After moving to Bangalore, I've set up a small system in the TV room. The components and cables are all leftover from previous systems/experiments. The setup is as follows:
1. Transport: Sony 490 blu ray player. This is hooked up to the TV as well and was bought for movie use.
2. DAC: Behringer Ultramatch Pro SRC2496. Was originally bought for sample rate converter duties, was being used as a DAC for the pc prior to this.
3. Amplifier: Miniwatt with upgraded (Russian NOS) tubes. Bought around 3 years back. Used occasionally
4. Speakers: Cambridge Audio S30. Originally bought for desktop use. Have spent their entire life lying in the box. Mounted on Paradigm stands, leftover from my old Dynaudio speakers.
5. Cables: Belkin Synapse digital cable, Supra entry level ICs, generic speaker cables
None of the components cost more than 15k new. I think the most I spent was on the Behringer, which cost around 12.5k. The amp was around 10 including shipping, customs at the time. The speakers were ex demo and cost 6k.
I honestly wasnt expecting anything when I hooked up the system. It was mainly for movies. The quality of sound an offer has been a very pleasant surprise. A few observations.
1. Resolution is reasonably high, at a level with what I would expect from 50k speakers. Have a good sense of space and microdynamics are well captured.
2. Soundstage is nice and deep with good placement etc. The speakers disappear completely.
3. Speed is the main area where they system falls short. I suspect that the amp is a bit underpowered.
4. Frequency balance is fine. Deep bass is missing but thats to be expected given the compact speaker size. No extra bite in the treble or recessed midrange.
Overall, I am very impressed with how good these components sound together. I suspect a more powerful amp would help resolve the speed issue but this level of refinement may be missing.
The attached picture should give an idea of setup. Sorry for the poor pic quality - taken with a phone. Listening position is around 5' from the speakers.
1. Transport: Sony 490 blu ray player. This is hooked up to the TV as well and was bought for movie use.
2. DAC: Behringer Ultramatch Pro SRC2496. Was originally bought for sample rate converter duties, was being used as a DAC for the pc prior to this.
3. Amplifier: Miniwatt with upgraded (Russian NOS) tubes. Bought around 3 years back. Used occasionally
4. Speakers: Cambridge Audio S30. Originally bought for desktop use. Have spent their entire life lying in the box. Mounted on Paradigm stands, leftover from my old Dynaudio speakers.
5. Cables: Belkin Synapse digital cable, Supra entry level ICs, generic speaker cables
None of the components cost more than 15k new. I think the most I spent was on the Behringer, which cost around 12.5k. The amp was around 10 including shipping, customs at the time. The speakers were ex demo and cost 6k.
I honestly wasnt expecting anything when I hooked up the system. It was mainly for movies. The quality of sound an offer has been a very pleasant surprise. A few observations.
1. Resolution is reasonably high, at a level with what I would expect from 50k speakers. Have a good sense of space and microdynamics are well captured.
2. Soundstage is nice and deep with good placement etc. The speakers disappear completely.
3. Speed is the main area where they system falls short. I suspect that the amp is a bit underpowered.
4. Frequency balance is fine. Deep bass is missing but thats to be expected given the compact speaker size. No extra bite in the treble or recessed midrange.
Overall, I am very impressed with how good these components sound together. I suspect a more powerful amp would help resolve the speed issue but this level of refinement may be missing.
The attached picture should give an idea of setup. Sorry for the poor pic quality - taken with a phone. Listening position is around 5' from the speakers.
hyeah:
