It is one of the supreme projects in this year. Looking into the Hi-End world, where can you find anothes group of Audio manufacturers with such magic skills??
I visited PT yesterday afternoon with the following new changes since my last visit. I list the changes in descending order of the respective impact to the overall system performance:
1. A 90 degree swing of the speakers to leverage the whole space with both living and dining places combined.
2. Beta 0.5 upgrade.
3. Syren Black Label
4. Master Reference cable in the Tripoint.
A mega speaker system which one cannot find their existence when music starts flowing out from this 4-pillar monster system. The change is transformational leaving no trace on my previous recollection of what PT's Alpha system sounds like. It is a utterly new and unchartered zone that I ever heard of. Partly it may be because of the breathing space is much bigger and more balanced (compared to his previous speaker positioning). The integration among the drivers in the main cabinets and the woofers is seamless and could fill the entire listening space with energy and ambience. Acoustics treatment needs to kick in to avoid trapping, echoing etc. This is the only area which I think PT is too busy to deal with but this has to be taken as a priority now because the sound quality is at its height over the many years. Whenever I thought this is it, there were breakthroughs. This time, the breakthrough is like the record high of property price HKD60K/sq ft shooting far higher than the last benchmark.
I used Syren before and this Syren Black Label is, again, a totally different breed except the chasis. If Syren is a 18-year old athelet full of adventurous spirit, Syren BL is a 22-year old athelet with much more maturity, experience but yet the 'explosive' factor is still at its height with a more accurate outburst of energy whenever it is demanded rather than spending any excessive strength which I felt when using Syren, still recalling the more attractive leading edges pointed out by Srajan in his HK tour 3 years ago (well, time flies, wonder when Srajan will come again...). The heartbeats went faster when we continued to spin different types of CD on the Zanden 2500 player, I am stunned by the improvements made in the ingredients inside which have made Syren disappeared in terms of causing any compression, degradation to the signal passing through! How can music be flowing out at such a great ease, floating with scale and weight but interacting with each other harmonously. We listened to Hilary Hanns violin & piano sonata...rhythm of violin and piano can be heard distinctively but yet the communication and interaction between the two is so vivid but intimate. Now I understand more about when people said they are touched by the performers. I really felt like they were in that space which I and PT were both sitting in...
2 components with a transformational upgrade together with a 90degree shift of the soundstage into a 80% increase in the breathing space. These changes are enough to floor Marvel. What takes my last breath away was the replacement of the Master Reference cable back to the ordinary cable in the Tripoint connecting to the chasis of Tron Syren...PT said he would recommend his Tripoint customer to use the Master Reference cable on the preamp if they only buy one. My cable DNA said perhaps one more here and one more there.... The difference is subtle but not unnoticeable. Considering the compound effect, the improvement shoul not be small. For those who are still waiting for the installation of the Tripoint like me, I'd wait to get the first shock of basic package and then go for the MR later.
I asked PT to turn off the subwoofer for an understanding on what the sound would be...imagine you are wearing a suit with tie and you suddenly found yourself having the shirt removed. Sounds below a bit hallow and unnatural...we switched back within 20 seconds of playing the children choir CD which sounds like singing inside a cave without the subwoofer...
AC2 has arrived. One for me and one for PT...will report later but yesterday was enough shock for me....
If the execution is well, this should be quite a system. I will find some time to visit when I return to HK. The master reference ground wire is interesting. It arouses my "desire" too. Anyone can say more about it?
I was totally indulged in the vinyl world after the arrival of the AAS Gabriel. The match with Zanden phono is heavenly.
The swap from the silver signature ground wire to the master reference ground wire in my system yields "staggering" improvement on all attributes. It is balanced, hard to say what attribute is better by what percentage. (Never know how people can figure all these out by numbers anyway. I am just a dumbshit, maybe.) Could it be the fact that the improvement is all rounded that makes you to find the right words to describe them difficult? Subtle is not the right description. All I can share is very balanced, more relaxation, better control, and even richer tonality in the mid range and higher harmonic resolution in the basslines.
To confirm what I heard, I took it out and reconnected the silver signature to the Tidal Preos. Less than 2 minutes, I reconnected the master reference ground wire back to the Tidal Preos.
My first post in this forum. Too many high hands here, no guts to speak up until now. I am always a lover of horn. I used Avantgarde horn for 3 years cos my wife loves the color of the horn. The sound is ok to me. The Cessaro horn looks macho and real cool to my eyes. Just no real guts to pick up the phone and arranged for an audition. Finally do it and the guy on the other end told me the setup was not ideal. I went there eventually for 1 hour and was absolutely blown away by this "not so ideal" setup.
