Natural Sound

[tima]

Great thoughts all the way through this thread Tim and Peter, great writing as well… is this physical mass that sense that the room is being energised by the performance… a trait I’ve always figured that Maggie’s (which from memory Tim you have lived with) can be especially exceptional at… it is for me (along with an innate coherence) one of their greatest attributes.

Wow Graham - you pulled up a deep memory from my past. My first visit to a hi-end dealer thanks to reading TAS. I had no idea what I was in for. He took me into a shoe-box shaped room, long and narrow where there was a pair of Magnepans, all the electronics were behind them in the shadows. I didn't know what I was looking at -- these panels were like no speaker I'd ever seen, me having Bose 901s at the time. He told me to sit in the single chair; he put on a record and told me to listen. As if by magic, there was the very same Ella Fitzgerald standing between the speakers singing to me with a strong physical presence. She was right there. It blew me away. Two days later he took my 901s in trade and I came home with a pair of Magneplanar MG-1s. What a long fun trip its been.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Wow Graham - you pulled up a deep memory from my past. My first visit to a hi-end dealer thanks to reading TAS. I had no idea what I was in for. He took me into a shoe-box shaped room, long and narrow where there was a pair of Magnepans, all the electronics were behind them in the shadows. I didn't know what I was looking at -- these panels were like no speaker I'd ever seen, me having Bose 901s at the time. He told me to sit in the single chair; he put on a record and told me to listen. As if by magic, there was the very same Ella Fitzgerald standing between the speakers singing to me with a strong physical presence. She was right there. It blew me away. Two days later he took my 901s in trade and I came home with a pair of Magneplanar MG-1s. What a long fun trip its been.

That is so good… my first Maggie exposure was a paradigm shift also Tim… and yes I bought them straight after… was 3.7s and Bill the Magnepan importer here played among many memorable pieces of music (Bill has fairly impeccable music taste) Puccini’s Madame Butterfly with Jose Carreras, Mirella Freni and Teresa Berganza and I was left largely breathless when the singers free from constraints were there on the stage in front of me (and I was then just completely sold). If only they could match horn dynamics and be driven by SET… sigh. But music fully energised in the room they do for sure.

 

[tima]

If only they could match horn dynamics and be driven by SET… sigh.

Heh. I used a 500W solid state amp with mine. Puccini wrote some great tunes.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Heh. I used a 500W solid state amp with mine. Puccini wrote some great tunes.

hmmm yes conspicuous consumption is the Maggie’s archilles heel lol … and Giacomo P does know a thing or two about music as well… there’s so much greatness out in the realm of music that I’ve never really understood the desert island lists thing…how do you ever get a best ever music list in any criteria down to 100’s of choices even? I digress… apologies Peter.

 

[tima]

I stay off of desert islands.

 

[christoph]

If only they could match horn dynamics and be driven by SET… sigh. But music fully energised in the room they do for sure.

I'm pretty confident, that the Lamm M1.x hybrids could make Maggies sing as good as it get's
Not Apogee good but certainly much better than with other amps

 

[the sound of Tao]

I'm pretty confident, that the Lamm M1.x hybrids could make Maggies sing as good as it get's
Not Apogee good but certainly much better than with other amps

Like soooo many things this too I may never find out Christoph… don’t even mention my outrageous unfulfilled needs for a AS2000 I am a humble scholar and will have to make do with a simple SET and just a few stray horns sure you know how it works

 

[tima]

Here are three more videos made today:

Scheherazade

Damn this sounds good. The sense of in hall presence is wonderful. Excellent balance.

edit: Guess I said that already. So happy to agree with myself ...

Extraordinary, a delight. The natural sound of an orchestra in a hall. And quite the contrast between Zubin and Fritz, if you know that one.

 

[tima]

The last fizzle of Sublimity ...

wonderful phrase !!
>snip<

 

[tima]

I love that 'colonial red' in the dining room.

 

[tima]

I do like a Pamela Anderson night once in a while, does that make me a bad audiophile ?

You're not bad, you're just drawn that way.

Darn - I did it again ...

You're not bad, you're just drawn that way.

 

[tima]

Understood, and they are free to disagree, but the whole point of me writing many many posts in my old thread over the last two years was an attempt to explain that I got rid of that stuff as my system moved towards a more natural sound and it did not have as much to do with the Magico speakers as you seem to conclude. In fact a couple friends who liked my Q3s did not like my system after I started making changes which is a clear indication to me that it was not the speakers.

Speaker sound is as much a product of its downstream history as it is itself.

 

[PeterA]

Speaker sound is as much a product of its downstream history as it is itself.

Tim, I think that depends on the speaker. Some are not nearly as chameleon-like as my former Magico Q3. Change orientation or the amps, and it was a completely different sound.

 

[PeterA]

My Ortofon SL-15 has been breaking in nicely. It now has 105 hours on it. It was NOS, so the suspension is sixty years old and needs some use. The sound is starting to really open up. I have also been revisiting some of my old rock albums and found a Black Sabbath reissue that includes some alternative takes. Here is one of War Pigs without the vocals. The drums and guitar have never sounded heavier with more raw energy than they do now in this room. I think it is a combination of the Ortofon, 3012R and AS2000. I have also started playing some of these recordings for non audiophile friends who are visiting. We are all a bunch of young boomers who grew up with Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. My favorites are the early albums.

 

[Folsom]

I can hear the energy of the punch through my phone.

 

[PeterA]

I can hear the energy of the punch through my phone.

Yes, raw drum energy and guitar distortion unleashed. Try to listen on a desk top computer or something. SETs and horns doing rock. Not sure my old system could have handled this volume. My Magico Minis tweeter broke playing a drum solo once.

 

[PeterA]

Here is another drum video, inspired by @bonzo75 : Moby Dick. It is not the greatest recording, but is an early pressing of this classic Rock album. More raw energy.

 

[chet atkins]

My Ortofon SL-15 has been breaking in nicely. It now has 105 hours on it. It was NOS, so the suspension is sixty years old and needs some use. The sound is starting to really open up. I have also been revisiting some of my old rock albums and found a Black Sabbath reissue that includes some alternative takes. Here is one of War Pigs without the vocals. The drums and guitar have never sounded heavier with more raw energy than they do now in this room. I think it is a combination of the Ortofon, 3012R and AS2000. I have also started playing some of these recordings for non audiophile friends who are visiting. We are all a bunch of young boomers who grew up with Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. My favorites are the early albums.

Van Halen-Van Halen-180 Gram Vinyl Record|Acoustic Sounds If you want to become the guy in the maxell poster.

 

[PeterA]

Van Halen-Van Halen-180 Gram Vinyl Record|Acoustic Sounds If you want to become the guy in the maxell poster.

Ozzie is the devil I prefer to run with. I never really got into those hair bands, but the maxell image is pretty awesome.

 

[bonzo75]

My Ortofon SL-15 has been breaking in nicely. It now has 105 hours on it. It was NOS, so the suspension is sixty years old and needs some use. The sound is starting to really open up. I have also been revisiting some of my old rock albums and found a Black Sabbath reissue that includes some alternative takes. Here is one of War Pigs without the vocals. The drums and guitar have never sounded heavier with more raw energy than they do now in this room. I think it is a combination of the Ortofon, 3012R and AS2000. I have also started playing some of these recordings for non audiophile friends who are visiting. We are all a bunch of young boomers who grew up with Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. My favorites are the early albums.

Wow those drums and the bass section is sounding excellent with the punch, and not over right punch but the right punch that hits the skin of the drum and decays. What reissue is this, never heard a good BS reissue, the other ones paled to the Vertigo first press.