have a hunch Animas could sound great on grippy, solid triodes like my Nats.

 

[bonzo75]

The trafomatic Anima system was just great, best I have heard Anima anywhere. And I have heard them at Mani's, then with devialet and a goldmund reference TT, with Aries cerat Diana (compared with a modded jolida ion the same room), and with modwright many times.

But that trafomatic amp was a one off

 

[manisandher]

From the 'Visit to Marc C's' thread:

Alex, the issue is not so much that horns don't do prog or fusion, it's just that there is so much disparity btwn tracks, and critically to the stuff that horns lap up ie classical, jazz, vocals.

I've just done a quick analysis of the tracks we used yesterday, with the MusicScope analyzer. According to MusicScope, its LRA measurement is "a very good representation of the music track dynamics". Here are the LRA measurements for the tracks we used yesterday:



(Apart from the Rimsky-Korsakov track, which we listened to in its entirety, I stopped the analyzer at the 2 minute mark through the analysis of each track, which was pretty much how much of the track we listened to.)

By no means scientific, this at least gives a sense of what the Animas were being asked to reproduce, dynamics-wise. It's no wonder they sounded rather flat and compressed with some of the prog-rock stuff.

Mani.

 

[christoph]

Thanks again Marc.

Could I just give a quick shout out to Peter at Phasure? I use his software player (XXHighEnd; simply the best I've heard), his audio PC (Mach III; with linear PSU and Xeon CPU), his DAC (NOS1; non-oversampling and totally filterless, but capable of accepting a 24/768 input from the software player), his USB cable (Lush?2; the best I've heard), and 8m of his interconnects (Blaxius?2; the best I've heard). All of these, he's designed from scratch himself (including writing 60k lines of code for the software player)... and yet Phasure is just a hobby for him - he's the director of a successful ERM software company in Holland! Take any one of these out of the system and the sound suffers massively.

Mani.

Did Kedar once visited you with his Golden Gate DAC?
If not, that could be a very interesting affair

 

[christoph]

I was quite happy with this thread... until all this talk of Animas being good for 2nd and 3rd systems .

I guess not second or third system qualitiy wise but more on a chronological order

 

[christoph]

Marc, thanks for your comments on the Animas! Looking forward to hearing them myself in a few weeks - but it will be on Wavac tubes.

Nice, that sounds promising

 

[bonzo75]

Did Kedar once visited you with his Golden Gate DAC?
If not, that could be a very interesting affair

No, I visited him only to listen to the Anima.

Henk also has the phasure with his apogee grands, and I have visited phasure and Bert of BD who are neighbors and voice the phasure-BD horn system together.

It is difficult to compare this dac unless you also get another transport

 

[christoph]

Keith, really looking fwds to yr take. Have no idea if Wavacs a good choice. I didn't like Traformatic on Animas at Munich.

With Trafomagic was the best I have heard Animas so far.
The SS attempts were very poor/disappointing, but I haven't heard Mani's amps on Animas

 

[manisandher]

Did Kedar once visited you with his Golden Gate DAC?
If not, that could be a very interesting affair

Yeah, it probably would be an interesting affair. But DAC comparisons would be extremely difficult, due to the 8m interconnects I use between the DAC, sitting in the cellar, and the mono amps in the listening room. The Phasure is able to drive interconnects 10s of meters in length, with no loss of quality (which I'll go into when I post a thread about the Phasure digital front end).

And to be perfectly honest, I'm through with playing and messing around with gear now.

Mani.

 

[christoph]

No, I visited him only to listen to the Anima.

Henk also has the phasure with his apogee grands, and I have visited phasure and Bert of BD who are neighbors and voice the phasure-BD horn system together.

It is difficult to compare this dac unless you also get another transport

Why, the xxxhighend PC goes via USB into the Phasure DAC...

 

[bonzo75]

Why, the xxxhighend PC goes via USB into the Phasure DAC...

Yes but it is a special PC and software coded for it. Also these users do not have an external preamp

 

[spiritofmusic]

Yeah, it probably would be an interesting affair. But DAC comparisons would be extremely difficult, due to the 8m interconnects I use between the DAC, sitting in the cellar, and the mono amps in the listening room. The Phasure is able to drive interconnects 10s of meters in length, with no loss of quality (which I'll go into when I post a thread about the Phasure digital front end).

