Marvel bro, welcome to the club! I very much agree with the synergistic relationship amongst the DV arm, dyna xv1-s and the syren. I cannot really complaint anything until.....
The syren is a good linestage, isn't it? I can not afford a full blown version but the Seven phono is magnificient for the price too. The tron always captures the tempo well. It is always a livlely experience with the Tron. I believe Mr.Jeff wants more tonal color. The tron tone can be too white some time. Listener who demands tonality resolution may not be too used to the Tron approach. Still, no other machines that I know of can capture the rhythm of music as good as the Tron. Your da vinci arm and xv1-s on the raven serves each other well. It will be interesting one day if you use lower watt SET amp driving high efficiency speaker.
I have both the Kuzma flagship tt and the one-motor raven for two months. I was sold by the passionate presentation of the Kuzma. I still love every inch of this great tt. The arrival of the Raven AC offers me another profound perspective of music recorded on vinyl. I mounted the xv1-s on the original DV arm. Through the Seven phonostage, there are much more little details than my Kuzma/Air tanget arm/xv-1s. The German combination is very dynamic with a strong sense of control at crescendo. The Eastern Europe presentation exposes dynamic like a wild wolf . The Kuzma is good for large symphonic scores, undisputable champion. On voices, violin, cello and piano, the German/Swiss combination, I have not heard better until sitting side by side with the Kuzma. Not to be confused the Raven is timid on symphonic scores. Mass strings are better dispersed than the Kuzma but the final kick is reserved relative to the Raven.
I am eager to know more about the new Grand Reference arm. I am thinking of getting one for the Kuzma.
The weight of the Grand Reference tonearm is probably only one-thirds of the original version. The virtue of this simple physical property immediately coveys better speed and more micro dynamic details to my mind. Craftmanship of the Grand Reference is no different from a high end swiss watch. The merticulous use of bearing without using oil as lubrication requires the latest technology from the high end watch industry.
It is never the technology in this hobby arouses my musical curiosity. The seduction always comes from musicality - a seemingly subjective concept for everyone. Over the years, learning from perhaps some of the smartest mind in this industry makes me understand musicality can be explained in objective terms. For example, absence of harmonic tail elongation most of the time degrades musicality. Another example, over-emphasis of the leading edge makes the sound too bright. And the most common symptom of MID-RANGE fattening kills basically everything.
The "Musicality Differentials" amongst different listener stems from the subjective weighting he/she places on attributes such as timbre and tempo, soundstage, macrodynamic, microdynamic, and even imaging. I know someone who regards imaging is the key bridge for him to communicate with music. Without pin-point imagings, there is no music to him although the chap sitting next to him could be rewarded immensely through other attributes.
The house sound of Da Vinci, in my opinion, based on the original tonearm running with the Piccola mono blocks phonostage and the Grandezza cartridge always yields to my ears the most realistic tonality of human voices/violin/piano. Realistic may be too strong a word. Maybe, I should say the sound from this setup makes me believe the sound is fairly close to the real thing. It is seamless from top to bottom. The color in the mid range is rich but extremely transparent. The rendition of trebel is probably one of a kind. It can demonstrate the tender side of trebel with ease. For instance, when a pianist hit a high pitch note, the Da Vinci can always reveal the energy degradion right after the peak energy of the fundamental tone. In the absence of this process, the sound of that particular key may sound too bright, although the absence of this subtle part may reward with sharper leading edge to some. Piano is a percussion instrument by nature. Try to imagine how the merits of the aforemtnioned example extends to the rendition of vocal. The voice of mezzo soprano, Frederick von Stade, has so much energy variation at the top end with each lyrical lines, and sometimes even down to very fast enegy transients on those Italian vowels and syllables within a single lyrical line. Just a reminder that I am still describing the original Da Vinci arm.
The experiences described so far is based on comparison from the Schroder Reference SQ arm with Jan Allaert MC1 mark 2 cartridge with the Zanden 1200 phono stage. The recommended loading of the Jan Allaert cartridge is 100ohm, whereas the high impedance section of the Zanden is only 40ohm. It is not an ideal match in the first place compares with a fully synergistical Da Vinci suite. Nevertheless, the lengend of the Schroder name does lives to expectation, if not more. With the Schroder, everything floats up in the virtual space. Imagings are almost palpable with a substantialy degree of ambience inflation. There are no boundaries. Leading edge are fast and clear, body is just about right - not too fat/ not too slim and the bass is fast although I find the weight is a little bit lighter than my taste (yes, I do know that I can adjust this part with the fisherman wire.)
