Ron, from this opening post, it is clear to me that Bonzo is talking about sharing videos of audioqhattr's system based on sound impressions. This strongly implies that Bonzo thinks his videos represent the sound of the system as heard in the room, though he does not explicitly state this. He presents the videos, this time with few supportive comments, and lets the videos do the convincing. Members then commented on their impressions of the system based on what they hear from the videos. Nothing about other reasons for sharing the videos.
So, let us get to it. Bonzo, what do you like about these videos and how do they convey the character of the Dava cartridge? What are the strengths of the system for you, and the weaknesses, if any?
And I am most intrigued by your final comment about panels doing female vocals the best. This of course reminds me of Ron's often repeated reason for his love of panels, the girl with guitar pop genre, the seeming basis for his development of the audiophile goals and speakers for music genre theories. We could pull up videos of Ron's panels and the Cessaro's both doing female vocals for comparison, but that might just lead us right back to the discussion about representation. You and Ron seem completely at odds about that.
Tell us more about why you think the Cessaros, and perhaps horns with certain amps in general, portray female vocals better than do panels. Let's get this thread back on track (apologies for violating the TOS and trying to moderate) and perhaps demonstrate your point by posting some videos for comparison. Thank you.
Thanks. As someone who has heard 3 sets of Alsyvox, many of apogees, Analysis audio, Martin Logans, quads, soundlabs, Audio exklusiv , etc, my first exposure to horns was when I bought the Lampi. My Lampi distributor was Polish and he, Lukasz of Lampi, Lukasz of hORNS pl, were deep in the DIY scene before going commercial. So he owned his own made TAD 2001 with an Altec woofer that he ran with 2w 45 valve amps, and I always wondered how they did better on vocals than the Martin Logans and other stats I heard. I kept my interest in horns and then moved on to liking ribbons (in fact I used to goad Ron who then wanted to get Martin Logan Neolith to go listen to Analysis Audio and Henk's Apogee grands. He soon moved off electrostats to ribbons).
Fast forward now, I still feel beryllium horns which are more electrostats in terms of upper mids, highs, and see throughness, do vocals better than electrostats. Other horns can too as they team up with low watt valves which have great inflections in female vocals. If you head to the Vocals videos thread, difficult to beat the horns on there, even the small lower priced ones.
I therefore take objection to people saying panels or ribbon speakers do vocals best - yes, they do them damn well but not best. And if people do want to say it, they should post videos to indicate that. Ron has to be fair to him posted videos of his system playing vocals to showcase how ribbon is at female vocals, so he is free to listen to mine and compare, or if he does not believe in videos he can post videos of his system playing Carmen for others.
Which brings me to the next topic - whether its vocals or violin or piano, it is the passage of music you play and the recording that matters both in room and on video to judge a system. I doubt the Carmen type operas can be matched by music like fields of gold, for instance.
To your other points, yes I do think the videos are representative with the caveats I have added on the first page of this thread on the metallicness and then on the Brahms double. I think where Dava is instrumental is the dynamic range and jumps and the energy of the music come from the Dava, it can be much flatter on other music. There is an intensity to the performances that credits to Dava, Both Dava and the TADs excel at nuances/inflections of the music.
Dava has great highs, more than vdh strad, and on the female vocals I cannot detect any harshness which is Ron's key worry about carts with highs.
The system is also great that it plays various types of music thrown at it, differently, letting the performances show. Yes it has some differences to the videos of other systems posted but I personally would be happy to have any of these mixes.