And to be perfectly honest, I'm through with playing and messing around with gear now.

Mani.

Mani, I fully get yr zen state w the Animas. They tick so many boxes for you, that there's nowhere else to go except something maybe prohibitively pricey. And even there, like the Swings and Orelinos before, they may not fully gel in yr listening room.

You've done the "heavy lifting" going from the Wilson Beneschs to the Animas by way of these other horns, maybe many digital and amps changes prior to the Phasures and First Watts, and of course your mains power experiments.

I'm approaching yr state of contentment, some cables changes and a cdp upgrade remaining before investigating some more room treatments and a server/dac solution to go.

 

[microstrip]

From the 'Visit to Marc C's' thread:


I've just done a quick analysis of the tracks we used yesterday, with the MusicScope analyzer. According to MusicScope, its LRA measurement is "a very good representation of the music track dynamics". Here are the LRA measurements for the tracks we used yesterday:

View attachment 51145

(Apart from the Rimsky-Korsakov track, which we listened to in its entirety, I stopped the analyzer at the 2 minute mark through the analysis of each track, which was pretty much how much of the track we listened to.)

By no means scientific, this at least gives a sense of what the Animas were being asked to reproduce, dynamics-wise. It's no wonder they sounded rather flat and compressed with some of the prog-rock stuff.

Mani.

Is LRA just the loudness range of Musicscope? As far as I know the loudness range is a poor indicator for music selection for evaluation as it does not discriminate the fine details. I am not an expert, but I was interested by such matters as people use such software to score HiRez recordings. Please see this page. https://www.avrev.com/home-theater-...ope-analysis-software-by-xivero-review-3.html Both tracks show the same LR, but according to the author one sounds good, the other very poor.

IMHO, as should be expected, your play list shows a strong musical preference that helps to understand the system and opinions - thanks for showing it!

 

[manisandher]

Is LRA just the loudness range of Musicscope? As far as I know the loudness range is a poor indicator for music selection for evaluation as it does not discriminate the fine details.!

Yep, you've got to be very careful. Dynamic range does not correlate perfectly with SQ. However, if some tracks sound flat and compressed compared to others, using the same system, there's a good chance they have a low DR, or in this case, LRA.

IMHO, as should be expected, your play list shows a strong musical preference that helps to understand the system and opinions - thanks for showing it!

It was actually Marc's idea to show the playlist. But I agree entirely.

Mani.

 

[manisandher]

I was intrigued how the MO track could have such a high LRA, and yet sound 'compressed' and 'congested' when in full swing. Well, here's why:



Take a look at the lower channel. That's serious limiting, when the music is in full swing. I can't imagine any speakers being able to make this sound dynamic. Maybe there was a reason these MO sessions were lost? Someone took a listen and decided to throw them away

Mani.

 

[asiufy]

Maybe that's why I like rock on horns. With a DR of 3, the high efficiency of the horns make these songs sound more dynamic than they truly are. Call it "artificial jump factor", if you will

 

[christoph]

Yeah, it probably would be an interesting affair. But DAC comparisons would be extremely difficult, due to the 8m interconnects I use between the DAC, sitting in the cellar, and the mono amps in the listening room. The Phasure is able to drive interconnects 10s of meters in length, with no loss of quality (which I'll go into when I post a thread about the Phasure digital front end).

And to be perfectly honest, I'm through with playing and messing around with gear now.

Mani.

Shite, I forgot you don't use a preamp. That makes it rather impossible to do a proper compare.

 

[christoph]

Yes but it is a special PC and software coded for it. Also these users do not have an external preamp

You are right. No preamp makes this endeaver moot...

 

[KeithR]

historically, horns with tubes and vinyl were great on rock n' roll going back to the Klipschorn. i've been puzzled recently by some of the responses on this subject.

but then again, real rock n' roll not prog

 

[spiritofmusic]

Christoph, Mani really isn't interested in compares. It was fascinating meeting an audiophile who's been there, done that etc. His comparing days are behind him.

He had the air of a guy very content w his sound.