sonosphere
Well-Known Member
Background >> http://www.hifivision.com/av-lounge...les-12-14-october-2017-conrad.html#post750102
Acoustics of a medium sized hotel room is not the best place for demo of a large Floor Standing speaker, however practical considerations lead to most demos across the world, being held in hotel rooms. In a trade-show context, a demo representative may not get opportunity to get the right kind of partnering equipment due to various reasons (just getting an "expensive" or hi-spec amp /DAC /Cable doesn't necessarily guarantee a good match for a speaker). What this means that trade-show demos may not show the best performance of an audio gear, however less than best exposure is better than no exposure for audio enthusiasts and companies showcasing their products.
In view of aforementioned limitations and considering that product-demos don't lend much time to review, I am posting my "initial impressions only"... feel free to take these impressions with a bag of salt
Associated gear:
Integrated amp cum DAC (Hegel 360), Transport (CPD: Denon DCD 1520 AE), Music File server (Elac Discovery), Speaker Cables (In-Akustik, model no. unknown).
Recordings played:
Walk on the wild side (Lou Reed), Rock n Roll (Lou Reed), Little Lies (Fleetwood Mac), Sirius (Synth instrumental - Alan Parsons Project), Fanfare for the common man (Acoustic Instrumental - Aron Copland), Symphonic Orchestra (Name unidentified)
Initial Impressions:
The Master and his creation - Andrew Jones and Adante
1. Tonality:
Personally I don't enjoy analytical type neutral sound. Though in Adante I found the neutrality likable. I attribute this likeability to fact that Adante is extremely good at capturing tonal textures, even the very subtle ones. The song "Little Lies" has a synth tone with almost flat texture that makes no impact on other speakers. Adante was able to show minor animations that were happening within that texture. Strong textures like distortion tones in "Sirius", were cakewalk for Adante, and showed more resolution.
I find that "analytical neutral" speakers have a way of robbing fun out of texture, however Adante made a wonderful presentation of strong and subtle textures. This is the first time I have felt a speaker make emotional connect without being on the warm side of neutral. Adante doesn't try to impress by being a bright / lively either. It walks the tightrope of being neutral admirably. This was demonstrated in all the recordings mentioned above, especially the symphony.
Exception: Some other tracks (provided by others, don't know the song-names) during the demo, had vocals sounding strained/piercing in upper mids. I had to request Andrews to turn down the volume a bit as it was feeling uncomfortable. I think this issue was attributed to these tracks only, as I didn't find this in any recordings (mentioned above). I believe due to unforgiving neutrality of Adante, badly recorded tracks can't be played loud on it (Early 70's recordings of even top rock stars, who had access to best studios, have this issue)
If wishes were horses... : Considering the hotel room's acoustics... If I could... I would keep swapping* the associated gear /cables till I got a bit more air around individual instruments, make it just a tad more open sounding and warmer in mids. Hey, what else did you expect from a guy hooked to Usher's signature?
*Professional reviewers often keep swapping partnering equipment till they get the best performance and then publish their review. I think this is the best way to go about a publishing a review. Why to handicap a speaker with mismatched equipment and then talk about its performance?
2. Dynamics (Attack, Sustain, Decay):
Dynamics were top notch, irrespective of sparse or dense orchestration, whisper-soft or loud volume... no rounding of attack-transients, nor mix up of individual textures... I don't need to elaborate further here. Special mention: Extremely fast, tight, tuneful bass observed in both Lou Reed recordings.
3. Sparse orchestration:
Sparse orchestrations like a rock quartet, allow for recording of very detailed textures of simple events like attack phase of snare drum hit, the subsequent decay of the subtle skin-noise texture and then the final decay of associated reverb. The reproduction of this decay phase is what separates regular hi-fi from the best. Adante excelled in this, aided in good measure due to its ability to reproduce subtle textures.
4.Dense orchestration:
As mentioned earlier... no rounding of attack-transients, nor mix up of individual textures. Dense orchestration tends to sound shrill in loud passages in less capable speakers, giving impression that tonality has become bright. As I expected, nothing of that sort happened with Adante. This was observed during a symphonic track wherein the dense passages had many things thrown in like steel drums, horns, trumpets, string section... the whole works. (I guess SPL was approx 100 dB at 1 mtr... at this loudness you can't make out what the guy next to you is talking) The tone of all instruments was reproduced remarkably, from low to loud volume levels, and the loudness never hurt the ears. (It helped that the room had wooden flooring with carpet, and heavy curtains... else treble reflections would have been overwhelming)
Thinking back again about the earlier mentioned limitations of a trade-show demo, I am surprised that Adante could perform so well. Kudos also to Hegel amp and DAC, that delivered quality music and brute power to Adante. Adante has been "informally" quoted @ Rs. 5.75 lac, whereas Hegel @ Rs. 4.9 lac.
Associated Gear: Elac Discovery on left, Hegel on right, Denon CDP above Hegel
With more time and availability of CD's, I would have explored how Adante would sound with the wealth of well recorded Indian music, like Hindustani Classical, Ghazals, Movie soundtracks and songs (R.D Burman, A.R Rahman, Illayraja...). Hopefully I will get that opportunity as well, as unexpectedly, as this one.