The Da Vinci turntable really caught the attention of my wife. She likes white color. The LP setup very nice. This Beta system sounds very smooth and coherent. I feel the integration of the subwoofer and the main speakers are seamless. I just feel I am listening to one big musical picture. The stage is very very wide. It was so live listening to Danny Summer in Concert. (I swear I have not experienced something like this before anywhere.)
This one box Zanden CD player seems can do so much. The demo of the Troy is very poisonous. Now I understand there is so many building blocks to the audio utopia. The Cessaro is really amazing. It sounds so natural.
I am a conscious audio buyer but of all the crazy stuff I experienced yesterday, I simply know I got to have a Tripoint Troy.
Before I left with my wife, one more demo was done. Unplugged the Zanden CDP from the Wavac power conditioner and listened again. I did not know the strange looking preamp and the cd player were sharing the wavac conditioner. I was confused about ground noises and ac noises.
Now, I am thinking whether should I get Wavac conditioner first or Tripoint first.
Thanks for a great experience. The Da Vinci turntable will be my next target.
Anyone can help me decide between Wavac AC-2 and Tripoint Troy? Which one should I get first? I could not turn on my system today after yesterday's visit.
We are using this latest copper cable designed and manufactured by Argento under the brand of Organic Cable in between the Tron Syren and the active subwoofer. This is a real bargain as we never expect the clarity of copper cable at this price point can be so high. The flow of music is also very natural.
I usually do not post my listening experience on someone else's system in the forum as the proud owner of his system (if he is good) will reproduce hi-fi sound with certain personal flavour which usually may not be to my or other's liking.
If we look amoung fellow audiophiles, how many of them pay regular visits to classical concerts to appreciate live performance and at the same time, to a certain or lesser extent, have an instant 'reality check' on the sound of his system. The point I'm trying to make is MOST systems do not sound remotely close to live sound, they sound hi-fi. For instance, a good hi-fi sound usually has the following attributes : wide soundstage, good imaging, real life 3-dimensionality, clean bass, details etc.
Comparing to live concert, in my experience, it only has very wide soundstage especially if the listener is sitting in the middle row and nothing of the abovementioned characteristics. One thing immediately apparant to your ears is the tonality of the sound of a group of instruments or individual instrument will have you completely bowed over because of its glorious sound, different instrument has its own DISTINCT voice and tonal texture, the massed strings have very lively and airy feel and intrument has continuity, texture and harmonic decay especially triangle. Another phenonmenon is the trenmendous dynamic and uncompressed sound of a large orchestra, on certain loud passage, if you are sitting within the first 10 rows, sound level pressure can easily exceed 100 dB without any stress to your ears.
The above attributes of a live concert are the driving force behind my endless endeavour to re-create something like this from home, my goal in domestic hi-fi playback is to achieve 50% of the experience I get when attending a live concert and I reckon I have done that. Whenever I visit fellow audiophile homes, although the sound from hi-fi perspective is good to excellent, my aural sensation always fail to achieve a climax as my hearing senses can differentiate it is very different to the live music.
Now back to the point I want to make, after attending the shoot out between the 2 Japanese made amplifiers last Sat., I went to PT's place yesterday to re-audition the Cessaro 0.5 Beta version as my first encounter was not 100% positive. When I entered the room, he was playing Dave Brubeck's cd recorded live, the sound was very real and lively, loud but devoid of the sound compression one usually would encounter in a domestic environment at such sound presssure level. The system this time was using the same power amp (the contoversial Takumi hybrid amp) PT used when this speaker system was first installed, the sound was vastly better than before. After playing my own CDs, I found the overall balance and tonalty were very natural and real especially when playing human voice and classical music, PT pointed to me the speaker placement had been changed together with the swapping of interconnects and power cords, the overall result was positive to put it mildly. My only minor qualms were in the bass reproduction due to the slightly lack of bass slam and weight, since the bass part of the 4-way system was controlled by the active subwoofer and PT informed me he had also changed the original setting of the cross-over point and bass output, he commented my slight reservations were really down to personal taste (this I don't fully endorse as I know what natural bass sounds like), the system clearly produced slightly less bass but it would not bother me too much as one can easily raise the cross-over point to 80hz and with a higher output, this I proceeded with quickly and repeatedly and the sound was much more my cup of tea afterwards.
To sum up, the 0.5 Beta is another step closer to live music playback as it is one of very very few super systems I have auditioned which can play music loud without compression (just like real music), the tonality is very real and natural (it produced metallic sound of triangle and cymbals and wooden texture of violin and cello with great degree of realism) and the dynamics are awesome. In the end, I have to persuade my very good other half to order an extra pair of speaker towers as my birthday present later this month (she bought me the Thales arm last year).