The original Da Vinci arm seems to be heavier in instrument weight than the Schroder arm. Extension of high frequency is not as clear as the Schroder but again the control of high frequency in my opinion is supreme. The schroder seems to be more straight forward in this area. The master who helps me set up these two arms told me he is fine with either one. It all boils down to personal taste. Would you like the whole piano floats up in your living space (DIMENSIONALITY) versus more subtle tonality variation to the point of makes you believe there is a real thing in front (TONALITY). Once again, please do no equate rich tonality to Jadis-type of mid range romanticism. The Da Vinci is extremely transparent. The Schroder has faster leading edge than the original DV arm, which can easily convey a stronger sense of (partial) transparency.
My expectation of the Grand Reference Grandezza arm is sky high. I was so eager to listen to it. I visited Marvel on Sunday morning. I played a few cuts of Vienna boys choir, one track on Mozart's Flute concerto, and Marvel's own Pictures at Exhibition. There was a loud and clear BINGO in my heart after a short 1-hour of audition of a few hours old LP system set up just 11 hours ago.
The same master set it up last night for me. It took about 1.5 hour to get it install fairly accurate enough, plus another 30 minutes of ear listening to adjust the VTA. I and the master was silent. We were immensely rewarded by all the original strength of the Da Vinci arm PLUS the merits of the Schroder. The sound is airy, open, and lively without neither whiting nor beautifying the tone. Another major improvement is the expansion of soundtage in all 3 (x, y and z) axiss.
When we played Simon Goldberg's Mozart Violin Sonata, even my wife who was so tired came out from the room and asked what had we change? The beautiful tonality of Simon's violin sounds so real and immediate touching our heart profoundly. The sound even stopped the baby from crying further. It might be just a coincidence but we audiophiles like to exaggerate things, aren't we?
The new Grand Reference arm has more even weighting on other traits than the original one. In comparison, the original DV tonearm places a higher weighting on tonality resolution. If muscality to you is all about tonality resolution, you may communciate more with the old one. Not to be confused the old arm lacks open-ness. Not the case, it is just that the new arm places more weightings on other traits. The presentation is more complete. If your definition of musicality encompasses more attributes with more even weightings, the Grand Reference Grandezza tonearm will probably serve as a reference in this category for many years to come.
This is really one hell of a masterpiece creation. When I hand carried it to Shanghai pass thru the HK custom, two officers stared at the monitor. They stopped passing through the gate immediately. I heard one of them whispering to another officer, "Look like a gun in dis-assembled form." They opened the treasure box. Everyone stared at the box. The moment I tried to explain, a more senior custom officier walked towards me and the arm and said, "This tonearm looks serious. Is it based on the old SME design?" I replied I had no idea and my job was to carry it to my boss in Shanghai. He let me go eventually. Audiophile is EVERYWHERE!
PT, many thanks for handcarrying this "jewel" to me. Its quite an effort, not just talking about physical size, but also the "potential" risk that you experienced in the custom. My heartfelt thank again.
Though I have seen the photo from the forum, I cant stop exclaimating when I open the box. The craftsmanship is definitely top notch and can imagine how the customers felt.
The whole package is very well thought. The biggest improvement that impressed me is the "user friendliness" for setup. As I dont have the luxury like Marvel Bro who has AE's onsite tech support. The setup of the Grand Ref arm is very simple, which is extremely important to me.
The user friendliness reinforced my confidence in the performance of the new arm. Which proved to be correct. Perhaps my old tonearm/cartridege system was not setup to its optimal, the setup with new Grand Ref just surprised me. Apart from the those improvements mentioned by PT like dynamics, The "analogue" feel or the flow of music also improved significantly.
I could not help myself in playing my LPs collection again for more than 6 hours non-stop, from Classical to canto pop. The Grand Ref arm is a serious masterpiece.
