congrats on your choice!
i owned that same dart 18NS + 108 + MM2(3) combo for 6 years and loved it. it will serve the essence of the music well.
enjoy.
Which Speakers for Dartzeel NHB-108B and NHB-18NS Combo?
- Thread starter manjy
- Start date
congrats on your choice!
i owned that same dart 18NS + 108 + MM2(3) combo for 6 years and loved it. it will serve the essence of the music well.
enjoy.
Thank you all for your suggestions and help.
Special thanks to @jtinn for making it possible and to you @Mike Lavigne , I've been following your posts on here and audiogon on your room build and equipment. Just completed building a dedicated 27x18x11 room and finished my PBD MPD-5, Dart Pre/Power with the MM2’s. The room acoustics are a work in progress.
Do the MM2’s benefit greatly from upgraded power cords?
Special thanks to @jtinn for making it possible and to you @Mike Lavigne , I've been following your posts on here and audiogon on your room build and equipment. Just completed building a dedicated 27x18x11 room and finished my PBD MPD-5, Dart Pre/Power with the MM2’s. The room acoustics are a work in progress.
Do the MM2’s benefit greatly from upgraded power cords?
yes, and even fuses too matter.
thank you for the kind words......and congrats on your new room. we will need to see pictures when you can do that.
Any recommendations on cables/fuses?
I'm traveling for a few days.. will post pics when I get back. Thanks.
it's been years since i changed the fuses and don't recall what i used. i know it mattered. i will try to find that info.
the power cables are the Absolute Fidelity from Genesis Loudspeakers. they are not UL approved and are delicate cables.
but i'd just see if you can try different power cables and find what you like. the do matter.
beautiful, elegant room; similar to mine with the front 1/3rd wood flooring, rear carpeting. and wide too, many rooms are not that wide. love the colors and textures. MM2 <-> 108 combo top notch.
very very nice job!
bravo!
Thank you all!
Your room is what inspired me! The dimensions are 27' x 18' x 11'
I just got them and this is the initial placement following the Golden Progression method mentioned in the manual. Still need to work on toe-in, etc.
At the moment, it's all digital. I have Roon running on a NUC going to an Allo USB Bridge and then to the Playback Designs MPD5 DAC via their USB-XIII box. Pre/Power are Dartzeel. DAC/pre/power are connected using 50ohm BNC.
I use balanced power and have 2 dedicated earths for the room. Except for the DAC/PRE which are near the rear wall, everything else is in an adjacent room.
Your room is what inspired me! The dimensions are 27' x 18' x 11'
I just got them and this is the initial placement following the Golden Progression method mentioned in the manual. Still need to work on toe-in, etc.
At the moment, it's all digital. I have Roon running on a NUC going to an Allo USB Bridge and then to the Playback Designs MPD5 DAC via their USB-XIII box. Pre/Power are Dartzeel. DAC/pre/power are connected using 50ohm BNC.
I use balanced power and have 2 dedicated earths for the room. Except for the DAC/PRE which are near the rear wall, everything else is in an adjacent room.
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IMHO it is a legend - no speaker I have known shared the same traits as a Rehdeko. A local distributor imported them in my country in the 90's and I owned the large RK175 and much later the smaller RK145 for a very short time with DartZeel ...
Rehdeko's were extremely colored - but with some types of music they could sound very real and natural. Single acoustic instruments could have life in our room, bass in jazz recordings was fascinating. But voices were colored, treble had little airiness and complex music could sound horrible. Some people who listened to them in Herve room hated them, particularly as they were very efficient and he listened very loud.
It was a bipolar speaker - some people were bewitched by its realism with some recordings and were able to forget all its problems, others simply hated it. No middle term. The type of equipment that obliges us to select recordings for them.
Today I regret having sold the RK 175s - but in the same way I regret having sold my ESL57. Most probably I would not spend a long time listening to them, but they were unique and a reference in the high-end.
See them at : https://sites.google.com/site/rehdeko/Home/game
BTW, I see them from time to time being advertised in Europe. But I have always resisted!
Denis Morecroft from DNM Audio - by far the best electronic on the planet I`ve ever heard, no matter if tube or solid state, in terms of resolution, speed, muiscal directness, simply out of this world - developped his famous PA3S Poweramp and 3C/D Preamp with Rehdèko speakers...like Hervé, he said, the Rehdékos are magical, her designer Weber Rhede, an amazing musician and engineer (Audax) was a magician. For me this guy was a complete genius.
