Charles' Little 2-ch Hi-Fi System...

[Chops]

A late congratulations on the home purchase, or should I say stereo room purchase?

The room has got to be the most important factor in this hobby, that is unless you are into headphones.

I know that we both suffered in our old rooms, and advice was hard to take at times with an inability change much.

Happy listening.

Thank you. It's certainly been a somewhat difficult road here and there getting to the sound I want. And there's still room for improvement.

I can say for certain, the room was a major improvement. Getting a pair of Maggies in my system was another major improvement. I think with these two major improvements, my system can really start progressing as far as sound reproduction is concerned. I'm no longer chasing a sound anymore. I'm now just tweaking and fine tuning what I've got to get the most out of it as well as getting the imaging and sound staging just right.

 

[Chops]

Do not get discouraged by no responses, keep posting. I have been following this thread with interest since day one as I suppose others have been also. I have been posting about my system for awhile with little to no fanfare but my system costs less than a pait of some folks speaker cables. While my system is not 6 digits plus I have met and become friends with those that are and it is really a great crowd. Think of it this way if you are posting about your Corvette in a Bugatti forum you are not likley to get a lot of hits.

I have not really had any questions until now.
I am a Maggie guy and have been eyeballing the Emotiva amp to drive them. Do you feel it is a great match?

"Think of it this way if you are posting about your Corvette in a Bugatti forum you are not likely to get a lot of hits."

I guess that's true. Luckily the component selection and overall cost doesn't exactly reflect the actual performance I'm getting out of this hodge-podge system. Those people with the Bugatti's would be really surprised at how close this Corvette is keeping up. I hope it's at least a C7 Z06. LOL

As for the Emotiva amp, this thing surprises me all the time. It has ample power for the Maggies and always sounds at ease and effortless. It makes these 1.7i's produce a prodigious amount of bass in this room, extremely tight and detailed. In fact, I just realized today that I've had the gains all the way down on my subs for the past week and never noticed a lack of bass of any kind. That's quite impressive.

If you noticed, I have the older Gen 2 version of the XPA-2 amp, which still uses a traditional, massive toroidal transformer, hence why this amp weighs in at a hefty 75 lbs vs the new Gen 3 only weighing 35 lbs with its SMPS power supply.

A couple years back I did a direct side-by-side comparison of my amp against my brother's XPA-DR2 amp which is supposed to be a major upgrade from the standard XPA-2 amps. Well after doing critical listening tests between the two amps for 2+ months straight in my system, my older XPA-2 Gen 2 sounded better. It's fuller, smoother, more refined, sounds more powerful and dynamic with its 500 watts @ 4 ohms (even though the DR2 is 800 watts @ 4 ohms). The one thing that the DR2 did better for whatever reason was seem to have a quieter noise floor, which is odd because my system is completely dead silent with the XPA-2.

So in short, YES... I feel the Emotiva amp is a great match to the Maggies.

When I first go the Maggies I was planning on upgrading my Emotiva amp to either a Bryston or Sanders Magtech amp. Though as you can see, I'm in no hurry to do so, not to mention I'd have to save up for either for a while since "life" seems to have a habit of getting in the way.

It would be very interesting to do a side-by-side with one of those amps and the XPA-2 just to see what extra improvements those amps bring to the table. But for now, I'm not the least bit concerned about it. Right now, I have to two most important aspects of the system secured... The room and the speakers, and that's what's important.

 

[Chops]

On another note...

Turns out those Tara Labs The One CX speaker cables as well as that big The One AC power cable are fakes. Yup, I got cheap Chinese knock-offs. It's not a fault of mine or my dealer friend as he got suckered getting them as a trade-in, though he should have checked into them with Tera Labs and the S/N on the cables. Oh well, at least I didn't pay much for them. A year later he still refunded me the money and I get to keep these cables. Maybe I'll use them in my girlfriend's bedroom system. LOL I mean, they're not horrible. They're at least still better than cheap stock cables and zip cord.

So I swapped my old AudioQuest CV-8 cables back into the system because they are longer, more manageable, which in turn allows for more flexibility in speaker placement tweaks, and they are the REAL DEAL. I also swapped in one of my old Wireworld Aurora 6 power cables.

This all started because I decided to replace the stock Maggie steel jumpers on the tweeters for a pair of WBC (Worlds Best Cables) Canare jumpers that I purchased back when I had those Klipsch Heresy III's.

I have to say, with the Wireworld power cable installed, bass punch and attack seem to be sharper now through the Maggies. I'm sure some of that has to do with the AudioQuest cables as well. Possibly a little deeper/wider sound stage too. The jumpers cleaned up just a touch of "grit" that I kept hearing in certain recordings when played at higher than average volume levels.

All in all, a good tweak in the right direction!

Also... I've been talking to a recently retired certified electrician friend of mine (35+ years in the business) that I work with, and in the somewhat near future we plan on running at least one 20 amp dedicated line to the front of the room and a dedicated 15 amp line to the side of the room where most of the system resides. All I have to do is pay for the materials and he's agreed to do the work in exchange for a nice little cook-out afterwords. Can't go wrong there!

We also plan on doing overhead (recessed) lighting as well with zones. Same agreement as above!

Anywho, some pics for fun...

 

[kach22i]

On another note...
...........near future we plan on running at least one 20 amp dedicated line to the front of the room and a dedicated 15 amp line to the side of the room where most of the system resides.

Yea, that is on my "to do list" as well.

I have more plans than time and money though, guess it's good to have dreams.

 

[Chops]

Yea, that is on my "to do list" as well.

