[Infidel]

Hi guys. I finally have my system to a point that it is up to the task of playing classical music. I was using Audio Nirvana AN15 Alinco drivers which much like Quad 57's have their niche, but I just couldn't listen to classical with them. It was a listening fatigue issue. Sooooo, I bought some Revel 228? speakers, bypassed all the caps for the mid and high frequencies, and they are now reasonably listenable, in fact, they are not Focals, but they actually sound pretty good. Anyway, it's Vivaldi's 4 seasons tonight. Thanks for all your recommendations. I'll be slowly checking them out in the months to come. I just happened to have Vivaldi, and alphabetically Anthony was the first selection in the few classical recordings I have, and I am pretty sure that he was recommended. It's a good thing that I don't have anything bright in my system, Vivaldi on a bright system would be like fingernails on a chalk board. As it is, it sounds pretty good! Thanks again.

[Tyson]

Nice man!  I've had similar experiences when I was moving up the hifi chain.  Classical music was the most demanding when it came to overall system tonality. 

Enjoy the ride!  Maybe update this thread as you find certain works and certain composers that you really like.

[rollo]

  So much great music to listen to. Classical full orchestral music demands a full range system with scale. Look for Fiesta.

charles

[Infidel]

Nice man!  I've had similar experiences when I was moving up the hifi chain.  Classical music was the most demanding when it came to overall system tonality. 

Enjoy the ride!  Maybe update this thread as you find certain works and certain composers that you really like.

Thanks, good full range drivers are hard to beat for much music, and even the Revels were marginal before adding ODAMs, to the mids, and Duelund JDMs for the tweeters. I also bypassed all the electrolytics with decent poly caps. It makes you wonder what is possible with air core coils and better resistors, but that's a bridge too far. I just don't enjoy doing mods these days. I am pretty content with the speakers as is. Though I do have a pair of Caladans on order...

Anyway, the idea  of course is to get the gear out of the way of the music. The orchestra has enough instruments already, I don't need to mess it up with colored gear.

I am going to have to investigate streaming services, I already have enough CDs consuming space.

Thanks again,

Lou

[Infidel]

  So much great music to listen to. Classical full orchestral music demands a full range system with scale. Look for Fiesta.

charles

Thanks, I will!

[FullRangeMan]

I was using Audio Nirvana AN15 Alinco drivers which much like Quad 57's have their niche, but I just couldn't listen to classical with them. It was a listening fatigue issue.

In my experience with FR drivers, they need a SET tube amp with zero NFB to sound good(mainly the Alnicos) as the magnet interacts with the amp OPTs, dont use UL tube amps also.

The listening fatigue also can come from the inadequate internal treatment of the box which did not attenuate the treble usually above 1kHz.

[Infidel]

Oops, Revel Performa3 F208 speakers. They reportedly had 100 hours use when I purchased them, I probably put a few more on before surgery. The new caps probably have 10 hours on them. Checked out a little Bach but have been pretty busy lately.

[Infidel]

In my experience with FR drivers, they need a SET tube amp with zero NFB to sound good(mainly the Alnicos) as the magnet interacts with the amp OPTs, dont use UL tube amps also.

The listening fatigue also can come from the inadequate internal treatment of the box which did not attenuate the treble usually above 1kHz.

The AN15 Alinco drivers didn't go above 15k Hz, so they just didn't image well, and were slightly lacking in lower frequencies. One things like pop music, 1940's - 2000+ they were pretty awesome. They were the first drivers that ever gave me that so and so was singing in my room sound. So yes, they were awesome and I used them longer than any other speakers I ever had. They were being driven by either a completely rebuilt, meaning no carbon resistors, Black Gates on the driver boards, Mills emitter resistors on the output, rebiasd so that it was class A biased at higher outputs, and had more total output. I did the drivers and emitter transistors, but it was cheaper to pay Jon Soderberg to replace the output transistors than it would have been to have bought enough transistors to get a matched set. Jon buys them in mass, and then separated them into matched batches. Besides, I was concerned about oscillations, and Jon is a Stasis guru. He did say that when done it was the best sounding Stasis amp he had ever heard. Then there was the ML 27.5, and a Parasound JC5 Halo, as well as a Valves4hifi kt88 amp. Not the magic of some amps, but all are pretty respectable. The only treble issues were when I was using a Schitt Yggdrasil. Kokomo is my go to for testing brightness, and on most music the Yggdrasil OG is pretty respectable, but on a few songs, it can be bright. The modified Lampizator, stock the Amber 4's ability is being masked, I suspect that they wanted to sell at a lower price point without making a DAC people can be truly content with driving them to eventually upgrade, but we know about opinions and speculations. Anyway, the digital section was identical to other more expensive models, so the analog masked its true potential. With the 2 DS2 preamps, I kept up with the upgrades to the early version, and with the final version, Don used ODAM coupling caps, but they fall short a hair in the treble region, so I bypassed them with CuTF V-Caps, and as configured it is a wildly transparent preamp.

[FullRangeMan]

The only treble issues were when I was using a Schitt Yggdrasil.

Was not this prob a bad recording?

[FullRangeMan]

Your AN-15Alnico are Classic or Super?
https://www.commonsenseaudio.com/an15alnicospecs.jpg

The current AN15 Ferrite $695/pair has no bass under 100Hz
seems it was made to match the AN active Sub $499/each.
https://www.commonsenseaudio.com/an15cfspecs.jpg

[FullRangeMan]

[Infidel]

I apologize for the extraordinary slow reply. They were the Alinco ANs. I now have Caladans and am out of the speaker market. The only catch is that they need about 300 hours before the crossover and woofers break in. They sound pretty bad, to me, until then. Sorry I didn't reply sooner.
 