The Beta is for you. I have read your philosophy many time. I respect your spirit very much. The Alpha One will never have the ease that you are chasing after. A system needs tremendous speed to achieve this easing feeling. We don't wanna slow things down to achieve such relaxation or non-compression feeling. The integration of subwoofer is not too difficult for you to handle because you have tremendous experiences in listening to live concerts.
You have made the right choice. It seems I need to visit JLAM to listen to this Beta system as I have never seen you complimenting any system so far.
I can also see clearly the Wavac is not for you because it can't really produce distinct voices. The cymbals and the triangles that you mentioned below, the 833, will not be able to develop the harmonic structure especially at the upper octave. This is all because of the 9db gain in between the 80hz-200hz as measured by Stereophile many years ago - and the conclusion really boils down to "taste' in the bass region. I kind of like it for 15 months. But then I felt as though I only listen to certain kind of music all the time - opera, male voices, "mezzo soprano" but certainly not soprano. It is a fun amp. I had no complaints for what it did. It is just like the fundamentals of the amp cannot satisfy my needs as my maturity in music grows.
Comments
1. A 90 degree swing of the speakers to leverage the whole space with both living and dining places combined.
2. Beta 0.5 upgrade.
3. Syren Black Label
4. Master Reference cable in the Tripoint.
A mega speaker system which one cannot find their existence when music starts flowing out from this 4-pillar monster system. The change is transformational leaving no trace on my previous recollection of what PT's Alpha system sounds like. It is a utterly new and unchartered zone that I ever heard of. Partly it may be because of the breathing space is much bigger and more balanced (compared to his previous speaker positioning). The integration among the drivers in the main cabinets and the woofers is seamless and could fill the entire listening space with energy and ambience. Acoustics treatment needs to kick in to avoid trapping, echoing etc. This is the only area which I think PT is too busy to deal with but this has to be taken as a priority now because the sound quality is at its height over the many years. Whenever I thought this is it, there were breakthroughs. This time, the breakthrough is like the record high of property price HKD60K/sq ft shooting far higher than the last benchmark.
I used Syren before and this Syren Black Label is, again, a totally different breed except the chasis. If Syren is a 18-year old athelet full of adventurous spirit, Syren BL is a 22-year old athelet with much more maturity, experience but yet the 'explosive' factor is still at its height with a more accurate outburst of energy whenever it is demanded rather than spending any excessive strength which I felt when using Syren, still recalling the more attractive leading edges pointed out by Srajan in his HK tour 3 years ago (well, time flies, wonder when Srajan will come again...). The heartbeats went faster when we continued to spin different types of CD on the Zanden 2500 player, I am stunned by the improvements made in the ingredients inside which have made Syren disappeared in terms of causing any compression, degradation to the signal passing through! How can music be flowing out at such a great ease, floating with scale and weight but interacting with each other harmonously. We listened to Hilary Hanns violin & piano sonata...rhythm of violin and piano can be heard distinctively but yet the communication and interaction between the two is so vivid but intimate. Now I understand more about when people said they are touched by the performers. I really felt like they were in that space which I and PT were both sitting in...
2 components with a transformational upgrade together with a 90degree shift of the soundstage into a 80% increase in the breathing space. These changes are enough to floor Marvel. What takes my last breath away was the replacement of the Master Reference cable back to the ordinary cable in the Tripoint connecting to the chasis of Tron Syren...PT said he would recommend his Tripoint customer to use the Master Reference cable on the preamp if they only buy one. My cable DNA said perhaps one more here and one more there.... The difference is subtle but not unnoticeable. Considering the compound effect, the improvement shoul not be small. For those who are still waiting for the installation of the Tripoint like me, I'd wait to get the first shock of basic package and then go for the MR later.
I asked PT to turn off the subwoofer for an understanding on what the sound would be...imagine you are wearing a suit with tie and you suddenly found yourself having the shirt removed. Sounds below a bit hallow and unnatural...we switched back within 20 seconds of playing the children choir CD which sounds like singing inside a cave without the subwoofer...
AC2 has arrived. One for me and one for PT...will report later but yesterday was enough shock for me....
Marvel
I was totally indulged in the vinyl world after the arrival of the AAS Gabriel. The match with Zanden phono is heavenly.
The swap from the silver signature ground wire to the master reference ground wire in my system yields "staggering" improvement on all attributes. It is balanced, hard to say what attribute is better by what percentage. (Never know how people can figure all these out by numbers anyway. I am just a dumbshit, maybe.) Could it be the fact that the improvement is all rounded that makes you to find the right words to describe them difficult? Subtle is not the right description. All I can share is very balanced, more relaxation, better control, and even richer tonality in the mid range and higher harmonic resolution in the basslines.
To confirm what I heard, I took it out and reconnected the silver signature to the Tidal Preos. Less than 2 minutes, I reconnected the master reference ground wire back to the Tidal Preos.
