Fairly speaking, you won't understand how good DV does until you ve one in your own system. It likes a deepth hole and need you to jump inside to find out hows the deepthness, if you r lucky enough, you may find some jewelry inside.
I strongly feel the DV amp still ve a lot on hand in my current system! I m expecting & watching the clock now....
Did you guys do any corresponding adjustment on VTA, counterweight etc after the DV phono landed? It's hard to conclude too much in 2 days. It is easy to recogize the poisonous nature of the DV phono but integrating it into a system is another issue. The Intonation carries an active bass system, the cessaro is not. Though I have never heard the Zanden 300BPP, I have reservation on the ability of 300B to tame a pair of 16inch bass.
Discounting the matching between the 16in bass horn Alpha and the Zanden300BPP, I do believe DV phono is a quick poison and the potential to have it better integrated into a full DV system is enormous.
Last night first audition was certainly not an apple to apple comparison to begin with...the combos were : Shroder Ref SQ arm+EMT cartridge + Tidal and DV arm + cartridge + phono. Getting more familiar with the Tidal phono+DV arm+cartridge pair in my system, my immediate reaction when PT played the Horowitz Last Recording on his DV combo was the bass keys were a bit smoky compared to my set up. It appears to me that the harmonic tails have been inflated (not extended). We continued to play the Accardo Barucaba LP which is a solo violin music...Wow...the violin together with Accardo were standing in front of me with close to real ambience, movements and timbre...I was pretty sure this is the magic of DV and such magic extended to the next LP which was Winterreise by Scheburt which is a Philips production by Richter and Schreier, a live recording in Moscow...another big Wow on the way the tenor performer was so lively standing in the big opera hall performing with so much emotions and passion...Switching back to Tidal combo we still have all the tonality, albeit a bit less rich, ambience and timbre, the magic of 'human-like' is not as vivid. Though it is just early days to draw any conclusive views between Tidal and DV phono (not combos), I think the synergy in using a suite is always there and no doubt the bigger the 'conglomeration' of DV components, the more powerful of the DV magic would be. DV cartridge+arm is the smallest denomination, extending to a DV turntable then to a DV phono is a complete DV source followed obviously by a DV amplificaiton suite and ultimately speaker. I can see all these will become materialised in PT's music/hi-fi journey and a total family reunion of PT's DV gears will happen very soon when his AAS Gabriel turntable is delivered. I am longing to experience a complete DV suite!!
As for the poor Marvel, the move to DV phono is undoubtedly not immediate considering the space and $$ requirements. At least, I am happy to have owned Tidal which did not show any fear in front of such giant contender (4 chasis of the DV phono+driver+power supplies). As a one-piece phono+preamp, Tidal have fulfilled 2 purposes exceedingly well and it is certainly not a 'package deal' offering half baked cakes in either domain.
I agree with Voy's comment on Zanden300B is difficult to handle the 16inch woofer what ever how great the mid-range does! And i m not so familly with the sound on Shroder Ref SQ arm+EMT cartridge setting, but thats the another topic for PT. Lets focous on how these phono doing....
The piano we heard from both phono is very interesting, same record in different feeling, I cannot disagree the Tidal is closer to realistic and DV has more mid-low energy or i call it richer mid-low. I cannot judge which is better, for example: if listen to Mozat piano i prefer Tidal, when Beethoven i will pick DV.
For the String, its not fair to judge by a DV guys, the string is rich & colourful which exectly the signature sound of DV.
For this opera record (Winterreise - singer Schreier). I could promise you guys, even PT ask to pay enterence fee, YOU GUYS MUST GO! Thats special, truly sound of heaven. I ve no word on this. (That what i told Studiogrey last night!)
So a suit od DV, including shoes,tie and socks will available in your home soon? CCN hing
Marvel Bro, don't go too fast, leave the quota of DV phono to CCN Hing.
That's the very spirit that I am looking for here! Marvel bro and ccn provide straight to the point non-bias opinion, making us aware the compatitibility issues w/o losing the context.
Marvel bro, there is no poor men in this community, only smart men. You are certainly amongst the richest of us considering the very pride ownership of almost all exotics carried by AE.
You have sharp eyes. I don't like to stack machine on top of another one. The chassis of the line driver is well built. I knock on the high grade anodized aluminium chassic, my gut feeling/experience tells me the resonance frequency is about the section from upper mid to lower trebel. I don't think hard coupling of the line driver via the FE universal feet on top of the phono stage is the way to go. But the craze rack at AE has no space, so I suggest to Jlam to add some soft pad (made by cotton - natural material) on the bottom of the FE feet to reduce collision of the hard feet agains the chassis.
I then knocked on the chassis of the power supply, and this time, the resonance frequency is probably all concentrated in the upper treble. I repeated the same exerices. See pictures.
Of course, it will be much better if Franck's reference feets are handy but they were all sold. But these cheapy stuff serve my experimental purposes. High End is not about plug and play although most of the time we got carry away by the immedate swap of Component A to Component B.
Next, I experimented different impedance setting via different jumper. We had a conference call with Peter in Switzerland about the impedance issue. There is no rule of thumb as this is one of the many parameters in the system. In the end, I find the impedance of 5ohm with 26db gain to be the most ideal. The picture shows there is a little jumper with a badge showing the ohm value.
