Your Thoughts: McCormack DNA 500 Vs. Spectron Musician III

Bob Wilcox · « **Reply #80 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 02:22 pm »

ctviggen asked

Quote

How did this thread go from amplifiers to speakers?

The original poster mentioned the adjustability of the VMPS speakers and things just took on a life of their own...

Bob

ctviggen · « **Reply #81 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 02:28 pm »

How do you like your CDWG? I have one set on order for my RM40s and will buy another one for my RM30C. I think the CDWG is a good idea -- you improve off-axis response, which should improve an achilles heel of poor off-axis response of first-order crossovers. Have you noticed a decrease in high-frequency content (Brian says a 6db/octave dropoff above 10kHz), or did you use the adjustability of the tweeter to remove this?

I see I'm going to have to come back to these threads more often! I'm not really looking into amps, so I only came here when I saw The Borg getting involved.

woodsyi · « **Reply #82 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 03:36 pm »

Quote from: ctviggen

How do you like your CDWG? I have one set on order for my RM40s and will buy another one for my RM30C. I think the CDWG is a good idea -- you improve off-axis response, which should improve an achilles heel of poor off-axis response of first-order crossovers. Have you noticed a decrease in high-frequency content (Brian says a 6db/octave dropoff above 10kHz), or did you use the adjustability of the tweeter to remove this?

I see I'm going to have to come back to these threads more often! I'm not really looking into amps, so I only came here when I saw The Borg getting involved.

I was told of this thread yesterday and we shared our views on how we feel about some posters.

Of course, we had to tread carefully since we had one banned poster amidst us.

As for CDWG, the two who heard my system before liked the change. It is a "good" thing that you have L-pads to adjust because you have to totally reconfigure them with the CDWG on. I can't hear the roll off above 10k.

I am getting old. If Big B says there is a drop off there must be one but none of us thought any music we played was affected. There is a definite improvement on off axis response. It's not a panacea -- you still have to be in the middle if you want left-right balance and you have to keep your head within the ribbon hight. For me it's great because I can sit in the middle of the floor playing with my daughter and still get excellent sound. I also think I hear more difined depth.

The biggest improvement I heard yesterday came from Felicia balanced power conditioner. When all source gear and preamp were powered through the conditioner, a whole new set of treble information just appeared out of "nowhere". I tried hard to get Gordy to leave his "treasure box" behind but he wouldn't. I ended up bribing him with a TT to build me a couple of Felicias. Excellent job Paul and Josh. Please hurry with the R & D on the new and improved version. I want the best and the latest!

KJ · « **Reply #83 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 03:37 pm »

Quote from: audiojerry

I believe NextLevel, which is near me, has the RM40 or RM30. How about if I go take a listen with and without the CDWG and report back with my impressions?

Sounds good to me. I'll probably be ordering the CDWG for the RM30 shortly after CES is over. You are more than welcome to come over.

Quote from: audiojerry

PS: I'm not on VMPS or NextLevel's payroll, but I'm not above accepting gratuities from anyone:lol:

Guess I better stock up on beer.

-KJ

PhilNYC · « **Reply #84 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 03:39 pm »

Quote from: KJ

Guess I better stock up on beer.

This is one of my favorite tweaks. The effects are amazing...

Carlman · « **Reply #85 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 03:46 pm »

I had to split posts arguing specific speaker technologies to the Fight Club, since it wasn't contributing the intent of this otherwise informative post.

Josh, Samples, and Ribbon, please refrain from going back into it here... You can find the argument here if you want to continue.

Thanks,
Carl

ctviggen · « **Reply #86 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 04:57 pm »

About that Felicia -- I have a limited time frame in the coming months to perform a project related to audio. I'm thinking either a free digital room correction or the Felicia. I can't decide on which one. Knowing that your review (and other reviews) is positive has me leaning toward the Felicia, although I think the overall benefit of digital room correction would be higher.

Occam · « **Reply #87 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 05:19 pm »

Quote from: ctviggen

About that Felicia -- I have a limited time frame in the coming months to perform a project related to audio. I'm thinking either a free digital room correction or the Felicia. I can't decide on which one. Knowing that your review (and other reviews) is positive has me leaning toward the Felicia, although I think the overall benefit of digital room correction would be higher.

