Amp upgrade with Canton speakers: Feasibility study

[arj]

Once again i state that i believe in cables and have quite a few reputed cables but nowadays i find this cabling thing going over the top. Too much exotic materials/packaging is clouding the primary constants that can measure performance in the real world.
Rgds

true
additionally they are so system specific that what works for one may not for the other..

Asit, Just in case you are so inclined, there is a used Leben CS300 for sale in Singapore...Audio Note Singapore Pte Ltd
the seller is the dealer for Leben in Singpore and is pretty reputed and fair..i have dealt with them in the past.

 

[odyssey]

Hi Asit
Just a quick mail to say that you hit the nail on the head I will chime in if there is any incorrect information or if you are looking for any info, ofcourse I can also give you my personal opinion, but as many have said very articulately in this thread, its about your personal preference. I am also not that familiar with Arcam to offer much.

cheers
Sridhar

Hi everybody,

Apart from Shuvc whom I have seen once during a team-bhp Kolkata meet about a year and a half ago, I have not seen or known any of you. But the quality of the responses in their genuineness and sincerity has just been at a tremendous level, and I do not know how to thank you all enough for it.

At the end of the day, I do not think I can make much of a mistake with either the Stratos power amp or the Arcam int. amp. People who have recommended it have experience with tons of quality gear. The way I see it: we are now fine tuning the final answer.

In the middle of all this, Sridhar has kept himself quiet probably because one of the preferred and discussed solution is sold by ARN and he has some connection with ARN. He also has tremendous experience and has recommended (under my budget considerations) the Etesian + Stratos combo. And that's why I feel one cannot go too much wrong with that combo either.

So dinyaar, if you go to Bangalore next weekend for the Emaralds you are going to visit the ARN and can audition the Etesian+Stratos combo, and then can compare them with the Arcam A38. I know most probably the speakers will be different, however, still given your experience, you can probably still get some idea. Would you kindly do that for me?

Ya, Shuvc, I would really like to visit these places. Unfortunately, right now my son is in the middle of his CBSE 12 board exams. Once that is done, towards the end of this month, his competitive exams will start. Even though there will be less pressure after the board exams, I would not like to leave town until all these get over, given that my wife also works and is usually very busy.

Arj, I understand what you are saying. You said that before also. See everything has gone kind of against me. This is the year my son is going to graduate from high school, we have other commitments too and the dollar has lately become very unkind. On a better year, I would probably have gone with the RWA integrated with the battery power (how attractive), given the kind of reports it has.

 

[square_wave]

Once again i state that i believe in cables and have quite a few reputed cables but nowadays i find this cabling thing going over the top. Too much exotic materials/packaging is clouding the primary constants that can measure performance in the real world.
Rgds

Agree with this completely. You can diy cables at 1/5th the cost of some exotic cables and still beat them. I have been experimenting with some good cables recently. A cable worth mentioning is the super purity copper TDK cable with ARN systems. It beat some speaker cables worth more that 10k. I know someone in Bangalore who makes some lovely interconnects with sold engineering. A friend recently replaced some ICs worth 15k each with them.The list goes on.

 

[venkatcr]

I know someone in Bangalore who makes some lovely interconnects with sold engineering. A friend recently replaced some ICs worth 15k each with them.The list goes on.

Square_Wave, I am looking for a 8 cable RCA cable to connect my Oppo 983 to the Onkyo 875. This is to use the Oppo's decoding capabilities for TrueHD and and DTS HD. I was looking at Multi-channel Audio Cables from Blue Jeans Cable, but if I can get it in India, I will be happy. Can your friend help me?

Asit, my apologies for deviating a little from the topic of this thread.

Cheers

 

[square_wave]

Send you a pm venkat.

 

[Asit]

Asit, Just in case you are so inclined, there is a used Leben CS300 for sale in Singapore...Audio Note Singapore Pte Ltd
the seller is the dealer for Leben in Singpore and is pretty reputed and fair..i have dealt with them in the past.

Hi arj,
I checked out the site. It's very tempting. However, a few things perhaps go against my considering it :
1) I may be restricted in my speaker choice once my Cantons give up, because after all these are just 12 wpc (although they are good enough to drive my speakers and a few more as you have mentioned before).
2) If I buy such a product, it better be from within India and new, because of maintenance issues just in case I get unlucky.
What do you think?

Hi dinyaar,
Are you going to Bangalore?

 

[arj]

1) I may be restricted in my speaker choice once my Cantons give up, because after all these are just 12 wpc (although they are good enough to drive my speakers and a few more as you have mentioned before).
2) If I buy such a product, it better be from within India and new, because of maintenance issues just in case I get unlucky.
What do you think?

