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Infinity IRS III (12x servo-digital amp powered 12s), large dedicated listening room with approximately 10' ceiling, in the home of the Landmark Greeting Cards/Calendars principal in Corte Madera CA, Onkyo M-504 powered the 7' line array planar mids/tweeters, Telarc's Firebird Suite on Sony DAT deck.Regarding the DAT source: Decades ago Peter McGrath brought two software into CES at the old Riviera Hotel, both the same recording he engineered, huge symphonic piece, one he mastered to DAT, the other he mastered to CD. We played both recordings on 6' towers flat to sub-20 Hz: CD on Sony ES deck, DAT on Peter's portable pro Sony, both into Theta DAC. To say the DAT blew away the CD is a huge understatement. All of the luminaries present (I'm not a luminary, though I concurred) said the two software sounded like different recordings, different performances. IIRC none volunteered a reason explaining the observed differences. All agreed the optical format had kinks to iron out. Huge MBL Radialstrahler at CES a close second, but too diffuse imaging for my taste, plus the Germans crank up too much midbass...though it is like nothing you've heard, technicolor audiophile. Only because of the "pair" qualifier I omitted Kimber's Iso-Mic 4.0 system, one speaker per corner, proprietary 4-ch recordings require huge venues, preferred Roger West's huge Soundlab electrostatics (never to be displayed again) over the Andrew Jones TAD Reference 1 display...another superlative multi-channel system is Andrew Jones' 5.0 TAD Reference 1s with proprietary recording/playback software, Pacific Microsonics ADC/DAC. Both the Kimber and Jones displays make stereo sound arcane. Stereo, like its inventor Alan Blumlein said, has problems...the ghost/phantom quality of the center image being foremost. I'd never chose to return to stereo since opting for pure analog Trinaural.
JBL .....any year to date ( not the cheap crap but the pro )
OT, but the CD is 44100Hz sample rate and the DAT is 48000Hz sample rate. The early versions of transcoding software for the sample rate change was not very good. Same issue with Telarc's Soundstream recordings done at 50000Hz sample rate and going to CD. The other issue was with 16 bit processing of the data during the transcoding. That is my understanding of the problem.Back to speakers.
Energy 22 Connoisseur References (with built in pedestals) circa 1988.Infinity Kappa 9 (at the same saloon) both of them driven by Sumo Andromeda II mosfet amplifier and Sumo Athena I preamplifier with a large, Denon CDP.
I would have to say Magico Q7's with Soulution Audio mono blocks. They're match made in heaven.
Heard them at CES few years ago. Wow, as nice sounding as the designer's ego is large.
IIRC, the Q7's debuted this year at CES.
OK. Earlier model then recently released, apparently Q5. Is the 7 much better?
Supposedly like "night and day". I haven't heard them; The Absolute Sound editor called them the most impressive product he had ever reviewed, or something similar.