Ralph of Cessaro spent the whole day with me and PT for the upgrade of my Affascinate speaker after landed to HK and went straigth to my place before checking in.. What a man!!
The upgrade was completed pretty uneventfully and we stopped for lunch after the replacement of the tweeter and some exotics components in the crossover inside. Ralph told me that it is because of my open design being the very first pair of the Affascinate that enables him to do the upgrade of certain crossover components so easily onsite. For others like DSo or Bigpiece, the crossover is built inside a box and an upgrade would mean a total replacement of the box.
The 2nd part after lunch was the replacement of the bass drivers to enjoy another 2db more in efficiency. According to Ralph, this 2db is not insignificant and is achieved partly by the allnic magnet inside the new bass drivers which on a rough weighting on my hands, it is about 70% heavier than the one replaced.
As soon as we have completed the upgrade in the afternoon, we all sat down quietly to listen to the improvements. As the owner of the systems, I enjoyed a 2-stage comparison, one with the tweeter + cross over (before lunch) and another one together with the bass drivers. For the first part, the improvements is not just on the mid to high, it is a total raise on the transparency and elongation of the harmonic tails on the treble. On piano, the slight vibration of airwaves after each keystrokes can be heard clearer. Bass becomes less muddy and becomes more dynamical. It was not until the 2nd part when the bass drivers were also replaced, it is like a clear and cloudless sky. Bass has much more impact and variations than before enriching the entire frequency spectrum with more tonal colors and timbre....Ralph and I echoed with each other a few times that we seem like listening to another speaker. During the whole course of the upgrade, PT was as excited as myself. His external x-over upgrade with take place tomorrow and I believe this would elevate the performance of his entire system by a big leap.
The bass drivers certainly need much burn in before it shows its true color but at the moment, the musical enjoyment is unprecedented !!
Marvel had already described everything well. Ralph and I are truly happy to bring back the level of his system to where it should belong given all the super gears. The improvement brought over from the tweeter upgrade is expected but the subsequent change of the woofer, in my opinion, brings out the final magic. Even without burn-in, the new bass drivers are miles ahead of the original. It lifts up the entire soundstage, laying out the very foundation to support everything up.
Ralph also recognized the acoustics are better and better with each of his passing visits. In his view, the remaining acoustics problem is at the back of the listening position.
The most enchanting experience yesterday was the visit to DSo's system after dinner. I am extremely familiar with DSo's system in recent months. In fact, I visited him last week when he first installed the FMR speaker cable. The changes that he made this week are:
1. Move forward the two clouds on the ceiling closer to the first reflection point on the ceiling.
2. Use two FMR powercords on 833
3. Ralph adds new damping material inside the bass driver
4. Turn up the efficiency of the tweeter by 1db
5. Turn up the efficiency of the mid-range by 1db
To cut a long story short, I believe this system really really reaches its maximum potential last night. This is one of the top experiences I have ever had regardless of price. Top to bottom is seamlessly integrated, energy balance is very well done, extremely dynamic and control. DSo, Ralph and I all cheered with red wine last night.
Ralph especially asked him to play some Italian opera, and I could see him moving his head along with the Paganini violin concerto, rarely sees him doing this based on my recollection. He is very touched too.
He started working right after landing to HK straight from 8pm till 10pm yesterday. When I sent him back to the hotel, he shared with me the very joy that he had now is each of his Cessaro customers has different character but most importantly is each system is "in a class of its own". Marvel's system has the most details (thanks a lot to the Vekian sig dac. Katongkid made the same comments of his system after the Vekian sits on the SRA and all glasses were treated in Singapore), and DSo has both the big dynamic and grandeur sound-staging.
Ralph really wants to solve some issues of Peter's system in the next two days because Peter feels his system cannot play violin well.
In conclusion, it was a very fruitful Saturday from my perspective. You simply have to learn by experiences over time to get there. There are no short cuts.
Lots of work today. AE's turn to install external crossover, as well as upgrading the latest parts. We began at 11:00a.m as Ralph needs a lot of sleep after heavy workload yesterday. Thanks for Danny's red wine, he had a good sleep. We finished at around 4pm today, another 45mins for fine tuning etc...
The Tripoint Troy is so good to the degree that I hesitated adding the external crossover today under the fear of disturbing the balance that I have been enjoying very much for a few weeks.
marvel bro, how does it feel after operation? Was it difficult to perform? It sounds like the bass drivers made the most dramatic improvement. I presume they are brand new. From PT's description, it seems the old run-in don't have a chance standing against the new pairs.
I think the integration among the old combo is not as good as the new combo from the tweeter to the bass driver. All units used in this upgrade were new and require break in...
Not yet but certainly I will. I think PT's system has set another benchmark after the replacement of the crossover and the wiring, etc. For the room acoustics, not much change because I am not heavily relying on the resonators/diffusors now, the paintings, blue pillar, cloud, Glasshopers pretty much stay the same place where they are without any need to move around. Ralph helped me to reposition the speakers already so I am quite happy with the current setting. I will fine tune the speaker positions after the bass drivers have been burnt in.
