Sigma Acoustics MAAT Vector XAC

[leyenda]

It (rubber surround) does those things (lowering sensitivity and slowing down the cone) to improve bass frequency response. Drivers with rubber surrounds go lower than same diameter with cloth. I personally prefer cloth.

Yes that’s why they are only good for use as subs (those rubber) imo.

 

[Colekat]

I heard the MAAT Vector XAC in Munich High End 2019; a fantastic speaker and setup and for me one of the top most memorable experiences with a speaker for that entire show...

How are you my friend !

 

[sonrock]

Happy Friday, has anyone listened to the new super tweeters in the Maat Vector Xac speakers? Both Kuzma’s and Aldo’s new demo units are now using them next to the amt ribbon tweeters, and Aldo told me the improvement is excellent.

In addition, it seems the new custom made massive external crossovers are on track to improve the sound quality of the maat even further. I just don’t know when they become available and how Aldo will implement the upgrade at customers’ room, but it’s super exciting.

 

[Silvano]

Happy Friday, has anyone listened to the new super tweeters in the Maat Vector Xac speakers? Both Kuzma’s and Aldo’s new demo units are now using them next to the amt ribbon tweeters, and Aldo told me the improvement is excellent.

In addition, it seems the new custom made massive external crossovers are on track to improve the sound quality of the maat even further. I just don’t know when they become available and how Aldo will implement the upgrade at customers’ room, but it’s super exciting.

When Aldo makes a statement about his achievements normally it is not only matter of marketing but it's something to take seriously, tremendously seriously, at least according to my experience. Thus I suggest to stay tuned. So far I can say that Aldo knows his job.

 

[sonrock]

I’m in no rush actually, just curious of how these little tweaks with the super tweeter will bring better performance from the speakers .

I’m keen on trying them here but Aldo said it’s tricky to install them, so fingers crossed that he’ll come in person to make it happen as one tweeter is around 3-4kg needed to be bolted on the speaker cabinet with careful installation that will not damage the speaker itself.

The external crossovers are on another planet haha, truly interesting stuff and we’ll see how things go. Aldo is busy with shows throughout the year so I don’t blame him at all.

 

[Silvano]

I'm planning to get a pair of Orchestra 2.9, once you are punctured by such kind of listening experience it's almost impossible to get rid of it.
Started to check my wallet, someone want stop me?

 

[sonrock]

No and congratulations in advance for buying such a great pair of speakers . I’m sure you’ll be very happy with them with whatever choice of amps.

 

[sonrock]

My old friend has just left here after coming over for a listen this morning. I didn’t turn the system on before his arrival so it was ice cold when I first played the Rachmaninov piano concerto No.3, by Vladimir Askenazy with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Anfre Previn. The recording was remastered by Esoteric in DSD format and played back via SACD.

He’s been a great fan of Rachmaninov piano concertos for decades and travelling all over the places to listen to live performances from various artists. And amazingly, today in my room, after the final notes he burst into tears with 2 thumbs up saying this is fantastic.

It’s the second time I’ve seen him crying with the first one when I visited him on the Xmas day 2 years ago when he was in the hospital fighting cancer.

At the age of 71 and being single, I can only somehow feel how he’s living his life after knowing him for 15 years. Maybe after having a life changing event, he’s become more emotional especially when listen to his most favourite piece of music in such a convincing and engaging way.

I think everything comes together in a system but probably, for me, the speakers play the most decisive part in deciding how music sounds. Simply because when we change speakers then we’ll notice the differences immediately.

I was so excited when I first listened to the sigma acoustic orchestra 2.9 speakers at Munich but today the maat have done an even better job for an old audiophile who’s been with the hobby for 50 odd years. Happy Sunday everyone

 

[heihei]

Incredible story Son - thanks for sharing! Your system is a moving experience for sure!

 

[itay123]

My old friend has just left here after coming over for a listen this morning. I didn’t turn the system on before his arrival so it was ice cold when I first played the Rachmaninov piano concerto No.3, by Vladimir Askenazy with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Anfre Previn. The recording was remastered by Esoteric in DSD format and played back via SACD.

He’s been a great fan of Rachmaninov piano concertos for decades and travelling all over the places to listen to live performances from various artists. And amazingly, today in my room, after the final notes he burst into tears with 2 thumbs up saying this is fantastic.

It’s the second time I’ve seen him crying with the first one when I visited him on the Xmas day 2 years ago when he was in the hospital fighting cancer.