Well, I think I need to calm myself down, the latest listening experience is a combination of a lot of new stuff, including MD805s with FMRx2. The overall impact is huge and more importantly is HAPPY, just need more time to understand the individual parameter one by one!
I am a new amateur unlike you, so I need a lot of backup from AE to set this up. You know, any hiccup will not just cost $$ but also lot and lot of time to have another one....I am like having my 2nd baby taking very careful attention whenever I park and unpark the arm from its dock. Not easy but certainly worth the effort compared to manipulation of CDs. Of course, I am handsomely rewarded by the non-compressed and free flowing music from the LP even compared with Zanden combo.
I tried a couple of times trying to write my feeling on the LP system after the first week but in a few time, I stopped at the middle and close he window because (1) I was too carried away by the music played as a background whilst I was writing (2) it is beyond my description and once again, my poor English fails me in expressing myself well on how this LP system excels over CD playback. It has just unlimited dynamic headrooms up and at the bottom that I feel I am hearing real musical performance while CD always leave me a trace of 'canned food'. Having said that, I heard the LP system in the place of AE's hidden LP master who helped me setting up the Raven, HIs system is not the same as mine and yet the performance is outrageous. I think I have yet to explore the true potential of my system. When my SRA Craz rack and 3 motors setup, I will need to ask the hidden master to come again to doing more fine tuning for the system.
Enjoy your new toy and I am sure when your Eufrodite is delivered, it will mark a new page to your hi-fi journey. I wish I could be as crazy as you...
I am still at the early stage of my LP journey, I m just a lucky one who has the chance to own these exotic "toys". Still a lot to learn from other big brothers like you.
After 3 weeks of extensive listening to my new LP setup, I feel I am ready to give an interim report on how the system performs. It is still an interim for various reasons, some trivial: (1) many components from the DynaVector cartridge to the phono inside the Tron Syren may require further burn in (2) I am totally green in tuning an LP system so whether it has been set to its highest performance standards, I have absolutely no clue. There are some less trivial reasons (1) I am still running 1 motor on the Raven with the remaining 2 sitting idle for the moment (2) Craz rack is on its way replaceing my existing ones. Both of these 2 factors would undoubtedly contribute to the overall performance of the system.
In these past 3 weeks, I have been flipped through my tiny LP collections, most classical, try to get a feel on what Lp can give as opposed to their CD counterparts because one of my selection criteria on purchasing those LPs is that I have listened or owned the CD by myself. In about 50% of the LPs that I have bought, I have got their CD 'brother'. They are not twin as I believe LP is the elder one and it really exhibits what an elder brother behaves normally in the family. More matured, more experience, more confidence and better communications.
On chamber music or sonatas, I think the LP system can give very smooth coherence on the flow of music that I can never get even from my house reference CD combo despite all the FMR cables, tubes on the DAC or whatever tuning and tweaking that I have applied. What I may have achieved in my CD setup is probably the closest to LP playback but yet the difference is there and undeniable. On CD playback, it is like viewing in an expressway with vehicles dashing through, you can see the traffic flow but all cars are discrete. On Lp, it is like a chain of train where musical note followed one by one and chained together, at one time, one note seems to 'pull' out the next one and at another instance, a few notes seem bursting out in once in concert. I believe this is the skills of the performers in trying to make the music as continuous as possible. The power of the cartridge and tonearm is picking up these touching skills is enormous. In LP, I guess I don't need to worry about those phase difference, jitter, etc leading to the loss of those microscopic details like these. As long as the cartridge and arm are sensitive, balanced and neutral enough, the details are already in the LP for one to dig out. I recall PT told me once when he listened to LP he doesn't replace LP or jump tracks as frequent as in CD. I thought then of course it is due to more cumbersome to do so but now I realise it is not the inconvenience leading to such behaviour, it is really the continuation of the entire chain which you don't want or unable to break. Back to my analogy above, you can stop the traffic in expressway in the middle but surely you don't find it easy to stop a chain of train in the middle. This is a journey which I now find not easy to jump off in the middle of it, especially on those well articulated LP!