The Da Vinci turntable really caught the attention of my wife. She likes white color. The LP setup very nice. This Beta system sounds very smooth and coherent. I feel the integration of the subwoofer and the main speakers are seamless. I just feel I am listening to one big musical picture. The stage is very very wide. It was so live listening to Danny Summer in Concert. (I swear I have not experienced something like this before anywhere.)
This one box Zanden CD player seems can do so much. The demo of the Troy is very poisonous. Now I understand there is so many building blocks to the audio utopia. The Cessaro is really amazing. It sounds so natural.
I am a conscious audio buyer but of all the crazy stuff I experienced yesterday, I simply know I got to have a Tripoint Troy.
Before I left with my wife, one more demo was done. Unplugged the Zanden CDP from the Wavac power conditioner and listened again. I did not know the strange looking preamp and the cd player were sharing the wavac conditioner. I was confused about ground noises and ac noises.
Now, I am thinking whether should I get Wavac conditioner first or Tripoint first.
Thanks for a great experience. The Da Vinci turntable will be my next target.
Any comments or views are appreciated.
If we look amoung fellow audiophiles, how many of them pay regular visits to classical concerts to appreciate live performance and at the same time, to a certain or lesser extent, have an instant 'reality check' on the sound of his system. The point I'm trying to make is MOST systems do not sound remotely close to live sound, they sound hi-fi. For instance, a good hi-fi sound usually has the following attributes : wide soundstage, good imaging, real life 3-dimensionality, clean bass, details etc.
Comparing to live concert, in my experience, it only has very wide soundstage especially if the listener is sitting in the middle row and nothing of the abovementioned characteristics. One thing immediately apparant to your ears is the tonality of the sound of a group of instruments or individual instrument will have you completely bowed over because of its glorious sound, different instrument has its own DISTINCT voice and tonal texture, the massed strings have very lively and airy feel and intrument has continuity, texture and harmonic decay especially triangle. Another phenonmenon is the trenmendous dynamic and uncompressed sound of a large orchestra, on certain loud passage, if you are sitting within the first 10 rows, sound level pressure can easily exceed 100 dB without any stress to your ears.
The above attributes of a live concert are the driving force behind my endless endeavour to re-create something like this from home, my goal in domestic hi-fi playback is to achieve 50% of the experience I get when attending a live concert and I reckon I have done that. Whenever I visit fellow audiophile homes, although the sound from hi-fi perspective is good to excellent, my aural sensation always fail to achieve a climax as my hearing senses can differentiate it is very different to the live music.
Now back to the point I want to make, after attending the shoot out between the 2 Japanese made amplifiers last Sat., I went to PT's place yesterday to re-audition the Cessaro 0.5 Beta version as my first encounter was not 100% positive. When I entered the room, he was playing Dave Brubeck's cd recorded live, the sound was very real and lively, loud but devoid of the sound compression one usually would encounter in a domestic environment at such sound presssure level. The system this time was using the same power amp (the contoversial Takumi hybrid amp) PT used when this speaker system was first installed, the sound was vastly better than before. After playing my own CDs, I found the overall balance and tonalty were very natural and real especially when playing human voice and classical music, PT pointed to me the speaker placement had been changed together with the swapping of interconnects and power cords, the overall result was positive to put it mildly. My only minor qualms were in the bass reproduction due to the slightly lack of bass slam and weight, since the bass part of the 4-way system was controlled by the active subwoofer and PT informed me he had also changed the original setting of the cross-over point and bass output, he commented my slight reservations were really down to personal taste (this I don't fully endorse as I know what natural bass sounds like), the system clearly produced slightly less bass but it would not bother me too much as one can easily raise the cross-over point to 80hz and with a higher output, this I proceeded with quickly and repeatedly and the sound was much more my cup of tea afterwards.
To sum up, the 0.5 Beta is another step closer to live music playback as it is one of very very few super systems I have auditioned which can play music loud without compression (just like real music), the tonality is very real and natural (it produced metallic sound of triangle and cymbals and wooden texture of violin and cello with great degree of realism) and the dynamics are awesome. In the end, I have to persuade my very good other half to order an extra pair of speaker towers as my birthday present later this month (she bought me the Thales arm last year).
Mr Zanden
The Beta is for you. I have read your philosophy many time. I respect your spirit very much. The Alpha One will never have the ease that you are chasing after. A system needs tremendous speed to achieve this easing feeling. We don't wanna slow things down to achieve such relaxation or non-compression feeling. The integration of subwoofer is not too difficult for you to handle because you have tremendous experiences in listening to live concerts.
You have made the right choice. It seems I need to visit JLAM to listen to this Beta system as I have never seen you complimenting any system so far.