Hervé "These speakers are almost like a Stradivari violin"...nothing to add from me.
No wonder, that many musicians like Lorin Maazel, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Buddy Guy....hear with these speakers.
The statement from "microstrip" : - " it is neccessary to select recordings for Rehdéko speakers, they are extremely coloured"... is absolute idiocy, simply ridicolous - the opposite is the case !
The musical realism is fascinating, any kind of music will be reproduced as live...voices (Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra...)drums (John Bonham and his bass drum with Led Zeppelin...) saxophones (Ben Webster, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley..) trumpets (Miles Davis, Lee Morgan...) cellos (hear a Janos Starker with this stuff...) classic with the great orchestras (Minneapolis Symphonic Orchestra under Dorati "Pictures at an Exhibition", the piano of Byron Janis with the same theme, "Tchaikovsky 1812 with the Cincinatti Symphonic Orchestra under Erich Kunzel with the incredible Cannons an Bells on the Telarc recording, "The Nutcracker" under Ansermet with the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande on the wonderful Decca version, the Beethoven Symphonies under Bruno Walter and so many others....and above all a Stratocaster with the Blues-Heroes (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Peter Green...) or Telecaster (Albert Collins...) the Gibson Flying V play by Albert King....oh, man, what a music, what vibes !
Hervé : "When you hear all these instruments live, it is very agressive - the Rehdékos are exactly the same." I think so too.
"It is not hifi sounding, but very musical" (Hervé)
The small RK 115 was an extremely example of the real thing...when you hear for exymple the great Buddy Guy with his incredible voice and the magical treatment of his Stratocaster live....then you go back to your DNM stuff, the rota turntable and just a RK 115...it is nothing less than stunning.
I hear the same music with friends and her Tidal system (La Assoluta, Tidal electronics) B&W 800 D, and even the wonderful old Sato Western Electric horns, the JBL like the 4355 and others , the vintage Technics SB 9000 horns, both modified from Kenrick Sound in Japan...they all not have a fraction of the live-music essence and directness, the smallest Rehdéko can deliver...with only a few (but high class) watts per channel....
The most outstanding point is the ability, that the combination DNM/Rehdéko reproduced also at very low volume levels a dynamic and highest resolution, that allows phantastic music expierences even late night or with boring neighbours....even the soundstage, the resolution and space around intruments and voices is just unbelievable !
But attention - these french speakers are not easy to drive in terms of quality - they extremely demanding a completely quiet and clean power supplying amplifier, like vicarious the DNM PA3 S !!!
Hervé and Denis: "They help a lot in the design, because if you have a tiny problem in the circuit, you can easily hear it immediateley, great design tools, but ultimately they sound like music..."
I agree, only the qualitiy of a few amps - first of all DNM - or Dartzeel/very good tubes, can drive the Rehdéko speakers.
It makes definetley no sense to drive these jewels with "normal" amps, they need no power, but pure class...otherwise you can only earn poor results !!!
Conclusion:
The Rehdékos are just the most communicative and entertaining speakers I`ve ever come across, but also be amongst the most irritating and exasperating.
The reason is simple that they are by far the fastest and most time-coherent speakers I`ve heard.
"Hifi"-speakers as a breed are utterly incompetent at reproducing a rim-shot, but the Rehdékos make you blink like the real thing.
Myself sometimes wondered whether I was listening a loudspeaker or a drum-kit masqqueradinmg as a loudspeaker.
For "Highend-Hifi" lovers who wants the sweet "pling pling" sound and never hear live music, no matter if Jazz, Bluesrock, Rock or Classic, will hate the Rehdéko...the live-music enthusiast will find in them the HOLY GRAIL of musical realism - The only one on the world market.
Not a single doubt.
Not long ago, a guy in the Threshold forum summed it for me up very well..."the Rehdekos had a neutrality which is excessiv and for many too much, the same with the efficiency...106 db in combination with the speed...overwhelmed the unsuspecting Highend listeners without concert experience, who believe what come out from their test-winner speakers is the musical truth. ."
Mainstream "Highend HifI" sounds smooth, nice and sweet, around the globe the industry creates a certain sound-design, but this acoustic fantasy microcosmos has nothing to do with the reality of live music, her sheer dynamics, aggressiveness, power and emotions - really nothing !!!