Point no 1. well it is easier to find a speaker for an Amp than the oher way around there are many sensitive speakers around...personally i would not think of that as a constraint.

point no 2. it is a tough call. I bought the Leben Direct from Japan since ARN had not taken up the dealership then.But again it is a tough call and the concern is very valid...because even if a product is 99.9% reliable, the guy who gets that 1 problem piece gets a bombed product

 

[Asit]

point no 2. it is a tough call. I bought the Leben Direct from Japan since ARN had not taken up the dealership then.But again it is a tough call and the concern is very valid...because even if a product is 99.9% reliable, the guy who gets that 1 problem piece gets a bombed product

In your case, you bought it new, and hence it's by definition more reliable and should have a more well-defined warranty coverage. For used products, the maintenance terms are often up to interpretation and then a long-distance communication makes one a bit unsure especially if the product is expensive.

 

[dinyaar]

Hi Asit,
I am not going to bglore myself but my friend who is keen to hear the Emerald is going this saturday along with two more of his buddies.
I will get them to hear a few options for u for sure. Asit these guys are in the 50s and into western classical and love the sound of tubes. Anything else seems to hurt their ears but lets get them to hear some of the gear u are interested in anyway.
Am sure shridhar is following this thread too so please list out what exactly u want them to hear. I will write it down for them and shridhar will ensure they hear it.
Shridhar it was nice speaking to you and i would love to come down myself and meet u and some other of my bangalorean Hifivision buddies sometime soon. My wife keeps coming there for work and i intend to accompany her on one of her work trips in JUNE/JULY for sure.
Rgds

 

[odyssey]

Hi Dinyaar
You still have an additional 2 days before you make that call I would still request you to see if you can make it, but I understand if you cant, especially at such short notice. Jimar (Dinyaar's friend) will anyway listen to the tube equipment that we have here. I can also ensure that he hears the Odyssey and the Operetta though as Dinyaar mentioned, they seem to have absolutely no interest in it.

cheers
Sridhar

 

[Asit]

Asit these guys are in the 50s and into western classical and love the sound of tubes. Anything else seems to hurt their ears but lets get them to hear some of the gear u are interested in anyway.
Am sure shridhar is following this thread too so please list out what exactly u want them to hear. I will write it down for them and shridhar will ensure they hear it.

Oh great! Well, I am considering Odyssey Stratos (and perhaps also its little brother Khartago) and Jaton Operetta 2140, both power amps with the passive pre Odyssey Etesian, among the stuff they carry at ARN.

If your friends carry some baritones and mezzo-sopranos in vocals, it would be ideal for me (along with some violins and pianos which they would carry, I am sure).

 

[dinyaar]

Hi Asit,
They will hear the gear u mentioned and will give me their feed back which i will post by sunday. Frankly apart from Jim i dont know the other two well enough nor can i gauge their tastes but lets see their opinion anyway. Of late they have been listening to some SS brutes with the Thiels and hence should be able to make a comparison. They carry tons of music Asit, some stuff that may make shridhar run for cover too
Shridhar do u carry the Thiels too? I thought the 3.7 was some speaker. With a variety of amplifiers, some good and some mediocre the speaker always impressed. Am sure there are tons of options at that price point but this speaker does a lot right. Wont work for Jim though as they are not biwirable/biampable and hence he cant use his valves on the tweets and cant really play around with them.
Rgds

 

[square_wave]

Just a word of caution :
The Theil-bryston sound is very different from Odyssey. They are voiced different.
The "shindo" which I think the gentlemen are visting for, is again oceans apart from "Bryston-Theil" sound.

 

[dinyaar]

Hi SW,
These guys are coming to hear/see the Emerald Physics CS2. Amplification for that (if they like it) will be audio note 18W tube monos on the tweeter and i dont know what on the mids/lows. Odyssey will surely suggest what works on these speakers with his experience.
The Thiel/Bryston combo was an audition by chance really as they went to hear the spendors but were blown away by this hardcore SS amp + clinical speakers. They were pretty amazed by the impact that combo had and were pretty perplexed as they were hearing things very differently presented on gear which was the other end of the spectrum. Back home in their own homes the same cds sounded 'different". I guess they were so amazed that they went there for 3 days in a row. I did not have a point to prove to them truly as we all like different things in life and i have had friends tell me to sell my PA amp for 10 years now and were shocked when i added another 4BSST2 last year. Anyway sadly that new amplifier was not meant to really work for me and is sold but the old amp will always remain at my old home.
SW i want your description of what the Emerald physics sounds like. I know this is a tough call. This is even more important as i personally am not going to be in bglore for the audition. Any of my bglore buddies(ROC,UNLEASH,SW,SOUNDSGREAT, RAMESH) including shridhar may please at their convenience try to describe the sound( only the sound as the concept i read on the net) If possible try and compare it to say a Jamo 909 (only other open baffle i have heard)
Thanks in advance.