O.T.
Bob - Well..... dunno how you're planning on implementing you DRC, but according to Josh (DEQX) and Tianguis (TACT) Felicia (or equiavalent) is mandatory for full grooviosity.

ctviggen · « **Reply #88 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 05:41 pm »

Occam, I was going to use:

http://drc-fir.sourceforge.net/doc/drc.html

I think a problem for my building the Felicia is that I'd have to plug everything into a simulation program and compare what I'd see there with actual results. This would entail buying an oscilloscope, function generator, etc. to be able to test things so that I can understand how the Felicia operates and perhaps improve (or not -- most likely the latter and not the former!) on the design. It's my nature to fiddle around with things (given enough time, that is; something that's been sorely lacking in the past). If I go the DRC route, and I've already ordered SUSE to load onto my computer, I have everything I need to at least perform room correction on a song-by-song basis. For real-time correction, that'll be more bucks for a fanless computer to perform convolution.

So, my initial impulse is to go with Felicia, but from a monetary standpoint, at least in the short term, DRC is easier. Thus, my quandry. If I had unlimited time, I'd build both -- and an Aksa with a tube input stage. But my time is limited.

Occam · « **Reply #89 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 06:46 pm »

I'll actually make some comments on the subject of the thread (and then segue into my favorite subject, Felicia)......

Does anybody really need a 500watt/channel amp? Assuming a rational speaker load, I'd tend to answer no. But then why to amps like the DNA 500 sound so frigg'n good? (I'm talking analog AB amps here). IMO, its cause they can swing the requisite arbitrary current into a ridiculous reactive load (speaker) no matter what the phase angle.And like powersupplies, speaker loads have powerfactors, the phase lead/lags between voltage and current draw. You don't need no steenk'n 500watts, you need to swing whatever current is required, no more, no less. And we do this via the powersupply and topology. The DNA 500 is a fully balanced bridged topology. Basically its 2 separate amps operating 180 degrees out of phase per channel. And if the ps is sized properly, we can generate 4 times the power, as power depends on the voltage swing SQUARED for an arbitrary load. (balance bridged also has some strong advantages in the realm of PSRR, but that is better left for another discussion). 'Tis not the RMS power, but rather the ability to deliver instantaneous current into an awkward load. This is why, I believe, we find reviewers commenting on the major improvement of the Belles Signature 150 and 350 when strapped of monobloc operation; we've taken 2 conventional amps (albeit excellent) and made them balanced bridged. It aint the power (continuous), its the power (instantaneous).
There is another way of doing this, regulating the rails as in Dan Banquer's LNPA 150. You don't need massive capacitive storage, you need superb transient response to deliver that arbitrary current into a reactive load.The LNPA has about 100uf of capacitance on each channel's rail after the regulators. But this nominal 80wpc amp can pretty much drive the heck out of anything save for the Apogee Scintilla. But the cost is that regulation which requires more heatsinking for the regulators than for the amp itself.
Either way, instantaneous current delivery costs....
[And then there are switching supplies on class AB linear amps which also offer an alternative for potentially providing that instantaneous current delivery.]
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

woodsyi · « **Reply #90 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 07:04 pm »

Quote from: ctviggen

About that Felicia -- I have a limited time frame in the coming months to perform a project related to audio. I'm thinking either a free digital room correction or the Felicia. I can't decide on which one. Knowing that your review (and other reviews) is positive has me leaning toward the Felicia, although I think the overall benefit of digital room correction would be higher.