When listening to Noye's Fludde, I was shocked by the depth of the soundstage and I could hear the 'God's voice' coming out from the far end beyond my glass window. My tiny listening area suddenly turns into a much bigger stage with all the kids singing and running around the wooden floor...I bought Baldur power amp because of its incredible ability in building a coherent and deep soundstage. This is already astonishing when playing Noye's Fludde on CD, on LP, I was kind of smiling from my heart that this Baldur amp is really marvelous!! Likewise, the phono inside Tron Syren bears the same house performance of its linestage...quick slam, fast in transient and yet rich in tonal colors, dynamic without sacrifice on the scale and weight...This Tron Syren really raises the bar on my expectation on the upcoming Wavac phono and many other phonos that I am fansy trying.
I don't have many LPs on vocals yet, with the few I have, the softness and texture of the voice is as near to somebody singing in my room as I could ever imagine. Again, a human voice cannot be discrete and coarse. All the organs in the respiratory chain function in harmony in producing the voice and all I could say is my LP system gives me a much clearer depiction of such biological mechanism. Of course it is still far from what I have heard in PT's system using the DV chain.
I was listening toThe Three Cornered Hat whilst I started writing, again, the depth of the soundstage continues to amaze me....
Marvel, I enjoying read your "interim" report. Perhaps, you need to reposition your speakers to get the best from the Raven. May I know how far is the speaker away from the backwall?
If you never listen to the da vinci chain, I think what you have at the moment is quite atop most other stuff. Tron is unique, we all think so in Taiwan, in transient, microdynamic, speed and transparency. I think the goal for you, just my humble suggestion, is to really to reproduce piano recording in your home with close to real scale and presence. The difficulty is the speakers as Tron/Da Vinci are designed with high efficiency speaker in mind. But the Neo, when given the space, can disappear completely with huge soundstage and dynamic. On timbre resolution, then conventional multi driver cannot compare with old day high efficient design.
The Da Vinci, think about it from a design perspective. The use of passive preamp is the best to preserve those delicate and analog signal. This is nothing new and many manufacturers still produce passive linestage nowadays. The key is the whole concept. Because passive design does not have power like active linestage, they must need high efficiency speaker. DV went one step further. Instead of solely relying on the raw power of the poweramp,they build a mono block driver stage to ensure power more than adequate enough before delivering to the amplication stage. Then, in the amplication stage, the choice not to use push pull, reflects the designer's bias for absolute signal purity, so he chooses single end parallel, deliver 10watt power to the Intonation with almost 100db sensitivity. 50hz and below will be pass to an active bass system.
The whole concept is logical. The key is implementation and execution of the idea. Judge from Julian's report and some others listening to the DV driving the inefficient Kharma, and still can throw a soundstage describe by them. I can understand why PT is so eager for the Intonation.
Marvel, you have top gears over there, it's time to think which route you want to take. We all here in Taipei enjoy reading your exotic high end experience.
I agree with Hung. I enjoy reading Marvel's experience all the time. I foresee there will be another tonearm soon. The grandezza cartridge is something Marvel should not miss too.
Comments
The syren is a good linestage, isn't it? I can not afford a full blown version but the Seven phono is magnificient for the price too. The tron always captures the tempo well. It is always a livlely experience with the Tron. I believe Mr.Jeff wants more tonal color. The tron tone can be too white some time. Listener who demands tonality resolution may not be too used to the Tron approach. Still, no other machines that I know of can capture the rhythm of music as good as the Tron. Your da vinci arm and xv1-s on the raven serves each other well. It will be interesting one day if you use lower watt SET amp driving high efficiency speaker.
I have both the Kuzma flagship tt and the one-motor raven for two months. I was sold by the passionate presentation of the Kuzma. I still love every inch of this great tt. The arrival of the Raven AC offers me another profound perspective of music recorded on vinyl. I mounted the xv1-s on the original DV arm. Through the Seven phonostage, there are much more little details than my Kuzma/Air tanget arm/xv-1s. The German combination is very dynamic with a strong sense of control at crescendo. The Eastern Europe presentation exposes dynamic like a wild wolf . The Kuzma is good for large symphonic scores, undisputable champion. On voices, violin, cello and piano, the German/Swiss combination, I have not heard better until sitting side by side with the Kuzma. Not to be confused the Raven is timid on symphonic scores. Mass strings are better dispersed than the Kuzma but the final kick is reserved relative to the Raven.