 

[odyssey]

Hi Dinyaar
Since you asked about the EP, here are some critical differences between this open baffle and other open baffle speakers -

1. External crossover in the EP
2. Controlled directivity for 1 Khz and above (monopole) and dipole for the woofers (< 1 Khz). Side wall reflection is a non-issue for this speaker. You do not need any fancy room treatment for reflections. The off-axis response is quite low.
3. Equalization in the external crossover to compensate for the placement of the speaker. Yes, you actually tune the crossover unit depending on distance between speakers, distance from speakers to listener and distance from backwall to speakers. No other open baffle gives you this ability (not that I know of). Minimum distance from the back wall to the speaker is 3ft which is not much considering the speakers themselves are fairly thin.
4. Speakers themselves are fairly transparent, your upstream quality is easily noticeable. Small tweaks need to be done to improve the sound, but these tweaks are fairly cheap and simple to do.
5. Very efficient speakers overall, do not require high power amplification.

I am running the Shindo setup (15W) on the mid/tweet and an ATI (200W) on the woofer. I compensate for gain differences between the two amps by adjustment on the crossover (by ear) and can be tuned to ones preference (some may like a higher bass qtr

How do they sound?

None of the forum members have heard the EP setup right and specially for a nice tube amp like the Shindo. I now have it setup that way, Sq_wave and ROC, please come by and have a listen

Sound is open, as compression free as it gets (for the most part) and live sounding. The dynamics on this speaker are phenomenal. If you want a live show ambience, they are capable of this... rest I will leave it to ROC and SW.


One thing to keep in mind is that due to the large number of parameters that can be changed/adjusted in this speaker (starting from different amps for mid and woofer) to crossover settings, one can adjust the sound to his/her liking completely. Getting to that point can take a long time, but its well worth it.

cheers
Sridhar

 

[odyssey]

SW is very right, they are voiced different. I will also go on to add that it will very different for the majority of the folks to listen to two amps in an unfamiliar environment with unfamiliar speakers with unfamiliar electronics and tuning overall gain by ear to make an assessment about an amp. No, I am not discouraging anyone from doing it, but not much of a meaningful comparision can be made, can one get some idea?....perhaps and it depends on many other factors.
In the end of the day system synergy more than anything else can play a big part in how it overall sounds. Bryston and Theil are pretty much always paired together...there is a reason why...
so Asit, you will have to try it for yourself...

cheers

Just a word of caution :
The Theil-bryston sound is very different from Odyssey. They are voiced different.
The "shindo" which I think the gentlemen are visting for, is again oceans apart from "Bryston-Theil" sound.

 

[dinyaar]

Shridhar from what u describe this speaker seems to be designed with guys like JM in mind. Hope he likes it as music is very very high up in his priorities.
For me the search for a great one box solution continues. If nothing pleases the ears/mind i will live with the Arcams. No bid beefy power amps for now.
Thanks again.
Dinyaar

 

[Asit]

Hey dinyaar,

Where are your friends? Are they still hanging around in Bangalore? Did you hear from them about the audition?

Regards

 

[dinyaar]

Hi Asit/odyssey and all the regulars,
Asit they did go and audition in bangalore on Sat. Jim returned late the same night and left Sunday morning for Pune on work. He will return Tom and i will be meeting him then. He did speak to me yesterday on the phone though.

Let me first thank Shridhar for all the effort/trouble. It is highly appreciated. More than anything Jim stressed on Shridhar and his hospitality. He did like the speakers and said they are very very 'life like'. Was impressed with most aspects of musicality but as i thought his opinion on the amplifiers was cluttered. They played quite a few amps and i am not sure he is clear in his mind. He did mention that the Stratos power amplifier was very good and was good VFM. He also liked the Shindo and was all praises for all the ushers he heard and said the bookshelf was very musical too. He thought they were serious speakers to be considered and at good prices.

I will definately post once again after i meet him personally but i would also like shridhar to chime in.

Once again thank u Shridhar. BTW Jim mentioned a few chaps also came over to audition the speakers. Would that be anyone from our regular forum members of Bglore that i might know as Jim cant recollect any names.

Rgds

 

[Asit]

Hi dinyaar, thanks for the response. Thanks to your friends and Sridhar too.

Sridhar, as dinyaar mentions, who else were there? Were those people from the forum like ROC and SW? I am really missing all this big time. I urge somebody to write more about the auditions. Dinyaar is going to do it tomorrow, I suppose, after he hears from his friend.

Sridhar, at least you can tell us what were the different set-ups heard.