Ron’s New System

[PeterA]

Yes, and he auditions on digital, which is why I asked him if his impressions were from the the three sources or only one - is that not a valid question?

Do you really think someone would go and listen to Ron’s system and listen only to digital? Yes it’s a valid question and Lloyd answered it and he listened to all three sources to form his evaluation. Al and Ian did the same, and if I ever go I will do the same. The fact that I listen only to vinyl at home does not matter. And the fact that Al and Lloyd listen to digital only at home does not matter.

 

[bonzo75]

Do you really think someone would go and listen to Ron’s system and listen only to digital? Yes it’s a valid question and Lloyd answered it and he listened to all three sources to form his evaluation. Al and Ian did the same, and if I ever go I will do the same. The fact that I listen only to vinyl at home does not matter. And the fact that Al and Lloyd listen to digital only at home does not matter.

And you don't think a person can have differing view of a system with different sources, which is what I had asked?

 

[PeterA]

And you don't think a person can have differing view of a system with different sources, which is what I had asked?

Bonzo, I think that depends.

if you’re asking about the system, you are in fact evaluating the sources as part of the system, and there will be differences, as Al pointed out. If you’re going to evaluate source components, I don’t really know how that is done without considering the context of the system in which those sources exist. The sources will sound different and the media is different. But you still get a general sense of whether or not the system makes music, is bright and lean, has good imaging, is dynamic etc. you can generally tell whether the system sounds natural or not, and the source can make a difference. Here, the digital guys preferred analog.

Lloyd, Al, and Ian gave their opinions about Ron’s system in general and then had some comments about the differences with the different sources. I think this is a pretty valid and typical approach.

I responded to you by saying it’s a valid question that you asked Lloyd. But frankly I don’t think anyone would go to Huron system and only listen to digital. So it is not a question I would have ever asked Lloyd. He answered it and he listened to all the sources, just as Al and Ian did.

 

[Al M.]

By the way, Ron told Al and Ian to bring CDs with them before their visit.

That's correct, Peter. If Ron hadn't asked for this, I probably would not have thought of it, and if I remember correctly, Ian and I had not discussed the issue prior to Ron's request. I knew from the last time that analog tape was the best source in his system, so I really wanted to hear it again. Yet I also looked forward to hearing the vinyl, which I hoped would be better than the Denon turntable and it was, to my great enjoyment. The level of relaxation of sound came much closer to tape this time.

Bringing CDs was useful to get a diagnostic grasp on some qualities of Ron's system, so his request was a good one. Yet as last time, analog tape was the highlight, and I was loving it.

 

[PeterA]

Bringing CDs was useful to get a diagnostic grasp on some qualities of Ron's system, so his request was a good one. Yet as last time, analog tape was the highlight, and I was loving it.

Yes, and you do not listen to analog tape at home yet you could evaluate the sound of the system. I suspect that is because your references live acoustic music, and more than comparing one format to another or one source to another, you are judging what you hear based on your live music reference. This is how I also approach it.

Others may have a different approach. And when asked specifically which format you prefer, you will have an answer and reasons why.

 

[Al M.]

Yes, and you do not listen to analog tape at home yet you could evaluate the sound of the system. I suspect that is because your references live acoustic music, and more than comparing one format to another or one source to another, you are judging what you hear based on your live music reference. This is how I also approach it.

Others may have a different approach. And when asked specifically which format you prefer, you will have an answer and reasons why.

Yes, I don't care what gives me the most realistic sound in a given system. In that sense I am format agnostic. When it comes to my own system I have a digital-only preference for many reasons, mostly practical ones, and I am very happy with my sound. Yet I am not a digital fundamentalist.

 

[Folsom]

I don't understand this concept of choosing where you are seated for a classical performance, with a stereo. The way it was recorded is not in your control. Each album will vary based on that.

 

[PeterA]

I don't understand this concept of choosing where you are seated for a classical performance, with a stereo. The way it was recorded is not in your control. Each album will vary based on that.