Regards,
Acoustics of a medium sized hotel room is not the best place for demo of a large Floor Standing speaker, however practical considerations lead to most demos across the world, being held in hotel rooms. In a trade-show context, a demo representative may not get opportunity to get the right kind of partnering equipment due to various reasons (just getting an "expensive" or hi-spec amp /DAC /Cable doesn't necessarily guarantee a good match for a speaker). What this means that trade-show demos may not show the best performance of an audio gear, however less than best exposure is better than no exposure for audio enthusiasts and companies showcasing their products.
In view of aforementioned limitations and considering that product-demos don't lend much time to review, I am posting my "initial impressions only"... feel free to take these impressions with a bag of salt
Associated gear:
Integrated amp cum DAC (Hegel 360), Transport (CPD: Denon DCD 1520 AE), Music File server (Elac Discovery), Speaker Cables (In-Akustik, model no. unknown).
Recordings played:
Walk on the wild side (Lou Reed), Rock n Roll (Lou Reed), Little Lies (Fleetwood Mac), Sirius (Synth instrumental - Alan Parsons Project), Fanfare for the common man (Acoustic Instrumental - Aron Copland), Symphonic Orchestra (Name unidentified)
Initial Impressions:
The Master and his creation - Andrew Jones and Adante
1. Tonality:
Personally I don't enjoy analytical type neutral sound. Though in Adante I found the neutrality likable. I attribute this likeability to fact that Adante is extremely good at capturing tonal textures, even the very subtle ones. The song "Little Lies" has a synth tone with almost flat texture that makes no impact on other speakers. Adante was able to show minor animations that were happening within that texture. Strong textures like distortion tones in "Sirius", were cakewalk for Adante, and showed more resolution.
I find that "analytical neutral" speakers have a way of robbing fun out of texture, however Adante made a wonderful presentation of strong and subtle textures. This is the first time I have felt a speaker make emotional connect without being on the warm side of neutral. Adante doesn't try to impress by being a bright / lively either. It walks the tightrope of being neutral admirably. This was demonstrated in all the recordings mentioned above, especially the symphony.
Exception: Some other tracks (provided by others, don't know the song-names) during the demo, had vocals sounding strained/piercing in upper mids. I had to request Andrews to turn down the volume a bit as it was feeling uncomfortable. I think this issue was attributed to these tracks only, as I didn't find this in any recordings (mentioned above). I believe due to unforgiving neutrality of Adante, badly recorded tracks can't be played loud on it (Early 70's recordings of even top rock stars, who had access to best studios, have this issue)
If wishes were horses... : Considering the hotel room's acoustics... If I could... I would keep swapping* the associated gear /cables till I got a bit more air around individual instruments, make it just a tad more open sounding and warmer in mids. Hey, what else did you expect from a guy hooked to Usher's signature?
*Professional reviewers often keep swapping partnering equipment till they get the best performance and then publish their review. I think this is the best way to go about a publishing a review. Why to handicap a speaker with mismatched equipment and then talk about its performance?
2. Dynamics (Attack, Sustain, Decay):
Dynamics were top notch, irrespective of sparse or dense orchestration, whisper-soft or loud volume... no rounding of attack-transients, nor mix up of individual textures... I don't need to elaborate further here. Special mention: Extremely fast, tight, tuneful bass observed in both Lou Reed recordings.
3. Sparse orchestration:
Sparse orchestrations like a rock quartet, allow for recording of very detailed textures of simple events like attack phase of snare drum hit, the subsequent decay of the subtle skin-noise texture and then the final decay of associated reverb. The reproduction of this decay phase is what separates regular hi-fi from the best. Adante excelled in this, aided in good measure due to its ability to reproduce subtle textures.
4.Dense orchestration:
As mentioned earlier... no rounding of attack-transients, nor mix up of individual textures. Dense orchestration tends to sound shrill in loud passages in less capable speakers, giving impression that tonality has become bright. As I expected, nothing of that sort happened with Adante. This was observed during a symphonic track wherein the dense passages had many things thrown in like steel drums, horns, trumpets, string section... the whole works. (I guess SPL was approx 100 dB at 1 mtr... at this loudness you can't make out what the guy next to you is talking) The tone of all instruments was reproduced remarkably, from low to loud volume levels, and the loudness never hurt the ears. (It helped that the room had wooden flooring with carpet, and heavy curtains... else treble reflections would have been overwhelming)
Thinking back again about the earlier mentioned limitations of a trade-show demo, I am surprised that Adante could perform so well. Kudos also to Hegel amp and DAC, that delivered quality music and brute power to Adante. Adante has been "informally" quoted @ Rs. 5.75 lac, whereas Hegel @ Rs. 4.9 lac.
Associated Gear: Elac Discovery on left, Hegel on right, Denon CDP above Hegel
With more time and availability of CD's, I would have explored how Adante would sound with the wealth of well recorded Indian music, like Hindustani Classical, Ghazals, Movie soundtracks and songs (R.D Burman, A.R Rahman, Illayraja...). Hopefully I will get that opportunity as well, as unexpectedly, as this one.
Regards,
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