Last but not least is my investigation into the lower mid bass issue which both Marvel/CCN find it to be not entirely satisfying. We suspect the amp, the characteristic of the DV cartridge, and transparency of the SR not as good as SMR etc.
Today, I tried to think of an acoustic solution. Then, I found out the basic resonator attached on the rear wall was fallen off with the resonator cup facing the floor upside down. Then, I fixed it again. Bingo. The muddy lower mid bass is gone. This is not to say the 300B has transformed into 805 to pump the last juice out of the 16inch bass, but I am contended.
I am really getting hot to see the ultimate state of the DV phono system because it is truly unique. And since ccn suggests AE fellows to visit this system even if I charge for admission fee, I would like to accept the challenges. I need one month to fine tune this system with Jlam, and then I would invite AE fellows to come with admission fee. The fees will be donated to charity organization - a spirit championed by Mr.Zanden. I would like to follow his good deeds.
Good community spirit, charity, music sharing and friendship fostering at its best form.
PT, does the phono unit actually include the RIAA circuit, if so, what's the function of the LCR unit . Can the DV phono+the LCR feed into a normal line stage, is it a balanced or single-ended output. The trans array makes my mouth waterly....
Comments
Fairly speaking, you won't understand how good DV does until you ve one in your own system. It likes a deepth hole and need you to jump inside to find out hows the deepthness, if you r lucky enough, you may find some jewelry inside.
I strongly feel the DV amp still ve a lot on hand in my current system! I m expecting & watching the clock now....
ccn
Last night first audition was certainly not an apple to apple comparison to begin with...the combos were : Shroder Ref SQ arm+EMT cartridge + Tidal and DV arm + cartridge + phono. Getting more familiar with the Tidal phono+DV arm+cartridge pair in my system, my immediate reaction when PT played the Horowitz Last Recording on his DV combo was the bass keys were a bit smoky compared to my set up. It appears to me that the harmonic tails have been inflated (not extended). We continued to play the Accardo Barucaba LP which is a solo violin music...Wow...the violin together with Accardo were standing in front of me with close to real ambience, movements and timbre...I was pretty sure this is the magic of DV and such magic extended to the next LP which was Winterreise by Scheburt which is a Philips production by Richter and Schreier, a live recording in Moscow...another big Wow on the way the tenor performer was so lively standing in the big opera hall performing with so much emotions and passion...Switching back to Tidal combo we still have all the tonality, albeit a bit less rich, ambience and timbre, the magic of 'human-like' is not as vivid. Though it is just early days to draw any conclusive views between Tidal and DV phono (not combos), I think the synergy in using a suite is always there and no doubt the bigger the 'conglomeration' of DV components, the more powerful of the DV magic would be. DV cartridge+arm is the smallest denomination, extending to a DV turntable then to a DV phono is a complete DV source followed obviously by a DV amplificaiton suite and ultimately speaker. I can see all these will become materialised in PT's music/hi-fi journey and a total family reunion of PT's DV gears will happen very soon when his AAS Gabriel turntable is delivered. I am longing to experience a complete DV suite!!
Marvel
Marvel
The piano we heard from both phono is very interesting, same record in different feeling, I cannot disagree the Tidal is closer to realistic and DV has more mid-low energy or i call it richer mid-low. I cannot judge which is better, for example: if listen to Mozat piano i prefer Tidal, when Beethoven i will pick DV.
For the String, its not fair to judge by a DV guys, the string is rich & colourful which exectly the signature sound of DV.
For this opera record (Winterreise - singer Schreier). I could promise you guys, even PT ask to pay enterence fee, YOU GUYS MUST GO! Thats special, truly sound of heaven. I ve no word on this. (That what i told Studiogrey last night!)
c.c.n
report in rush
Marvel Bro, don't go too fast, leave the quota of DV phono to CCN Hing.
Marvel bro, there is no poor men in this community, only smart men. You are certainly amongst the richest of us considering the very pride ownership of almost all exotics carried by AE.
You have sharp eyes. I don't like to stack machine on top of another one. The chassis of the line driver is well built. I knock on the high grade anodized aluminium chassic, my gut feeling/experience tells me the resonance frequency is about the section from upper mid to lower trebel. I don't think hard coupling of the line driver via the FE universal feet on top of the phono stage is the way to go. But the craze rack at AE has no space, so I suggest to Jlam to add some soft pad (made by cotton - natural material) on the bottom of the FE feet to reduce collision of the hard feet agains the chassis.
I then knocked on the chassis of the power supply, and this time, the resonance frequency is probably all concentrated in the upper treble. I repeated the same exerices. See pictures.
Today, I tried to think of an acoustic solution. Then, I found out the basic resonator attached on the rear wall was fallen off with the resonator cup facing the floor upside down. Then, I fixed it again. Bingo. The muddy lower mid bass is gone. This is not to say the 300B has transformed into 805 to pump the last juice out of the 16inch bass, but I am contended.
I am really getting hot to see the ultimate state of the DV phono system because it is truly unique. And since ccn suggests AE fellows to visit this system even if I charge for admission fee, I would like to accept the challenges. I need one month to fine tune this system with Jlam, and then I would invite AE fellows to come with admission fee. The fees will be donated to charity organization - a spirit championed by Mr.Zanden. I would like to follow his good deeds.
Good community spirit, charity, music sharing and friendship fostering at its best form.