Well, I recently purchased these wonderful amps/intergrated ...whatever, from someone downsizing in Northern NSW.
I had read they were very musical and great with Electrostatics, including my beloved Quad ESL, which AD wrote about.
The price was pretty wonderful also which helped.
Having installed the 4 monstrous chassis tied by huge power relay cables, which just about killed me lifting on my own in my basement music room
From the start with the Morel Fat ladies, there was a staggering improvement, in both timbral colour, and ability to different similar instruments, plus a gigantic sound stage with layering, and it was pretty good before them.
The amplifiers can be "tuned" changing a number of aspects of their behaviour electrically with clear sonic benefits
It has wonderful protection circuits, and tells you what is wrong, like stepping on a power cord, and one channel going down
OK, this is where things go a bit weird, but with wonderful results.
I had been using the Morel, the CLX sitting idyll in the room, as I have yet to find a amplifier that really worked with them, that I liked; or so I thought ( I can put the CLX on little trolleys to wheel them around)
I was mucking around with you tube classical videos through my Server, when I got a playback at 0DB, ie full blast!
After I hurriedly turned it off I noted a splash sound from time to time, I thought was a room resonance.
Eventually I tracked it down to the left channel midrange driver, I had burnt a voice coil.
I ordered another one from Madisons, but what to do while I waited for it to arrive.
Hey the CLX are there, and these ASR are supposed to be good on ESL.
So I plugged the CLX in
Right from the get go, there was a marked change to the character of the CLX, from other amplifiers.
There was no less transparency, but also increased resolution, and timbral colour, and wonderful bass, and the ASR would play the CLX very very loud without any strain.
I began to tweak the system, and each change seemed to render greater rewards.
The Morel driver arrived, and I fitted it, but that was two months ago and I still haven't listened to it
Recently, I really felt the CLX were singing, but I still felt there was a residual steeliness on occasions, maybe 5% of other amplifiers.
I went on holiday with my wife to Japan over Xmas and NY.
I often find when I am away, I come back and hear the system afresh and make improvements, or detect what had been annoying me
Besides the steely irksomeness, I still felt the ambience of the theatre a recording was made wasn't as good as it should be
My system has 5 auxillary subs, and a tree of supertweeters, they are supposed to add ambience. This runs through a DEQX, and uses a Chord DAC for DA duties.
While I was on holiday I was reading some back issues of HFN about the Aida, and XLF. What struck me, was they said the ambient rear tweeters should aim towards the centre of the soundstage.
For some reason, I thought they should point out, which is how I had them in my set up
Ok so the next day after returning I turned the big rig on, and all the subs, and the crossover.
I listened, an it sounded better than I remember before I went away.
Ok, so now for my experiment, I turned the tree, so that the two forward facing tweeters pointed towards the centre of the soundstage.
I listened.....WTF!
The steeliness was gone, and in its place great hall ambience, air around instruments, back of stage reverb, and improved detail retrieval, and much enhanced timbre.
It was as if the whole system just jelled.
I moved the tweeters a bit so they less crossed over, and it wasn't as good, so went back to exactly how I had them
I listened to my test set up DSD tracks, all sounded so much more real,
I changed to records, and the same changes were wrought
Recently I had felt my Bakoon two box phono sounded a little too lit up
My esoteric e03 seemed better balanced
Now when I played through the Esoteric it was excellent
I changed to the Monaco, with Triplanar, and bakoon running in current output mode
The Bakoon now had overtaken the esoteric. All brightness gone, and an earthy warm, and yet detailed picture replaced.
I put on all my test LPs and they all sounded spectacular.
I have a track of Messiah, which seems to always pic up flaws if anything is wrong.
When the first violins came in and then the choir, it was wonderful, and I jumped to my feet and started dancing around the room
When it stopped I realised I must have been playing this incredibly loud, with no apparent distortion or feedback
Best sound I have ever had in my system
I still haven't played the Morels lol
I had read they were very musical and great with Electrostatics, including my beloved Quad ESL, which AD wrote about.
The price was pretty wonderful also which helped.
Having installed the 4 monstrous chassis tied by huge power relay cables, which just about killed me lifting on my own in my basement music room
From the start with the Morel Fat ladies, there was a staggering improvement, in both timbral colour, and ability to different similar instruments, plus a gigantic sound stage with layering, and it was pretty good before them.
The amplifiers can be "tuned" changing a number of aspects of their behaviour electrically with clear sonic benefits
It has wonderful protection circuits, and tells you what is wrong, like stepping on a power cord, and one channel going down
OK, this is where things go a bit weird, but with wonderful results.
I had been using the Morel, the CLX sitting idyll in the room, as I have yet to find a amplifier that really worked with them, that I liked; or so I thought ( I can put the CLX on little trolleys to wheel them around)
I was mucking around with you tube classical videos through my Server, when I got a playback at 0DB, ie full blast!
After I hurriedly turned it off I noted a splash sound from time to time, I thought was a room resonance.
Eventually I tracked it down to the left channel midrange driver, I had burnt a voice coil.
I ordered another one from Madisons, but what to do while I waited for it to arrive.
Hey the CLX are there, and these ASR are supposed to be good on ESL.
So I plugged the CLX in
Right from the get go, there was a marked change to the character of the CLX, from other amplifiers.
There was no less transparency, but also increased resolution, and timbral colour, and wonderful bass, and the ASR would play the CLX very very loud without any strain.
I began to tweak the system, and each change seemed to render greater rewards.
The Morel driver arrived, and I fitted it, but that was two months ago and I still haven't listened to it
Recently, I really felt the CLX were singing, but I still felt there was a residual steeliness on occasions, maybe 5% of other amplifiers.
I went on holiday with my wife to Japan over Xmas and NY.
I often find when I am away, I come back and hear the system afresh and make improvements, or detect what had been annoying me
Besides the steely irksomeness, I still felt the ambience of the theatre a recording was made wasn't as good as it should be
My system has 5 auxillary subs, and a tree of supertweeters, they are supposed to add ambience. This runs through a DEQX, and uses a Chord DAC for DA duties.
While I was on holiday I was reading some back issues of HFN about the Aida, and XLF. What struck me, was they said the ambient rear tweeters should aim towards the centre of the soundstage.
For some reason, I thought they should point out, which is how I had them in my set up
Ok so the next day after returning I turned the big rig on, and all the subs, and the crossover.
I listened, an it sounded better than I remember before I went away.
Ok, so now for my experiment, I turned the tree, so that the two forward facing tweeters pointed towards the centre of the soundstage.
I listened.....WTF!
The steeliness was gone, and in its place great hall ambience, air around instruments, back of stage reverb, and improved detail retrieval, and much enhanced timbre.
It was as if the whole system just jelled.
I moved the tweeters a bit so they less crossed over, and it wasn't as good, so went back to exactly how I had them
I listened to my test set up DSD tracks, all sounded so much more real,
I changed to records, and the same changes were wrought
Recently I had felt my Bakoon two box phono sounded a little too lit up
My esoteric e03 seemed better balanced
Now when I played through the Esoteric it was excellent
I changed to the Monaco, with Triplanar, and bakoon running in current output mode
The Bakoon now had overtaken the esoteric. All brightness gone, and an earthy warm, and yet detailed picture replaced.
I put on all my test LPs and they all sounded spectacular.
I have a track of Messiah, which seems to always pic up flaws if anything is wrong.
When the first violins came in and then the choir, it was wonderful, and I jumped to my feet and started dancing around the room
When it stopped I realised I must have been playing this incredibly loud, with no apparent distortion or feedback
Best sound I have ever had in my system
I still haven't played the Morels lol