At the age of 71 and being single, I can only somehow feel how he’s living his life after knowing him for 15 years. Maybe after having a life changing event, he’s become more emotional especially when listen to his most favourite piece of music in such a convincing and engaging way.

I think everything comes together in a system but probably, for me, the speakers play the most decisive part in deciding how music sounds. Simply because when we change speakers then we’ll notice the differences immediately.

I was so excited when I first listened to the sigma acoustic orchestra 2.9 speakers at Munich but today the maat have done an even better job for an old audiophile who’s been with the hobby for 50 odd years. Happy Sunday everyone

View attachment 141116

A very exciting story my friend, your system is a living, breathing music experience.

 

[Silvano]

My old friend has just left here after coming over for a listen this morning. I didn’t turn the system on before his arrival so it was ice cold when I first played the Rachmaninov piano concerto No.3, by Vladimir Askenazy with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Anfre Previn. The recording was remastered by Esoteric in DSD format and played back via SACD.

He’s been a great fan of Rachmaninov piano concertos for decades and travelling all over the places to listen to live performances from various artists. And amazingly, today in my room, after the final notes he burst into tears with 2 thumbs up saying this is fantastic.

It’s the second time I’ve seen him crying with the first one when I visited him on the Xmas day 2 years ago when he was in the hospital fighting cancer.

At the age of 71 and being single, I can only somehow feel how he’s living his life after knowing him for 15 years. Maybe after having a life changing event, he’s become more emotional especially when listen to his most favourite piece of music in such a convincing and engaging way.

I think everything comes together in a system but probably, for me, the speakers play the most decisive part in deciding how music sounds. Simply because when we change speakers then we’ll notice the differences immediately.

I was so excited when I first listened to the sigma acoustic orchestra 2.9 speakers at Munich but today the maat have done an even better job for an old audiophile who’s been with the hobby for 50 odd years. Happy Sunday everyone

View attachment 141116

This story is really soaked of great passion for music and great human sensitivity. I would call your system therapeutic, for the soul and for the heart, in the best sense. What a pleasure when I hear someone enjoying his music, his system with friends, for the joy to share. This worth any cent's of the huge expenses and effort to put together a truly wonderful system like yours. Compliments!

Silvano

 

[sonrock]

It’s 2am and still I can’t sleep. Not sure because of the coffee that my wife made for me earlier today or the nonstop flow of thoughts keep going inside my head.

I just recognised that I might set the clock syncs of my vivaldi boxes wrongly, then I came downstairs to check. After making sure everything is correct then I turned my system on quickly and I was stunned by what I heard, even from cold ice.

I don’t know if this is due to the setup of my digital was corrected, or the tranquility of the night when everything is utterly quiet with not a single sound from the outside world affecting the music.

I tend to listen at the volume set between 16-22, but at 2am, 10 is perfectly fine for me on vocal, classical and instrumental pieces. I was amazed by how the music can be that beautiful, much better than I’ve ever heard before at different time during the day.

I don’t listen to the music after midnight due to work life commitments, but today is an exception then I was rewarded with the wonderful sound and beautiful performance from the same music that I’ve never encountered before.

“Home” is a masterpiece from Andrew York, especially when he was playing on his $500,000 guitar made in 19th century. It sounds just incredible!

As a long time player and collector, I know how guitars sound in real life but this is beyond imagination even at such a low volume level despite I listen to this song countless times.

Enjoy the music everyone

 

[treitz3]

Volume is underrated in so many ways. To me? It is one of the most important things. Ya' gotta nail the volume just right to be "into the music" and just not listening to it.

Please accept my sincerest apologies to everyone on this thread who wasted their time reading this off topic post.

Now, back to our normally scheduled programming....

Tom

 

[heihei]

Great post Son, and highlights what it is all about - a love of music first and foremost, and then the pursuit of reproducing that in a way which best engages us with the emotions involved

 

[mxk116]

...“Home” is a masterpiece from Andrew York, especially when he was playing on his $500,000 guitar made in 19th century. It sounds just incredible!
As a long time player and collector, I know how guitars sound in real life but this is beyond imagination even at such a low volume level despite I listen to this song countless times.

Enjoy the music everyone

Wonderful choice of music to illustrate your point. Sometimes it's the more subtle introspective music that reveals the emotional, intellectual and spiritual essence of the world in which we live.