I am eager to know more about the new Grand Reference arm. I am thinking of getting one for the Kuzma.
It is never the technology in this hobby arouses my musical curiosity. The seduction always comes from musicality - a seemingly subjective concept for everyone. Over the years, learning from perhaps some of the smartest mind in this industry makes me understand musicality can be explained in objective terms. For example, absence of harmonic tail elongation most of the time degrades musicality. Another example, over-emphasis of the leading edge makes the sound too bright. And the most common symptom of MID-RANGE fattening kills basically everything.
The "Musicality Differentials" amongst different listener stems from the subjective weighting he/she places on attributes such as timbre and tempo, soundstage, macrodynamic, microdynamic, and even imaging. I know someone who regards imaging is the key bridge for him to communicate with music. Without pin-point imagings, there is no music to him although the chap sitting next to him could be rewarded immensely through other attributes.
The house sound of Da Vinci, in my opinion, based on the original tonearm running with the Piccola mono blocks phonostage and the Grandezza cartridge always yields to my ears the most realistic tonality of human voices/violin/piano. Realistic may be too strong a word. Maybe, I should say the sound from this setup makes me believe the sound is fairly close to the real thing. It is seamless from top to bottom. The color in the mid range is rich but extremely transparent. The rendition of trebel is probably one of a kind. It can demonstrate the tender side of trebel with ease. For instance, when a pianist hit a high pitch note, the Da Vinci can always reveal the energy degradion right after the peak energy of the fundamental tone. In the absence of this process, the sound of that particular key may sound too bright, although the absence of this subtle part may reward with sharper leading edge to some. Piano is a percussion instrument by nature. Try to imagine how the merits of the aforemtnioned example extends to the rendition of vocal. The voice of mezzo soprano, Frederick von Stade, has so much energy variation at the top end with each lyrical lines, and sometimes even down to very fast enegy transients on those Italian vowels and syllables within a single lyrical line. Just a reminder that I am still describing the original Da Vinci arm.
The experiences described so far is based on comparison from the Schroder Reference SQ arm with Jan Allaert MC1 mark 2 cartridge with the Zanden 1200 phono stage. The recommended loading of the Jan Allaert cartridge is 100ohm, whereas the high impedance section of the Zanden is only 40ohm. It is not an ideal match in the first place compares with a fully synergistical Da Vinci suite. Nevertheless, the lengend of the Schroder name does lives to expectation, if not more. With the Schroder, everything floats up in the virtual space. Imagings are almost palpable with a substantialy degree of ambience inflation. There are no boundaries. Leading edge are fast and clear, body is just about right - not too fat/ not too slim and the bass is fast although I find the weight is a little bit lighter than my taste (yes, I do know that I can adjust this part with the fisherman wire.)
The original Da Vinci arm seems to be heavier in instrument weight than the Schroder arm. Extension of high frequency is not as clear as the Schroder but again the control of high frequency in my opinion is supreme. The schroder seems to be more straight forward in this area. The master who helps me set up these two arms told me he is fine with either one. It all boils down to personal taste. Would you like the whole piano floats up in your living space (DIMENSIONALITY) versus more subtle tonality variation to the point of makes you believe there is a real thing in front (TONALITY). Once again, please do no equate rich tonality to Jadis-type of mid range romanticism. The Da Vinci is extremely transparent. The Schroder has faster leading edge than the original DV arm, which can easily convey a stronger sense of (partial) transparency.
My expectation of the Grand Reference Grandezza arm is sky high. I was so eager to listen to it. I visited Marvel on Sunday morning. I played a few cuts of Vienna boys choir, one track on Mozart's Flute concerto, and Marvel's own Pictures at Exhibition. There was a loud and clear BINGO in my heart after a short 1-hour of audition of a few hours old LP system set up just 11 hours ago.
The same master set it up last night for me. It took about 1.5 hour to get it install fairly accurate enough, plus another 30 minutes of ear listening to adjust the VTA. I and the master was silent. We were immensely rewarded by all the original strength of the Da Vinci arm PLUS the merits of the Schroder. The sound is airy, open, and lively without neither whiting nor beautifying the tone. Another major improvement is the expansion of soundtage in all 3 (x, y and z) axiss.