Marvel, I hope you do enjoy the "new" speaker as much as you should. Right now, after the installation of FMR cables, I have been enjoying music in an unprecedented manner every day. I have tremendous interest in the Tripoint Troy because of what PT wrote here. Also, in my memory, no one deals ground noises as serious as Tripoint. Ground noises ride with the signal path, especially low frequency area, this will be one serious and necessary device.
Ground noise is a nuisance especially in Hongkong and this Troy is a serious stuff for sure. Ralph of Cessaro had heard it yesterday and I think he was quite impressed from what I heard him saying during dinner last night. If we can filter out the ground noise in the signal path without affecting the musical ingredients, it is the ideal seamless filter that we are longing for for years.
Comments
The upgrade was completed pretty uneventfully and we stopped for lunch after the replacement of the tweeter and some exotics components in the crossover inside. Ralph told me that it is because of my open design being the very first pair of the Affascinate that enables him to do the upgrade of certain crossover components so easily onsite. For others like DSo or Bigpiece, the crossover is built inside a box and an upgrade would mean a total replacement of the box.
The 2nd part after lunch was the replacement of the bass drivers to enjoy another 2db more in efficiency. According to Ralph, this 2db is not insignificant and is achieved partly by the allnic magnet inside the new bass drivers which on a rough weighting on my hands, it is about 70% heavier than the one replaced.
As soon as we have completed the upgrade in the afternoon, we all sat down quietly to listen to the improvements. As the owner of the systems, I enjoyed a 2-stage comparison, one with the tweeter + cross over (before lunch) and another one together with the bass drivers. For the first part, the improvements is not just on the mid to high, it is a total raise on the transparency and elongation of the harmonic tails on the treble. On piano, the slight vibration of airwaves after each keystrokes can be heard clearer. Bass becomes less muddy and becomes more dynamical. It was not until the 2nd part when the bass drivers were also replaced, it is like a clear and cloudless sky. Bass has much more impact and variations than before enriching the entire frequency spectrum with more tonal colors and timbre....Ralph and I echoed with each other a few times that we seem like listening to another speaker. During the whole course of the upgrade, PT was as excited as myself. His external x-over upgrade with take place tomorrow and I believe this would elevate the performance of his entire system by a big leap.
The bass drivers certainly need much burn in before it shows its true color but at the moment, the musical enjoyment is unprecedented !!
Marvel
Ralph also recognized the acoustics are better and better with each of his passing visits. In his view, the remaining acoustics problem is at the back of the listening position.
The most enchanting experience yesterday was the visit to DSo's system after dinner. I am extremely familiar with DSo's system in recent months. In fact, I visited him last week when he first installed the FMR speaker cable. The changes that he made this week are:
1. Move forward the two clouds on the ceiling closer to the first reflection point on the ceiling.
2. Use two FMR powercords on 833
3. Ralph adds new damping material inside the bass driver
4. Turn up the efficiency of the tweeter by 1db
5. Turn up the efficiency of the mid-range by 1db
To cut a long story short, I believe this system really really reaches its maximum potential last night. This is one of the top experiences I have ever had regardless of price. Top to bottom is seamlessly integrated, energy balance is very well done, extremely dynamic and control. DSo, Ralph and I all cheered with red wine last night.
Ralph especially asked him to play some Italian opera, and I could see him moving his head along with the Paganini violin concerto, rarely sees him doing this based on my recollection. He is very touched too.
He started working right after landing to HK straight from 8pm till 10pm yesterday. When I sent him back to the hotel, he shared with me the very joy that he had now is each of his Cessaro customers has different character but most importantly is each system is "in a class of its own". Marvel's system has the most details (thanks a lot to the Vekian sig dac. Katongkid made the same comments of his system after the Vekian sits on the SRA and all glasses were treated in Singapore), and DSo has both the big dynamic and grandeur sound-staging.
Ralph really wants to solve some issues of Peter's system in the next two days because Peter feels his system cannot play violin well.
In conclusion, it was a very fruitful Saturday from my perspective. You simply have to learn by experiences over time to get there. There are no short cuts.
PT
I think the integration among the old combo is not as good as the new combo from the tweeter to the bass driver. All units used in this upgrade were new and require break in...
Marvel
Not yet but certainly I will. I think PT's system has set another benchmark after the replacement of the crossover and the wiring, etc. For the room acoustics, not much change because I am not heavily relying on the resonators/diffusors now, the paintings, blue pillar, cloud, Glasshopers pretty much stay the same place where they are without any need to move around. Ralph helped me to reposition the speakers already so I am quite happy with the current setting. I will fine tune the speaker positions after the bass drivers have been burnt in.
Marvel
Ground noise is a nuisance especially in Hongkong and this Troy is a serious stuff for sure. Ralph of Cessaro had heard it yesterday and I think he was quite impressed from what I heard him saying during dinner last night. If we can filter out the ground noise in the signal path without affecting the musical ingredients, it is the ideal seamless filter that we are longing for for years.
Marvel