We don't have to worry about Marvel. We will soon see Spartan in his home.
What I want to share is a good friend of mine, Mr.Ng, whom Uncle Ray met in PT's home last week is an extremely strong ego person (I know him for many many years like brothers). Ever since he left PT's system, he started teasing me every 3 hours about a mega system in a small home outperforms mine by a wide wide margin. Like Uncle Ray, I have a full set of Tidal electronics serviced by the Troy and the AC2.
Privately, I asked Marvel many times about the overall performance of PT's system but his replies to me all focused on the Spartan.
It is not a matter of the ownership of Sunray. It is really an issue of how to maximize the potential of these high end tools for the service of music appreciation.
The Wavac AC-1 had been doing hell of a job cleaning up AC for my system for 3 years. I had no complaints. But technology evolves. The originality/genuity of the ideas behind the Spartan is something entirely new. I always approach new idea with a skeptical and yet curious mind.
We are all pretty confident about the performance of our system regardless of whatever critiques. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. But PT's system with the Spartan reaches a level that I have not experienced before and it is my own conclusion a lot of it is attributed to the upgrade of Alpha One to Beta. But the magic or the finishing touch so to speak will be gone without the Spartan even though the Beta itself is one hell of a super horn system. It is not about widening of soundstage. It is about completeness. A transformation experience that is so tranquil to bring peace and ease to your mind. It is not about highlighting details or enhancing dynamics to agitate our senses.
And this is what we are looking for. Until then, the precedessors though had come a long way to solve the problem of AC noises, are still far and away of the technology utilized inside the Spartan. whatever inside the furniture is not up to my rusted mind to understand scientifically. But my ears tell me it is unique.
Mr.Ng whom I met shortly is also a highly cricital listener. He had no idea of the components at all but he did comment during the audition, "Wow, eerything disappears into silence that is live." How can you describe silence?
Raymond,
Your comments about the Spartan is exactly what I feel,without the Spartan, I don't have the calm and silence feeling in PT's system.For so long I have complained/accused component capabilities,after listening to the Spartan,I know its the household electricity that I should blame, not the components.
DSo paid a visit to me yesterday. While all of you had been generous in complimenting my system, DSo had given me fair amount of constructive criticism within the first 90 minutes. His critiques are facts, not feelings. I respect his advices immensely.
Point 1.
Acoustics deficiency - the soundstage at the right hand side is not defined as the "corridor" sucks energy into it.
Point 2
The height of the drum is not clear. The sustain of the big drum seems to roll off too fast.
Point 3
He expects an active subwoofer with true horn loading to have more energy dispersion
Point 4
There is slight tightness in the lower mid bass region. In short, he feels the ease factor is not to his expectation of a system at this scale.
Solutions (we tried resolving them together and it was real fun)
A. I took out all the Sound Catherdral panels (a small board aims at cutting frequency below 40hz)
B. I reduced the subwoofer volume by 3 notches originally set by my father. As it is always the case, my father's skills are much better than mine. DSo also agrees to crank up the subwoofer volume by 3 notches to the original setting.
After these moves, the bass basically opens up the entire soundfield including the right channel which was relatively muted to the left channel. We thought it was the corridor. It turned out it is the Sound Cathedral bass cutting panel. The corridor however creates other problem. Later, DSo played the "1st drum" recording and we immediately discovered most of the standing waves located in the corridor.
Then he moved on to test his own CD. (He listened to all of my CDs in all kind of music before testing those brought by him.) He spotted the following problems:
1. The metallic sound of the saxphone is metallically muted. The cymbals do not exhibit the kind of sparkling expected from the TAD super tweeter.
2. Although the deep bass has substantially eased, he still feel something is holding up the lower mid-range.
Then, we did a final change (off the record) and all problems gone. Finally, he said to me "Now, it passes."
I enjoyed the session yesterday tremendously. I felt challenged in a constructive way because I know where my system is standing. But facts are facts that can't be argued. If there are problems, we have to tackle them with an open mind. That's how we can improve. Yesterday, the improvment was all done by "reduction". No new items were added.
DSo is particularly impressed by the tonality of the piano. It has a palpable quality of each tone springing from the keyboard. The whole piano's presence just stood in front without wavering. Even the "triangular shape of the piano body" could be felt easily. Voices in his view are impressive.
He felt the lower mid-range can be better. He advises me to try another amplifier. I don't want to do that for the time being. Because I am using fairly basic power cables in the system at the moment. Last night, I applied the Flow power cable to the Zanden 5000s dac, the improvement in the lower mid bass is phenomenoal. In comparison, the stock cable makes the lower mid region sounds relatively hollow. I was just using some stock cable with the Zanden dac all the time.
In the end, I just feel you have to use good stuff in every section.
Thanks. Today, even though all the DEEP BLUE DIFFUSORS were sold, I will take out the secret acoustic weapon SYLAN - 森之精靈 ( www.noe.co.jp )and put it in the corridor to see how it performs.
Later, I need Peter Tsang and other interested AE fellows' help again to determine the new speaker positioning after I widen the width in between the main speakers. idth But before I can do that, I need to pull the craze rack out to create enough room.
One thing I am pretty sure is all the problems we encountered yesterday had nothing to do with Spartan, the Spartan is really one hell of excellent product. It’s the only power conditioner I ever heard without any drawback, no compression or coloration. With Spartan, the sound becomes so transparent, neutral, detail and live, it reminds me of the Sunray.
