I have a livingroom system and a bedroom system and about a week ago I swapped my Dayens Ampino from the living room to the bedroom. The Decware Select w/ the Hazen mod is now in the living room w/ the Omega compact Hemps. Cabling stayed the same but I had to wait on an Ebay purchase of a new Niles switchbox for the Decware as it only has a single input. The Ampino does have two inputs but the bedroom has more sources than that so that switchbox needed to remain there.
The results are interesting to me at least and might be useful for newcomers.
Both sets of speakers I have are fairly efficient, the Omegas per Louis are 96 dB and the bedroom speakers, the Parker Audio 95 MKII's are rated @ 95 dB. Thus amplifier output is not a big concern. The Omegas have a whizzer that allows them to go out to 17,000 Hz and the Parkers have a minimal xover to the tweeter (a single Hovland capacitor.) and Dave rates them from 55-23,000 Hz. Actually designed for use with low impedance SETs like the Decware Zen, the sound with the Ampino has changed character to sound stronger in the lowermids and the bass is also stronger, the gain from roughly 2 tube watts to over 40 sand watts stiffens things noticeably. The Ampino's glorious treble transferred as well.
The Omegas driven by the Hazen modded Zen have also undergone a change in character. The Zen has added emphasis and resolution to the uppermids into the treble region. Because there is a powered sub in this system, the bass resolution is still fine. I had not tried the Zen w/ these speakers since I had done the Hazen mod to it, and the added presence this adds to the amp is if anything more noticeable in this system.
As I alluded to above, The speakers were left right where they were. It took forever to get them "right" and I didn't want to move any room treatments either, so for now, that's that.
I had gotten into the habit of listening only to my SqueezeBox Touches with the Bolder Cables analog mods and when the switchbox arrived, I used it as an excuse to check out my analog front ends. After renewing some setup parameters that had shifted over time, the extraordinary resolution and friendly sound of vinyl came flooding back. It was like a call from an old friend that I hadn't spoken to in a long time.
The older Dual TT I have upstairs was using the low level output on the Jolida phono section and was at first a bit dull sounding. Once it was properly plugged in and some dipswitches adjusted, it came to life as well. It kept me up late last night, rediscovering stuff I hadn't listened to for awhile.
Good stuff.