When we played Simon Goldberg's Mozart Violin Sonata, even my wife who was so tired came out from the room and asked what had we change? The beautiful tonality of Simon's violin sounds so real and immediate touching our heart profoundly. The sound even stopped the baby from crying further. It might be just a coincidence but we audiophiles like to exaggerate things, aren't we?
The new Grand Reference arm has more even weighting on other traits than the original one. In comparison, the original DV tonearm places a higher weighting on tonality resolution. If muscality to you is all about tonality resolution, you may communciate more with the old one. Not to be confused the old arm lacks open-ness. Not the case, it is just that the new arm places more weightings on other traits. The presentation is more complete. If your definition of musicality encompasses more attributes with more even weightings, the Grand Reference Grandezza tonearm will probably serve as a reference in this category for many years to come.
Marvel bro, what is your experience so far? Our system is in some ways quite similar. We are both Tron guys.
Though I have seen the photo from the forum, I cant stop exclaimating when I open the box. The craftsmanship is definitely top notch and can imagine how the customers felt.
The whole package is very well thought. The biggest improvement that impressed me is the "user friendliness" for setup. As I dont have the luxury like Marvel Bro who has AE's onsite tech support. The setup of the Grand Ref arm is very simple, which is extremely important to me.
The user friendliness reinforced my confidence in the performance of the new arm. Which proved to be correct. Perhaps my old tonearm/cartridege system was not setup to its optimal, the setup with new Grand Ref just surprised me. Apart from the those improvements mentioned by PT like dynamics, The "analogue" feel or the flow of music also improved significantly.
I could not help myself in playing my LPs collection again for more than 6 hours non-stop, from Classical to canto pop. The Grand Ref arm is a serious masterpiece.
Well, I think I need to calm myself down, the latest listening experience is a combination of a lot of new stuff, including MD805s with FMRx2. The overall impact is huge and more importantly is HAPPY, just need more time to understand the individual parameter one by one!
Bigpiece
I am a new amateur unlike you, so I need a lot of backup from AE to set this up. You know, any hiccup will not just cost $$ but also lot and lot of time to have another one....I am like having my 2nd baby taking very careful attention whenever I park and unpark the arm from its dock. Not easy but certainly worth the effort compared to manipulation of CDs. Of course, I am handsomely rewarded by the non-compressed and free flowing music from the LP even compared with Zanden combo.
I tried a couple of times trying to write my feeling on the LP system after the first week but in a few time, I stopped at the middle and close he window because (1) I was too carried away by the music played as a background whilst I was writing (2) it is beyond my description and once again, my poor English fails me in expressing myself well on how this LP system excels over CD playback. It has just unlimited dynamic headrooms up and at the bottom that I feel I am hearing real musical performance while CD always leave me a trace of 'canned food'. Having said that, I heard the LP system in the place of AE's hidden LP master who helped me setting up the Raven, HIs system is not the same as mine and yet the performance is outrageous. I think I have yet to explore the true potential of my system. When my SRA Craz rack and 3 motors setup, I will need to ask the hidden master to come again to doing more fine tuning for the system.
Enjoy your new toy and I am sure when your Eufrodite is delivered, it will mark a new page to your hi-fi journey. I wish I could be as crazy as you...
Marvel
I am still at the early stage of my LP journey, I m just a lucky one who has the chance to own these exotic "toys". Still a lot to learn from other big brothers like you.
Bigpiece
In these past 3 weeks, I have been flipped through my tiny LP collections, most classical, try to get a feel on what Lp can give as opposed to their CD counterparts because one of my selection criteria on purchasing those LPs is that I have listened or owned the CD by myself. In about 50% of the LPs that I have bought, I have got their CD 'brother'. They are not twin as I believe LP is the elder one and it really exhibits what an elder brother behaves normally in the family. More matured, more experience, more confidence and better communications.