Bob,

I kind of feel sheepish about admitting this but here is what I learned. After spending oodles of sum on gears and interconnects and tweaks, the least expensive room treatment and power conditioning gave the biggest improvements. The thing is you will just be circling around with gear changes until you get these two things in order. Not saying you can't improve your sound with upgrading and rebuilding your gear -- you won't be getting the most of all the upgrades if you don't get these two right first. IMHO, Felicia is the best bargain if you have the know-how and time to build it. For me, I have enlisted the help of others but I am getting one (or six). Now Paul, I have to find the parts and get them to Gordy. Where should I look?

warnerwh · « **Reply #91 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 08:53 pm »

Bob: Nothing to feel sheepish about. I think many of us went decades without knowledge of how important room treatment is. For the money it's far superior to a new amp or preamp or dac. Until I kept reading about it myself with the advent of the internet I had no idea.

In my other house I built one bass trap and put up some treatment on the back wall. Big difference. We then bought this house. A prerequisite had been to have a listening room either in place or room to build one. I had decided I was going all out on the room treatment. That was a year and half ago. The sound I get from my room is outstanding. My gear is all excellent but would not be doing near what it's capable without the good acoustics I now have.

Presently I know someone with a higher model speaker in the same line than someone else. He's been having problems getting good sound in his room with a variety of brands of speakers. The person with the lower model in the line has a better sound the person who's speakers cost over a thousand more. It's all in the room acoustics.

Being able to play with amplitude variations you learn that all sorts of presentations are possible from the same exact speaker. Here's a great article Brian Cheney wrote for Stereophile a long time ago which applies to everybody: http://www.stereophile.com/thinkpieces/38/index.html

mr_bill · « **Reply #92 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 10:45 pm »

woodsyi,
What power conditioning are you using that has made a profound effect on your system?
Just curious,
Bill

woodsyi · « **Reply #93 on:** 29 Dec 2005, 11:07 pm »

Quote from: mr_bill

woodsyi,
What power conditioning are you using that has made a profound effect on your system?
Just curious,
Bill

Gordy brought his DIY Felicia balanced power conditioner (very lovely job) which has 3 independant outlets. We put my preamp and phono stage on it and it opened up the high end that wasn't showing up before. We put the preamp, transport and DAC on it and the music improved. It wasn't so much new information this time as much as making it sound less gritty. All of this is after the fact stuff. What I mean is that I didn't know that I was missing these things until I heard the difference. I thought I had pretty good sound before. Now I gotta get these for all my sources. Isn't this hobby great?

Gordy · « **Reply #94 on:** 30 Dec 2005, 05:06 am »

Thanks for the kind words on the Felicias, Woodsyi, we're deeply indebted to that NY Gang Of 3 for their development

I've no previous experince with your 40's to go on, I can only add that the horizontal dispersion was much greater than what I had expected from all I've ever read. I had assumed the ribbons would have a proverbial vise grip on the sweet spot, far from it! I was able to hear a 'very' to 'fairly' balanced presentation from three listening locations, none of which were in the ideal center seat...

Hopefully this weekend Roger/Natureboy and I will finally get started working on some "mini" Felicia's using the MCI transformers, graciously provided so many months ago, and we'll be able to take some measurements for Paul to evaluate voltage sag.

It seems that all my vinyl's are 78's

Oh well... need a copy of Stokowski's Peter and the Wolf? Scherchen's St. Matthew's Passion? Porgy and Bess.....

audiojerry · « **Reply #95 on:** 30 Dec 2005, 06:56 am »

Quote from: KJ

Quote from: audiojerry
I believe NextLevel, which is near me, has the RM40 or RM30. How about if I go take a listen with and without the CDWG and report back with my impressions?

Sounds good to me. I'll probably be ordering the CDWG for the RM30 shortly after CES is over. You are more than welcome to come over.

Quote from: audiojerry
PS: I'm not on VMPS or NextLevel's payroll, but I'm not above accepting gratuities from anyone:lol:

Guess I better stock up on beer.

-KJ

Thanks for the update on the expected arrival of the CDWG.
PS: I thought I posted that about listening to NextLevel's RM30's, but when I looked back, I couldn't find it. Where'd it go?

KJ · « **Reply #96 on:** 30 Dec 2005, 07:16 am »

Quote from: audiojerry

PS: I thought I posted that about listening to NextLevel's RM30's, but when I looked back, I couldn't find it. Where'd it go?

It got caught up in the portion of the thread that was transferred to Fight Club.

-KJ