I agree and was surprised when someone reported that Ron‘s system has an upfront presentation. People do it like that and a system can be set up to give this on many different recordings. If the system is high-performing and transparent, the listening perspective will depend on how the recording was made and it will change accordingly. This quality is a big difference between my former and current system. Recordings now sound much more different from each other

 

[Ron Resnick]

Hey Ron,

Thank you and Tinka again for your gracious hospitality. Now, as promised, my thoughts on your system.

0. Overall
Overall, it is clear to me that you have set out with a goal of having it all. And with perhaps a personal focus on a combination of electrostatic like clarity/transparency with a midrange vocal beauty and then ultimately a combination of scale and slam to give you “everything”.

My entire takeaway can be summarized this: you have an ear, a room and a series of electronic masterpieces few will ever hear let alone own or have. I really learned something about speaker and system resolve and articulation and can see you have played to your panel’s strengths there. Really spectacular.

It is the obsessional set up and tweaking (not necessarily equipment gidget gadget tweak but placement, treatments, etc) where I think you equipment is so good I think you can continue to take your sound even further…potentially a lot further.

1. You
Your ear matters infinitely more than mine. I have heard your system once (a privilege)…but it’s your system. I believe your tastes are as above. I take that somewhat into consideration but also share my own personal bias because i admit mine were not always mine to start…I adopted tastes after hearing systems with other priorities.

2. Your Electronics
Exceptional. I have not one critically bad thing to say about the Pendragons and sense your sources are immaculate. The Pendragons have tremendous capabilities and do seem as perfect a fit for you as one could possibly imagine.

Your amps I sense do great justice to your ear’s search for sound you like…but when you have established your final tweaked set up…I sense you could well find additional amps to consider that go further down your road.

3. Your set up
Here is where I somehow came in and felt intuitively there was more your system is capable of. But it also based on personal taste.

I am a first row balcony guy. Definitely not orchestra first row.

Your system is orchestra first row…I felt close to the speakers and found that on hard left and right splits in (I think) the keyboard…the music instantaneously went left and right. Immersive to your left and right until hard left and right…but less so around you and deep in front of you.

Intuitively not knowing your room at all, I felt like I either wanted to sit further back or bring the panels closer together or angle in. I recall you did not like them toed in.

I also feel like the room being very empty has created that vacuum where it has led you to wall treatments. I have heard rooms with bookshelves and plants in them…and somehow think there is a more natural control over sound and space that a lived in space can give to a room where it does not need as much treatment. Or if you want to go treatment only, then it needs to be obsessively arranged a la Mike L.

On the amps, you have plenty of grip to deliver great sound but I have now heard a few super amps…and I have to say, what they do with super speakers like yours is nothing short of magic. There is something otherworldly about how great speakers react to uber amps, there is nuance and alacrity and effortless effortless like Horowitz-playing-piano effortlessness that you don’t appreciate can be possible…til it’s right there in front of you.

I think your Pendragons can do even more. More stillness, more music making with even less milli-movement shimmer during crescendos.

Purely instinct. I think your amps give you wonderful umami flavours. But there is something in those ribbons which I suspect will react beautifully to even more effortless control.

4. My tastes
I think that the fortissimo to pianissimo of your system is potentially one of its greatest potential strengths. But I think for some reason the amps may not be making the most of this.

And so during crescendos it is all loud whereas I think there are elements which are probably pianissimo when other elements are forte…but the amp cannot quite handle the complexity to deliver that. And so it’s all forte when the music is all forte. Or all pianissimo. A mix of microdynamic shading and macrodynamic shading.

On bass, I would still love to hear what your room can do sub 38hz…I know it can easily hit that. It’s about how much air moves below 25-28hz and is recreating the actual sense of the venue's original space in your room. Your system is already capable of so much…what can I say … it is a personal search of the unknown for me to discover the undiscovered country of subterranean phenomena. Not ordinary 35hz bass but the special elements and foundational elements that both live below 35hz down to 15hz or so. Your room is big enough to hold it and pressurize the air (not pressurize the room sound-wise) but literally shimmer the air around you.