[FullRangeMan]

I apologize for the extraordinary slow reply. They were the Alinco ANs. I now have Caladans and am out of the speaker market. The only catch is that they need about 300 hours before the crossover and woofers break in. They sound pretty bad, to me, until then. Sorry I didn't reply sooner.

Nice, in the post 1 you said you had AN 15Alnico.
There is two AN15Alnico, Super or Classic.

[Infidel]

Nice man!  I've had similar experiences when I was moving up the hifi chain.  Classical music was the most demanding when it came to overall system tonality. 

Enjoy the ride!  Maybe update this thread as you find certain works and certain composers that you really like.

Hi Tyson, I am currently stuck on Handel's Messiah.

It turns out that it was a system issue that kept me away these many years. Violins especially seem difficult to properly reproduce. So, here's what got me to the point of actually enjoying classical;

Computer, Lampizator DAC, DS2 preamp, JC5 amp, and Caladan speakers. The speakers were the final solution, not trying to sound Hitlarian mind you. They take an extraordinary 300 hours to break in, but once they did, they were well worth the wait. I'm not saying that the Revels couldn't have gotten there, but the crossover work would have amounted to a small fortune with no guarantees.  Anyway, there are so.many beautiful works. I did subscribe to Tital as was recommended, but until I got the Caladans and broke them in I didn't use it much. Thanks for all the help.

[Tyson]

Hi Tyson, I am currently stuck on Handel's Messiah.

It turns out that it was a system issue that kept me away these many years. Violins especially seem difficult to properly reproduce. So, here's what got me to the point of actually enjoying classical;

Computer, Lampizator DAC, DS2 preamp, JC5 amp, and Caladan speakers. The speakers were the final solution, not trying to sound Hitlarian mind you. They take an extraordinary 300 hours to break in, but once they did, they were well worth the wait. I'm not saying that the Revels couldn't have gotten there, but the crossover work would have amounted to a small fortune with no guarantees.  Anyway, there are so.many beautiful works. I did subscribe to Tital as was recommended, but until I got the Caladans and broke them in I didn't use it much. Thanks for all the help.

Agreed - violins are a brutally hard bar for a hifi system.  I'd put soprano voice up there as well.  If you have a system that makes those 2 things sound great, then you've won the game!

[Stercom]

I'd recommend a cello concerto and some sipping whiskey. You'll forget all about "your system".   

[ric]

I'm still having a problem listening to classical while streaming, not because it doesn't sound good, but because it doesn't sound good enough. Thanks to cheap thrift store purchases, I now have a pretty good classical collection on vinyl, and to my ears vinyl just sounds better, and I'm not having the luxury of vinyl where I am now, so it's back to everything else and lots of jazz!

[rollo]

I'm still having a problem listening to classical while streaming, not because it doesn't sound good, but because it doesn't sound good enough. Thanks to cheap thrift store purchases, I now have a pretty good classical collection on vinyl, and to my ears vinyl just sounds better, and I'm not having the luxury of vinyl where I am now, so it's back to everything else and lots of jazz!

   IMHO of course LPs are better than streaming. Same for that shiny little CD played on a dedicated transport. If violins , flutes, horns sound harsh, hard, thin or bright it is ones system. Some great Classical pieces to be heard. Check out Chandos Penatone labesl as well as RR . Enjoy.


charles

[Tyson]

I'm still having a problem listening to classical while streaming, not because it doesn't sound good, but because it doesn't sound good enough. Thanks to cheap thrift store purchases, I now have a pretty good classical collection on vinyl, and to my ears vinyl just sounds better, and I'm not having the luxury of vinyl where I am now, so it's back to everything else and lots of jazz!

I listen to classical 100% through streaming.  I'm getting excellent sound.  For me, there were a couple of things that let streaming sound so good.  First and foremost, a tubed DAC.  Second, using a combo of Roon and Qobuz for the streaming software.  3rd, building out a dedicated Roon NUC server (it is designed from the ground up to run Roon and nothing else, there's not even Windows or Mac OS software).  Finally - I replaced ALL of my switching power supplies with linear power supplies using r-core transformers. 

[Infidel]

Thanks guys. I am receiving notifications now! Anyway, I really don't believe that my system is loosing or adding anything much. I usually try to qualify things audio, if I had X, I might find that I was mistaken. Anyway, I have a good enough system that I am not listening to my system. I  feel pretty fortunate about that. Anyway, I will look into more chamber music, the intimacy is pretty awesome! I grew up with vinyl, it seems the better the pickup, stylus shape, and good coils, the more record noise you hear as pressings are necessarily flawed. I spent thousands on that. There is so much in that chain that can ruin it, but once you get it right, IME, you get even more surface noise than a conical or slightly elliptical stylus. I see it as one hell of a rabbit hole, but I thought the same about stereo generally until I finally got it right. ANYWAY, audio is personal, what I think/like is completely irrelevant when it comes to YOU! Just enjoy what you enjoy. Warm, bright, detailed, are personal preferences. I have an acquaintance who has high frequency hearing loss. His desired sound sends me out of the room with my fingers in my ears... It works for him, and he loves what he loves. Best to all..