I have more plans than time and money though, guess it's good to have dreams.

Trust me, I know the feeling. Ha!

 

[EBITDAC]

Hi Chops, out of curiosity, what changed and caused you to switch back to the AQ CV-8s after finding out about the authenticity of the Tara cables when you had previously said:

“The second change was swapping out the AudioQuest CV-8 (72 volt DBS system) speaker cables with the Tara Labs The One CX cables. These Maggie 1.7i's take extremely well to cable changes because holy cow, what an improvement! A wider sound stage with greater space and air within the stage, more grunt and energy in the bass and a more natural, realistic body in the midrange. Treble also benefits some with a bit more snap and refinement.”

 

[Chops]

Hi Chops, out of curiosity, what changed and caused you to switch back to the AQ CV-8s after finding out about the authenticity of the Tara cables when you had previously said:

“The second change was swapping out the AudioQuest CV-8 (72 volt DBS system) speaker cables with the Tara Labs The One CX cables. These Maggie 1.7i's take extremely well to cable changes because holy cow, what an improvement! A wider sound stage with greater space and air within the stage, more grunt and energy in the bass and a more natural, realistic body in the midrange. Treble also benefits some with a bit more snap and refinement.”

Well, the biggest change was a slightly narrower sound stage and slightly less space and air going back to the AudioQuest CV-8 cables. However, that was resolved with better speaker placement, now available with the longer cables. The space and air was resolved with the addition of the WBC Canare jumpers for the tweeters, which also eliminated that tiniest bit of "grain" on a certain few recordings.

 

[EBITDAC]

Well, the biggest change was a slightly narrower sound stage and slightly less space and air going back to the AudioQuest CV-8 cables. However, that was resolved with better speaker placement, now available with the longer cables. The space and air was resolved with the addition of the WBC Canare jumpers for the tweeters, which also eliminated that tiniest bit of "grain" on a certain few recordings.

What speaker placement adjustments did you make to get the soundstage back?
From your pic you were already very wide and quite far into the room.

 

[Chops]

 

[Chops]

Just swapped out my beloved Schiit Bifrost 2 Multibit, Raspberry Pi4 and Roon for a brand new Cambridge Audio CXN V2 streamer/DAC. Yes, after well over a year of issues with Roon, I dumped them due to their truly horrible, non-existing customer service...

 

[Chops]

Just for the heck of it, I decided to connect a CAT6 up to the CXN V2 a few minutes ago. I have to admit, this is the first time ever that I have heard an immediate sonic improvement switching over from WiFi to cable.

A bit more solid, a bit more defined, a bit better layering. It even seems to be blacker in quiet passages and between tracks.

Color me impressed!

 

[Chops]

Just upgraded my Cambridge Audio CXN V2 to an Auralic Altair G1.

 

[Chops]

Picked up a new (to me) piece of kit this morning!... Pass Labs XP-20 with upgraded Revelation Audio Labs 'Passage' CryoSilver Dual Conduit Reference umbilical cord.

 

[Chops]

So I was just playing this album Saturday afternoon. It's not the best recording of this piece, but it's not bad either. (BTW, I played this piece back when I was in orchestra, 1st chair bass, and loved it).

Anyway, so I was playing this piece this past Saturday afternoon through my Quad Artera Pre preamp, and was really cranking it by the 4th track.

Track 4: Maestoso - Allegro

Bass from the pipe organ rumbling at full tutti, orchestra at full tilt, brass, winds and percussions blasting, and I was happy and the system was sounding pretty darn good! I had a big ol' smile on my chops!

Well... I just did it again today, literally moments ago, only this time with the Pass XP-20 in the chain. This is the first time I really opened up the taps on the XP-20, all the way up to "68" on the volume!

Let me tell you, it was a totally different experience! A whole lot more visceral, a lot more tactile, a sense of a much larger venue, more air and space and dimension between the instruments. There's more texture and inner detail throughout. Stage width and depth are greater.

And this is with the XP-20 being on for roughly 30 hours straight so far. Anther 20 to 30 hours might improve things a little more. Who knows. It was packed up for around 3 to 4 weeks, so it may have some "waking up" to do again.

Not to sidetrack because this post is about the improvements the Pass XP-20 brings to my system, but I have to say again how impressed I am with this old Emotiva XPA-2 Gen 2 amp of mine as well. This is three different times now that I have hear this amp scale up with the upgrades I have made upstream.

There's a lot better amps out there, I know. But for what it is and what it's capable of doing is pretty darn amazing. This is a good thing. This will allow me to be happy to hold onto this amp for a while longer and save up at my leisure for an amp or amps that will truly take the system up a few more notches.

More to come, I'm sure. :grin:

 

[Chops]

Here's some updated pics of my system. Within the past month, I have upgraded my Hisense 65" LED TV to a Samsung 75" QN85B Neo QLED TV, upgraded the Cambridge Audio CXN V2 to an Auralic Altair G1, and lastly just last weekend, upgraded the Quad Artera preamp to a Pass Labs XP-20.

All three are vast improvements over the units they replaced, most importantly the Auralic and Pass. Wow!

 

[Al M.]

Very nice! It also looks great.

 

[Chops]

Very nice! It also looks great.

Thank you very much sir!

 

[Chops]

One of the mains reasons I wanted to get the Pass XP-20... It has an honest "Tape Loop"! I just got the analog side of the system connected to it.

 

[tomsch63]

Great thread and the journey!

 

[Chops]

Great thread and the journey!

Thank you kindly, sir! It's certainly been an interesting journey.