5. My own ideas
You have one of the most beautifully resolving systems I have heard. Truly.

It deserves to breathe a bit more to be able to share a musical presentation that gives the listener the sense of venue and space to which he is being transported. That is potentially where if you like sitting further back it can help create greater sense of space and also allow the ear to discern space better than being all upfront

I think your magical Jadis amps are creating the vocal and midbeauty you love. I hope you find something that can do that and provide your speakers with even cleaner power with even greater control.

I would love to hear sub 28hz additions just because that’s me. ( I do think your AVAAs seem to calibrate in real-time…the bass when we first started playing was different later in the track and different when we replayed it 11 minutes later.).

In sum, it was a genuine privilege to hear such an august all-out assault system. Full resolution. Full range. Full power. And beauty in its music making.

I sense it is so good there is even more greatness yet to come!!

Dear Lloyd,

It was great to see you in person again! Thank you for visiting!

Thank you very much for your thoughts! I think you have a great deal of experience with top systems, and I very much value your impressions, insight and advice.

I understand your perspective on the uber amplifier idea. It would have been interesting to get your thoughts on the system driven by the VTLs versus the JA100s.

If I won the lottery I would get two Goebel Sovereign subwoofers. I think 18 inchers programmed for 25 Hz on down with a sharp slope (so they don't excite my room's 45 Hz room mode) would provide the spacial ambience you are looking for.

I definitely need to continue to experiment with speaker positioning. I just don't have the head of steam to do that at the moment.

Thank you, again, for your great thoughts and detailed report!

 

[morricab]

I don't understand this concept of choosing where you are seated for a classical performance, with a stereo. The way it was recorded is not in your control. Each album will vary based on that.

I have one reference recording where I know from the recording engineer exactly how it was made: what distance the single stereo ribbon microphone was from the stage and it’s height, how much EQ (very little) and how much compression (only a couple dB). I was lucky enough to hear a live performance of the same piece (Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet) sitting at about the same distance from the stage as the microphone in the recording. I realized then that this recording was probably the most accurate I own to possibly creating a live experience at home.

 

[Audiohertz2]

so you optimised your digital? What’s your source

you did all your auditions on digital?

Was hoping for your suggestion on how to optimize his setup ..?

 

[LL21]

I don't understand this concept of choosing where you are seated for a classical performance, with a stereo. The way it was recorded is not in your control. Each album will vary based on that.

Hi for my own part (in having probably been the one who kicked off this particular part of thread with my comment about being a front of balcony guy not front row orchestra guy):

I simply used that term as another way of saying I would have preferred not to be sitting in what I felt was within the 'near field' of the speakers..because it is too 'orchestra row 1' for me. By sitting outside the equilateral triangle of a speaker set up...it is much more like sitting in the balcony row 1 for me (of the system itself). And I find I enjoy how the system's music/sound interacts with the room and my ears more because I feel like I have more space in which to take it all in. Somehow, nearfield just seems too 'full on' for me. On hard left, hard right elements of a recording, when you sit further back, it also does not ping pong as much...whereas if one sits inside the nearfield, the sound does ping hard left and then hard right...just not a personal preference of mine.

Some people feel the same when they go to the movies...some love the front row. Me, I sit in center middle (or center aisle so I can get to the popcorn!)

Another example, I prefer to sit 'outside' the equilateral triangle space of our system at home.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

i want to sit where each recording is the most distinctive. where differences are most clear. where the most coherent musical presentation, maximum dynamic life, and maximum natural information is heard. you hear music, and not the speakers, and not the room. but that's just what i like. no absolutes.

my system is optimized for slightly near field listening. and superb top to bottom true full range balance. maximum holodeck effect. 115" tweeter to tweeter, 109" tweeter to ear. speakers 9.5' off the front wall, listening position almost dead center front to back in a 29' long room.

far field listening positions neuter differences to some degree. they are 'all' a bit relatively 'over there'. which makes recordings less distinctive in some ways, and brings in more of the speaker and room.

nothing wrong with any particular preference. it's a comfort zone thing. but some systems make it difficult to even try near field, too much reflective energy. so the reasons why far field is preferred can vary. another factor is your mind seeing large speakers too close up. it can take time to adjust to that and allow your ears to hear 'free' from your vision interfering. i observe it takes new visitors 45 minutes to 2 hours to get use to sitting close to my twin 7 foot tall towers. and some never get use to it.

but it is important to understand the cause and effect at work and be aware of choices. don't judge gear, systems, or recordings without listening position context.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Does Analog EQ belong in State of the Art Systems?