If I visit an concert - no matter what kind of music - and return to a typical "Highend Hifi"- system with all the test-winners, it makes me sleep in a few minutes...this is for sure....I heard enough in my life, because I love music, believe me....
Thank you Weber Rhede and RIP.
Notabene:
I owned the Rehdéko models RK 115, RK 125, RK 145 (all with reson stands) plus the DNM Amplifiction, DNM reson rota turntable (and others), DNM cables and power cords. Iso Bearings gear isolation (3 under each component). Beside the unmatched DNM integrated phono stage for the rota, a Whest and Trigon battery phono stages for the other turntables. Each turntable witch external Speed-Control-unit and power supply. Digital: Marantz SACD/CD combination. Lovan racks.
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No, it’s not. Not if you want to reach reference levels of 85dB + 20dB headroom. Assuming you are seated 10 feet away from the speakers, your amp would need 370W without distortion.
Surprisingly, most don’t understand the basics here. A symphony orchestra will actually exceed 105dB, even seated about 5 rows back (Jon Atkinson wrote about this, among many others).
Online calculator: http://www.mh-audio.nl/Calculators/REAP.html
Interesting...I did the 'simple man's arithmetic' on this for our big Wilsons (the X1/Grand SLAMMS) years ago and now more recently the XLFs
- 93.5db efficiency
- Add 3db for 2nd speaker and Subtract 7db for 6m listening distance
- At 1 watt, we are at 89db basic standard listening 'base volume'...much louder than we ever listen
- At a theoretical 60db peak to trough for major classical (pretty rare as I understand once its get thru the mastering process), and we are at 256 watts into the XLF's 4ohm load to hit 30db above the 89db base 1 watt volume...so 119db for instantaneous peaks.
- The Robert Kodas deliver 230 watts steady state, pure Class A into 4ohms. So we have standby power to deliver those instantaneous peaks
And we pretty much never listen anywhere near that loudly anyway, but it was nice to see we have more than enough headroom which relates to effortlessness of drive. I would be surprised if our base listening volume was much higher than 55db-70db standard with [rarely] 75db-90db instantaneous peaks. (Bear in mind, I have read somewhere that dropping a metal fork on a kitchen marble tile floor can hit an instantaneous peak of 120db for a nanosecond.)
These calculators can be very misleading - they assume anechoic conditions and assume sensitivity, not efficiency. So you need to consider the voltage, not the power. IMHO no arithmetic's can help us wit reasonable confidence. But there is an easy way to have reliable data on it.
Play a -40 dB 1kHz sinusoidal track at the volume positions corresponding to the maximum level you want to have usually and measure the output voltage at the speakers. The Hifi News test record has such track. Power needed is (Vmed x Vmed x 10000 ) /8. (amplifier power levels assume 8 ohm speakers). For example , if you measure .2V you need a 50W amplifier.
Do not carry this test with a 0 dB track!!!
I only once listened to the XLF's with measured 8 ohm peaks around 300W and the my house was almost falling down - yes, it was the Tchaikovsky 1812 and the Wilson Audio distributor was in the room! Never repeated such experience.
Don’t think anyone mentioned the obvious: what Hervé himself uses in his personal room:
Klipsch Klipschorn AK6.
He is a Klipsh dealer, apparently.
Many of you would probably look down on mating a ~$100K+ pre-amp and amp with a ~$20k speaker, but clearly Hervé thinks they are a great match!
Klipsch Klipschorn AK6.
He is a Klipsh dealer, apparently.
Many of you would probably look down on mating a ~$100K+ pre-amp and amp with a ~$20k speaker, but clearly Hervé thinks they are a great match!
Fantastic with vintage Tannoy Monitor Gold 15s in Canterbury style cabinets.The best amps I have used.Usually those speakers need a medium output impedance amp like a push pull valve amp but the NHB108 seems to be electrically perfect for them.Nearly all other SS amps over damp them and SETs under damp them.
here's the thing with darTZeel. yes, not cheap......but these are forever products. the 108 amp since 2003, the 18NS pre since 2005. and honestly since that time these are my favorite sounding front end electronics. sure, there are upgrades since then, but you are not shuffling through gear looking for synergy. you know it gets out of the way of the music.
especially for the tube lover wanting the benefits of solid state. unbeatable. so actually good value.
Absolutely agree. I still have my Kondo Japan pre and power amps. Beautifully made and they sound great -- but the DarTZeel is better sounding in every way. Every way.
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