On chamber music or sonatas, I think the LP system can give very smooth coherence on the flow of music that I can never get even from my house reference CD combo despite all the FMR cables, tubes on the DAC or whatever tuning and tweaking that I have applied. What I may have achieved in my CD setup is probably the closest to LP playback but yet the difference is there and undeniable. On CD playback, it is like viewing in an expressway with vehicles dashing through, you can see the traffic flow but all cars are discrete. On Lp, it is like a chain of train where musical note followed one by one and chained together, at one time, one note seems to 'pull' out the next one and at another instance, a few notes seem bursting out in once in concert. I believe this is the skills of the performers in trying to make the music as continuous as possible. The power of the cartridge and tonearm is picking up these touching skills is enormous. In LP, I guess I don't need to worry about those phase difference, jitter, etc leading to the loss of those microscopic details like these. As long as the cartridge and arm are sensitive, balanced and neutral enough, the details are already in the LP for one to dig out. I recall PT told me once when he listened to LP he doesn't replace LP or jump tracks as frequent as in CD. I thought then of course it is due to more cumbersome to do so but now I realise it is not the inconvenience leading to such behaviour, it is really the continuation of the entire chain which you don't want or unable to break. Back to my analogy above, you can stop the traffic in expressway in the middle but surely you don't find it easy to stop a chain of train in the middle. This is a journey which I now find not easy to jump off in the middle of it, especially on those well articulated LP!
When listening to Noye's Fludde, I was shocked by the depth of the soundstage and I could hear the 'God's voice' coming out from the far end beyond my glass window. My tiny listening area suddenly turns into a much bigger stage with all the kids singing and running around the wooden floor...I bought Baldur power amp because of its incredible ability in building a coherent and deep soundstage. This is already astonishing when playing Noye's Fludde on CD, on LP, I was kind of smiling from my heart that this Baldur amp is really marvelous!! Likewise, the phono inside Tron Syren bears the same house performance of its linestage...quick slam, fast in transient and yet rich in tonal colors, dynamic without sacrifice on the scale and weight...This Tron Syren really raises the bar on my expectation on the upcoming Wavac phono and many other phonos that I am fansy trying.
I don't have many LPs on vocals yet, with the few I have, the softness and texture of the voice is as near to somebody singing in my room as I could ever imagine. Again, a human voice cannot be discrete and coarse. All the organs in the respiratory chain function in harmony in producing the voice and all I could say is my LP system gives me a much clearer depiction of such biological mechanism. Of course it is still far from what I have heard in PT's system using the DV chain.
I was listening toThe Three Cornered Hat whilst I started writing, again, the depth of the soundstage continues to amaze me....
Marvel
If you never listen to the da vinci chain, I think what you have at the moment is quite atop most other stuff. Tron is unique, we all think so in Taiwan, in transient, microdynamic, speed and transparency. I think the goal for you, just my humble suggestion, is to really to reproduce piano recording in your home with close to real scale and presence. The difficulty is the speakers as Tron/Da Vinci are designed with high efficiency speaker in mind. But the Neo, when given the space, can disappear completely with huge soundstage and dynamic. On timbre resolution, then conventional multi driver cannot compare with old day high efficient design.
The Da Vinci, think about it from a design perspective. The use of passive preamp is the best to preserve those delicate and analog signal. This is nothing new and many manufacturers still produce passive linestage nowadays. The key is the whole concept. Because passive design does not have power like active linestage, they must need high efficiency speaker. DV went one step further. Instead of solely relying on the raw power of the poweramp,they build a mono block driver stage to ensure power more than adequate enough before delivering to the amplication stage. Then, in the amplication stage, the choice not to use push pull, reflects the designer's bias for absolute signal purity, so he chooses single end parallel, deliver 10watt power to the Intonation with almost 100db sensitivity. 50hz and below will be pass to an active bass system.
The whole concept is logical. The key is implementation and execution of the idea. Judge from Julian's report and some others listening to the DV driving the inefficient Kharma, and still can throw a soundstage describe by them. I can understand why PT is so eager for the Intonation.
Marvel, you have top gears over there, it's time to think which route you want to take. We all here in Taipei enjoy reading your exotic high end experience.
Hung
Pls give me a call abt the new speaker. Also, brief me this Tron/Da Vinci thing.
I am now in Paris. See you soon.