I have always had a purist high-end audio philosophy which makes equalizers anathema to me in a high-end audio system. I have always felt that the fewer discrete electrical components an audio signal passes through, and the fewer entire boxes of components an audio signal passes through, the...

www.whatsbestforum.com

 

[Ron Resnick]

What happens when two incompatible philosophies collide? When, philosophically speaking, an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

Philosophy 1: no EQ in an ultra high-end system!

Philosophy 2: mechanical problems have mechanical solutions

 

[Ron Resnick]

No one is more dogmatically and philosophically opposed to using an external EQ device than I am:

-- loss of transparency

-- additional components, connectors, wires

-- additional active amplification circuit

-- a governor on dynamics

-- totally cheating in the world of high-end audio.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I have some occasional tinnitus and hearing damage, very likely from loads of concerts my father took me to in the 1980s. I believe that the hearing damage has petrified into me being very sensitive to sound (voices and instruments) in the 4kHz to 6kHz region.

As you know I have struggled with what I perceive subjectively to be a slight edginess in the 4kHz to 6kHz region of my stereo system. Interestingly I hear this edginess more than anyone else hears it.

I spent this afternoon and evening playing with a Schitt Loki Max on the big stereo.

Here are the current settings:

120Hz +2dB

400Hz +2.4

6kHz -3.6dB

While the 4kHz to 6kHz edginess is totally gone, I also like the additional bit of warmth from raising the upper bass to lower midrange region.

I am hearing a slight diminution in transparency through the Loki Max. (On its own terms the Loki Max is a fantastic product at a very reasonable price!) I assume EveAnna Manley's Mid Frequency EQ device would be more transparent than the Loki Max.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I love the new tonal balance!

 

[tima]

I don't understand this concept of choosing where you are seated for a classical performance, with a stereo. The way it was recorded is not in your control. Each album will vary based on that.

I agree one has no control over how an acoustic performance was recorded -- or later mixed -- in a concert hall. And one ideally should perceive differences in performances accordingly. I've kinda come to the view that the number of microphones used and their placement plays a big role. Heavily mic'd recordings would seem to present a greater challenge to the mixing engineers. I tend to prefer the 'golden age' engineers -- Decca, Living Stereo, Mercury, Lyrita, etc. -- using relatively fewer mics. Then there is the question of what is their goal. Do they want to create a reproduced sound that is closest to what a listener hears from some particular area of available seating? Or do they want to highlight particular performers or sections at interesting points in the music. Or something else ...

I suspect a significant difference between hearing a performance live and hearing it reproduced through a stereo is the stereophony effect -- the two sources effect. I'll speculate that many have a goal of removing that effect for reproduction through seating and speaker placement.

 

[bonzo75]

No one is more dogmatically and philosophically opposed to using an external EQ device than I am:

-- loss of transparency

-- additional components, connectors, wires

-- additional active amplification circuit

-- a governor on dynamics

-- totally cheating in the world of ultra high-end audio.

This is true but it can sound better than 90 - 95% of systems which have issues, i.e. where due to room speaker mismatch, electronics mismatch, etc the system needs fixes. EQ allows you to easily fix it and make the whole thing relaxing like the problem has gone away. It also takes away tonal purity and some emotion but on amplified female vocals this will be less/possibly not make a difference, you might just notice change in balance that you have lost the hardness. But it is just a fix, and useful for all digital systems. But for an all out analog system, passive is required to excel.

Here are some videos of a well done horn system using Accuphase filter.