maybe your woofers require more grip to move them. Did you try higher than souga like 20 to 50 watt higher drive SETs?
The best sound I have heard was found at Jacob Heilbrunn's house.
- Thread starter Lee
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maybe your woofers require more grip to move them. Did you try higher than souga like 20 to 50 watt higher drive SETs?
There’s also an active sub below 60Hz, so 7W should be enough. I think more power is better! And I don’t even listen to rock or rap on this system.
No, never tried anything else.
I think it’s more a function of how great the DartZeel components are, rather than a deficiency of the Kondo, if that makes sense.
Is it possible for you to share some details about the improvements you have observed with the Seismic bases under the Dartzeel pre and power amps? Many thanks
Yes, absolutely:
Keep in mind I also placed a Seismion under my field coil power supply, and there is a Taiko Daiza base between the component and the Seismion.
Background noise is diminished, notes sound "cleaner", with more delineation between what is quiet and what isn't. The reduced background noise allowed me to distinguish a trumpet player's breath between passages, which was never audible before.
Dynamic passages now have less audible distortion and "smearing" - it sounded great before, but this is now a new level. I used to think that my small room was the reason why loud music would 'overload the room'; that's now gone. It must have been due to vibration of the components.
Soundstage is wider and deeper, with more precise localization; but not overly-precise - it still sounds like live music.
Do you have some photos of the whole system and sources? I would love to see them if you are comfortable sharing. Looks like an interesting system.
If i may ask how did you ground using the Shunyata Altaira the DarTZeel preamp in detail, from a open RCA input or extra phono ground screw on pre? Thanks
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I didn't check for conductivity between an RCA (or XLR/BNC) input, only from the power supply. Hervé of DarTZeel says the power supply is disconnected from the preamp when it's running on battery power. And you can certainly hear a relay clicking when you shut off the 18NS, and the battery starts charging again.
However, I suspect that the ground is still connected to the AC ground. You'll note that the 18NS has a ground lift on/off jumper. We also know that @Mike Lavigne has experimented with different power cords on the preamp and noted that they do make a difference. The only way this could be is if the ground noise is affecting the signal. Therefore, I connected the Shunyata ground cable to the Altaira Signal Hub from a chassis screw on the preamp power supply, which is connected to ground (confirmed via a continuity/resistance check). I made a few ground connections at the same time, I never tested just this one, so I can't. say for sure if it made a difference. But the Altaira system made HUGE difference to overall sonic quality.
Shunyata has sent me a new donut-connector to better fit the smaller chassis screws. I will replace how I did it below with this new connector when it arrives.
You can clearly see that the chassis is grounded if you follow the black wire at the back of the chassis:
Thanks. It's been a long but mostly fun, road. Here's how it looked before the Seismion under the 18NS - I will update with a new photo soon.
Taiko Extreme is not visible and the DarTZeel 108 is moving to be closer to the speakers. I also will move out the Brinkmann Bardo soon...
there is grounding....and then there is 'GROUNDING'....where you ground the dart pre to a Tripoint Elite grounding box with a Thor ground cable. which is how i do it.
i wish that the dart pre did not sound better with an Absolute Fidelity power cord, compared to a generic one, but it does.
i think we are kidding ourselves to say we know exactly why things happen. especially in the case of a battery powered preamp. Herve does special things to get the performance from these batteries so we can't assume anything. and i know there are impedance issues related to how the battery is wired, things he learned from the Mk1 version of the battery system.....and trying to make it sound better.
you could send Herve an email asking about this. he might say that power cords don't matter. but he would add you just have to try it and listen.
Similar to my Altaira setup. One cable goes to a chassis screw on the Ref 160 Stereo amplifier.
Yes, I actually started a thread about the speakers, which you can find here:
Building a world-class Horn system for Small Rooms
After nearly 7 years, I think it's time to create a thread for my journey, in the hopes that it may inspire or help others with their own audiophile ambitions. My hypothesis was that world-class reproduction could be achieved in a small (~11'5" x 12'8" x 7'8) room. I think I have achieved it. I...
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Thanks. Very cool setup.Yes, I actually started a thread about the speakers, which you can find here:
Building a world-class Horn system for Small Rooms
After nearly 7 years, I think it's time to create a thread for my journey, in the hopes that it may inspire or help others with their own audiophile ambitions. My hypothesis was that world-class reproduction could be achieved in a small (~11'5" x 12'8" x 7'8) room. I think I have achieved it. I...
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