 

[Dane33]

Happy Friday, has anyone listened to the new super tweeters in the Maat Vector Xac speakers? Both Kuzma’s and Aldo’s new demo units are now using them next to the amt ribbon tweeters, and Aldo told me the improvement is excellent.

In addition, it seems the new custom made massive external crossovers are on track to improve the sound quality of the maat even further. I just don’t know when they become available and how Aldo will implement the upgrade at customers’ room, but it’s super exciting.

Yes, I heard MAAT with supertweeters. They improved the overall impression. I had some very emotional experiences with both classical and also rock music in Kuzma, Zanden, Sigma system. Beyond the words at normal and also loud levels!

 

[sonrock]

Amazing. Aldo told me that in order to install these super tweeters, he must do it in person and calibrate/tuning the sound himself. So I don’t know when he’s coming to the UK to do that for me as I’m very much looking forward to that day.

On another note, I’ve just sent my speaker cables back to Aldo today, hopefully he’ll receive them next week and hand over to the cables master at White Gold to do the magic.

I’ll have bespoke cables made exactly to my system’s specs, so 4 spades going to the amp and 6 spades going to the speaker. I’m sure the results would be just incredible and can’t wait until I receive them here.

 

[strappoacustico]

View attachment 135603View attachment 135604As I’ve already reported, the 2 15” woofers on each speaker are just incredible with their job. When fellow audiophile friends came over here from across the UK, even at pretty extreme volume level, they were amazed by the way these woofers behave as we can’t notice any movements from the listening position unless going up close to the speakers.

The woofers are extremely fast and punchy, they can shake the whole room at the lowest octaves. I think one of the reasons for this is not simply how well these woofers are custom made by Aldo’s specifications, but also the way he designs the crossover with Duelunds components and frequency cuts.

Although the tweeter is much higher than the listening position but the vocal or instruments are never too high unless the original arrangements of the artists and stage are like that. The top woofer handles both the lower midrange and upper bass while the bottom one handle mid and low bass.

I know that users tend to match highly sensitive speakers like the Maat to tube amps, but actually they work extremely well with ss amps too.

I love "risk"...I listen to them with Lamm.

 

[sonrock]

Hi everyone, just a very quick update from me. After 2 months of patiently waiting, finally my totl White Gold cables have arrived the UK earlier today. Stefano, the UK distributor of Sigma Acoustic and White Gold cables will bring them here this evening and I believe I’ll be all set.

Ordered 3 extra xlr digital cables and retermination of my speaker cables to suit the amps and speakers themselves. I truly can’t wait to try them here .

I’ll report back how things go when these new cables settle in here.

A picture of the Estasi speaker cables when Stefano opened the box to check, great stuff.



Updated:

It’s 10pm here and Stefano has just left my house. The initial impression is simply beyond words. As Stefano is my guest today so he was in the sweet spot while I was off the axis.

Even sitting in such position and listening to the music from one speaker, I had goosebumps as soon as we turned the system back on after changing the cables and Stefano just giggled at me.

We used only 3 songs to compare the before-after here. 1 track went through the transport via SACD and DSD mode. 2 others were streamed via dcs app from Qobuz, 1 in redbook format and another is hi-res.

I could tell the body, weight and refinement of the sound have gone up to a new level, truly couldn’t believe my ears. It’s more effortless which leads to more relaxing, lower noise floor and even more powerful and dynamic.

Using the Pilium Atlas in biamps mode is not only increasing the weights and punch, but also letting the music flow more freely and engaging from the Maat speakers.

The White Gold digital cables enhance the micro and macro dynamics while lifting up the volume even higher. In overall, I see the sound is warmer and much smoother.

It’s really interesting when Stefano told me that my system (before swapping the cables) sound a lot better and not that harsh comparing to the last time he was here when I was still using esoteric transport and dac.

After changing the cables, he said the sound is even less harsh and more liquid compared to before, just amazing to see how they can add so much positive changes to the system. Now sitting in the sweet spot, I can also tell that the soundstage is even deeper and wider.

Aldo did send me a very nice wooden box from White Gold for the cables, I am totally over the moon now with the sound from my system and looking forward to rediscovering my favourite CDs/tracks.

 

[Silvano]

Finally the waiting is over, next Friday, 2nd May, is my birthday and my pair of Orchestra 2.9 will be at home! What I could wish more? Happy like a kid with his new spectacular toy! Can't wait!