In all fairness, I'm mostly familiar with the Q1 and Q5. I've never seen or heard the Q7. I'm sure you can reach great results with all of them if you have the time, space, funds and knowledge. But again, they're much harder to get right imo.
The Dynaudio Arbiters are here
- Thread starter Roysen
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In all fairness, I'm mostly familiar with the Q1 and Q5. I've never seen or heard the Q7. I'm sure you can reach great results with all of them if you have the time, space, funds and knowledge. But again, they're much harder to get right imo.
Thanks...I was going to sit down with my local dealer but I ended up reconfiguring my system isolation this weekend and postponed it. (See Stillpoints & Wilson X1/Grand Slamms thread). I will sit down with him next week now that this is completed...and try to arrange to hear the Q7s.
I need a little help here. I have now received the Magico Q7 and have them safely rolled into the listening room. The setup is not optimized and the speakers are far from broken in but I have done some short listening sessions with the Wadia 971/931/922 CD-player, Lyra Connoisseur 3.0 preamplifier, Dynaudio Arbiter mono amps and the Magico Q7 speakers. A problem has occured. There is quite loud noise.
The Dynaudio Arbiter have two set of binding posts for speaker connection. One set has a damping factor of >1000 and the other a damping factor of >40. I initially had them connected to the high damping factor. I tried to switch to the low damping factor binding posts, but that did not solve the problem.
The Wadia combination has a setting for adjusting the output level. I adjusted the output level to the lowest level but that did not solve the problem either.
Since the Wadia has a digital volume control I disonnected the Lyra Connoisseur preamp from the signal chain and connected the Wadia directly to the Dynaudio Arbiter power amplifiers using the Wadia volume control. This solved the problem. No more noise.
The Magico Q7 has a sensitivity of 94db and when inquiring Jonathan Carr at Lyra Connoisseur about the gain of the preamplifier. His answer was: "Hi Roysen: The gain of the 3.0 line amplifier section is 35dB (56x) times, reduced by the setting of the input attenuator. The maximum output voltage is around 11V rms (+/- 15.5V peak-peak)."
Even when the Wadia is set at the lowest output level, I can't turn the volume control on the Lyra Connoisseur more than to 8 o'clock before it gets too loud.
I assume this is a gain problem. The noise doesn't sound like ground loop hum. It is hissing and sparkling. It is not a 50Hz noise (we operate on 230V/50Hz here).
Is there somehow I can fix this without modifying the components? The Lyra Connoisseur can not easily have the gain adjusted and neither does the Dynaudio Arbiter.
Is there somehow a possibility of inserting something between the preamplifier and the mono amps to reduce the gain from the preamp?
BTW, I am using balanced interconnects between the preamplifier and the mono amps. The Dynaudio Arbiter XLR inputs have pin 3 as hot.
Thanks for any help,
Roy
The Dynaudio Arbiter have two set of binding posts for speaker connection. One set has a damping factor of >1000 and the other a damping factor of >40. I initially had them connected to the high damping factor. I tried to switch to the low damping factor binding posts, but that did not solve the problem.
The Wadia combination has a setting for adjusting the output level. I adjusted the output level to the lowest level but that did not solve the problem either.
Since the Wadia has a digital volume control I disonnected the Lyra Connoisseur preamp from the signal chain and connected the Wadia directly to the Dynaudio Arbiter power amplifiers using the Wadia volume control. This solved the problem. No more noise.
The Magico Q7 has a sensitivity of 94db and when inquiring Jonathan Carr at Lyra Connoisseur about the gain of the preamplifier. His answer was: "Hi Roysen: The gain of the 3.0 line amplifier section is 35dB (56x) times, reduced by the setting of the input attenuator. The maximum output voltage is around 11V rms (+/- 15.5V peak-peak)."
Even when the Wadia is set at the lowest output level, I can't turn the volume control on the Lyra Connoisseur more than to 8 o'clock before it gets too loud.
I assume this is a gain problem. The noise doesn't sound like ground loop hum. It is hissing and sparkling. It is not a 50Hz noise (we operate on 230V/50Hz here).
Is there somehow I can fix this without modifying the components? The Lyra Connoisseur can not easily have the gain adjusted and neither does the Dynaudio Arbiter.
Is there somehow a possibility of inserting something between the preamplifier and the mono amps to reduce the gain from the preamp?
BTW, I am using balanced interconnects between the preamplifier and the mono amps. The Dynaudio Arbiter XLR inputs have pin 3 as hot.
Thanks for any help,
Roy
Are you talking about the power amplifiers now? I can't find anything in the manual about this. If you know something more, please let me know.
Thanks,
Roy
This is from the amps technical specs sheet: Input Sensitivity (For Rated Output) 2.25V or 6.75V
There are two possibilities of using RCA connectors. 1) Non inverting (normal) input 2) Inverting input, will shift the phase 180°.
Also the newer Horch Power Stage amps are using this - at the RCA inverting input sensitivity is 1V.
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Hi Roysen,
I've got similar gain problem when using FMA pre with Soulution amps (both the 710/700).
Gain way way too high, and non-adustable on both amps nor preamp. 8 - loud, and 9.30 - the max I'd do.
After some back and forth with Soulution, rather than modifying the innards, Cyrill H. custom made me a pair of "attenuator plugs" (ordered mine with -15dB attenuation, letting my FMA to operate within its recommended level which is 10-2 o'clock (peak performance) for 90% of my listenings. He guaranteed this will not do any harm to sound. Sure enough, none that I can detect and it sounds better than having to engaged the -20dB mute button on my FMA pre.
Anyway here is just but one solution, of course best is when there's a well engineered variable output that does no harm built onto amps itself like all FMA ones for better flexibility.
Rather than have you imagining it, I took a quick shot and attached pic here.
These Neutrik plugs to be inserted between ICs and amplifier's input.
Hope it helps. Regards.
tvc?
..When reading Roy's post I did at first also think of this solution, which I once had to apply with some impedance plugs; somehow it seemed blasphemous with the kind of gear we're speaking of here. I presume the usual impedance mismatching issues as you mention, had been listened to - or am I mistaken?
As a constructive suggestion, you can always put a Silver Rock TVC in between, the "best" form of attenuation i know of.
..When reading Roy's post I did at first also think of this solution, which I once had to apply with some impedance plugs; somehow it seemed blasphemous with the kind of gear we're speaking of here. I presume the usual impedance mismatching issues as you mention, had been listened to - or am I mistaken?
As a constructive suggestion, you can always put a Silver Rock TVC in between, the "best" form of attenuation i know of.
pictures?
A hasty picture with my iPhone. Please notice that the speakers are not properly set up yet. The casters on the speakers have not been replaced with their feet and I am currently missing racks in my system. The SMT installation is not complete.
One speaker....
....and the other.
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Beautiful! Congrats, Roysen. Really great to see you firmly back in the world of ultra-high end and enjoying!!! Are you still planning on a pair of Arrakis speakers as well?
A few more pictures. The light in my living room is not easy to handle with a camera. The color of the speakers change dramaticly depending on the lighting. So its not easy to capture on camera. Here are a few more pictures with a little better camera. One pic (the first) used with a flash and the others without.
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