[FDW]

I am writing this review for all of the new CS-2 owners . I received my pair of
Emerald Physics CS-2's may 27, 08 and they were good, but I knew they needed
time to break-in properly. For the first three months I counted the hours I played them. At 250 hours the sound of the music was starting to move away from the speaker and the bass got tighter, at the 500 hour mark the mids/highs started
showing off the extraordinary imaging and focusing that I knew the speaker were
capable of. After about 700 hours the transparency of the speakers while playing
music was just mind-blowing. I also watch movies using the  CS-2's and I love the
tight bass and the magical high/mid with movie soundtracks. Because of it's
transparency I can hear micro details in music and movies soundtracks more that ever before. I stopped counting after the 700 hour mark, because I believe that the
break-in was over, but boy was I wrong! The CS-2's just keep on amazing me with
there performance, they keep getting better in all the way that count, bass, mid-bass, treble, transparency, focus, and soundstage. Clayton Shaw has given the
world an audio gift with the Emerald Physics CS-2 speakers and that is no joke. I wonder how long will they continue to change?

[Paul_Bui]

Thanks for the impressions.

May I asked what amps you have been driving the CS2 with?

[consttraveler]

FDW:

My experience has nearly mirrored yours.

I have to travel for business for time periods varying from a week, to a month at a time.  Each time I get home I am greatly impressed with the improvement.

I have the TV, Tuner, etc, all running through my pre-amp, so that when I am not home, the Significant Other (SO) is logging time on the system.   

[cloudbaseracer]

FDW and Consttraveler,

I have the CS2's myself and LOVE them!  I do not know if I can comment on whether they have gotten better over time. They do seem to have improved as I am more impressed now than I was before.  I really do not want for anything in my setup.  I do have a question for you guys and hope you can help with your experiences and as well forgive me for diverting the thread a little.  I have asked on other threads but no help was given.

First a little system description. I did a lot of research on various components and speakers.  I continued to do this after I determined that I would purchase the Emerald Physics.  I wanted very clean pure sound that was very energy efficient.  I stumbled upon, of all things, a Panasonic receiver, the SA-XR700 that had tremendous reviews if it was ran in pure digital mode.  I am not interested in the analog side of things because this is not where the receivers excel.  I had my DCX modified with a 3x S/PDIF output so I could send a digital signal from my source (Rotel CD or Duet) into the Behringer and it would do all the DSP in digital and then send this digital signal out to the Panasonics.  The board just bypasses the internal analog conversion. Of course I have one Panasonic for the highs and one for the lows.  As I have said I love the sound.  I noticed both of you guys have mentioned movies and or TV through the CS2.  I have a Comcast DVR box that I want to send into the DCX but I do not know how to accomplish this.  When I send the digital out signal into the DCX it makes a weird popping noise. I got in touch with someone at Comcast and they said that the signal is not PCM.  I guess this is what it requires.  The Duet works fine into the DCX but I want to have the Comcast go into it as well as a Blu-Ray player that I will be buying in the next several months.  How do you guys have your system setup?  Do you have to physically switch between sources since the Behringer essentially just has the one input?  I have input A on the DCX set up to accept digital. 

Thanks for your consideration,

James

[consttraveler]

cloudbaseracer:

I have a pre-amp that collects all of the source components (TV, Tuner, CD, DVD, Phono) and allows me to choose which signal gets passed-on (through the balanced out) to the DSP.  It also provides controlable signal gain, so that I can set all of the sources to play at the same initial level (nothing worse than switching from the TV at 70db, to the CD at 110db   ).

This is what I think would be the simplest solution.

Dave

[kck]

cloudbaseracer, funny you should bring this up as I have almost the same problem! I think the Comcast boxes do not output PCM as you said; I also get some strange sound.

If you can input digital into your DCX then you can try what I have (partly successfully) done... convert the analog signal out of the DVR to digital using an ADC like the Behringer SRC2496, which I just happened to have on hand. I say partly because I have a pretty bad hum now although audio works. I am not much of a tv guy so have not been terribly motivated to fix or improve this.

I daresay this could also be accomplished with a receiver if it had an ADC function. Not sure if such a beast exists.

[cloudbaseracer]

cloudbaseracer:

I have a pre-amp that collects all of the source components (TV, Tuner, CD, DVD, Phono) and allows me to choose which signal gets passed-on (through the balanced out) to the DSP.  It also provides controlable signal gain, so that I can set all of the sources to play at the same initial level (nothing worse than switching from the TV at 70db, to the CD at 110db   ).

This is what I think would be the simplest solution.

Dave

Dave,

Thanks for the input.  I figured some were using a pre-amp configuration but at this time I am not interested in going that route.  I am wanting to keep the sound/signal as pure as possible.  It may be that this is the only option.  I assume you are running analog into the pre-amp?  As I stated I am looking to maintain the digital signal all the way and have even installed a bypass in the Behringer so that it does not convert the signal in any way when it does its processing. I get S/PDIF out.

James