I and Jlam tested the Sylvan (森之精靈) and put it at the mouth of the corridor that sucks energy away from the system together. It is where most of the standing waves are there as well.
The bass really ROARS now at a fix position. We can sense the bass moves air inside the recording.
The bass lines of the piano are now as solid as the real thing. Extremely stable.
I can only escape and come back to Shanghai asap. I just cant believe I could not stand for his system without connecting Takumi to Spartan for 1 min. Listening back to my own system last night helped a bit as the space and soundstage distracted me from the "orgnaic" touch expereinced in PT's system. I am pretty clear that I need the Spartan more urgent to the Black Label.
Marvel Bro, sorry that could not visit you thisk time. PT keep telling me your setup is much better then your old one. Will try to pop in next time.
Comments
My Wavac AC2 has not burnt in yet...a bit early to change to Spartan though it is lethal to do any comparison with it. How about you?
Marvel
昨午己落order la. 聽過ABAB比較邊有得返轉頭? 你自己都寫得一清二楚啦. Spartan抵玩好多, 乜都可插落去, 而且輕鬆自然.
What I want to share is a good friend of mine, Mr.Ng, whom Uncle Ray met in PT's home last week is an extremely strong ego person (I know him for many many years like brothers). Ever since he left PT's system, he started teasing me every 3 hours about a mega system in a small home outperforms mine by a wide wide margin. Like Uncle Ray, I have a full set of Tidal electronics serviced by the Troy and the AC2.
Privately, I asked Marvel many times about the overall performance of PT's system but his replies to me all focused on the Spartan.
That's the story behind.
Jeff
(Taipei)
It is not a matter of the ownership of Sunray. It is really an issue of how to maximize the potential of these high end tools for the service of music appreciation.
The Wavac AC-1 had been doing hell of a job cleaning up AC for my system for 3 years. I had no complaints. But technology evolves. The originality/genuity of the ideas behind the Spartan is something entirely new. I always approach new idea with a skeptical and yet curious mind.
We are all pretty confident about the performance of our system regardless of whatever critiques. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. But PT's system with the Spartan reaches a level that I have not experienced before and it is my own conclusion a lot of it is attributed to the upgrade of Alpha One to Beta. But the magic or the finishing touch so to speak will be gone without the Spartan even though the Beta itself is one hell of a super horn system. It is not about widening of soundstage. It is about completeness. A transformation experience that is so tranquil to bring peace and ease to your mind. It is not about highlighting details or enhancing dynamics to agitate our senses.
And this is what we are looking for. Until then, the precedessors though had come a long way to solve the problem of AC noises, are still far and away of the technology utilized inside the Spartan. whatever inside the furniture is not up to my rusted mind to understand scientifically. But my ears tell me it is unique.
Mr.Ng whom I met shortly is also a highly cricital listener. He had no idea of the components at all but he did comment during the audition, "Wow, eerything disappears into silence that is live." How can you describe silence?
With the Spartan, you can describe silence.
Your comments about the Spartan is exactly what I feel,without the Spartan, I don't have the calm and silence feeling in PT's system.For so long I have complained/accused component capabilities,after listening to the Spartan,I know its the household electricity that I should blame, not the components.
Point 1.
Acoustics deficiency - the soundstage at the right hand side is not defined as the "corridor" sucks energy into it.
Point 2
The height of the drum is not clear. The sustain of the big drum seems to roll off too fast.
Point 3
He expects an active subwoofer with true horn loading to have more energy dispersion
Point 4
There is slight tightness in the lower mid bass region. In short, he feels the ease factor is not to his expectation of a system at this scale.
Solutions (we tried resolving them together and it was real fun)
A. I took out all the Sound Catherdral panels (a small board aims at cutting frequency below 40hz)
B. I reduced the subwoofer volume by 3 notches originally set by my father. As it is always the case, my father's skills are much better than mine. DSo also agrees to crank up the subwoofer volume by 3 notches to the original setting.
After these moves, the bass basically opens up the entire soundfield including the right channel which was relatively muted to the left channel. We thought it was the corridor. It turned out it is the Sound Cathedral bass cutting panel. The corridor however creates other problem. Later, DSo played the "1st drum" recording and we immediately discovered most of the standing waves located in the corridor.
Then he moved on to test his own CD. (He listened to all of my CDs in all kind of music before testing those brought by him.) He spotted the following problems:
1. The metallic sound of the saxphone is metallically muted. The cymbals do not exhibit the kind of sparkling expected from the TAD super tweeter.
2. Although the deep bass has substantially eased, he still feel something is holding up the lower mid-range.
Then, we did a final change (off the record) and all problems gone. Finally, he said to me "Now, it passes."
I enjoyed the session yesterday tremendously. I felt challenged in a constructive way because I know where my system is standing. But facts are facts that can't be argued. If there are problems, we have to tackle them with an open mind. That's how we can improve. Yesterday, the improvment was all done by "reduction". No new items were added.
DSo is particularly impressed by the tonality of the piano. It has a palpable quality of each tone springing from the keyboard. The whole piano's presence just stood in front without wavering. Even the "triangular shape of the piano body" could be felt easily. Voices in his view are impressive.
He felt the lower mid-range can be better. He advises me to try another amplifier. I don't want to do that for the time being. Because I am using fairly basic power cables in the system at the moment. Last night, I applied the Flow power cable to the Zanden 5000s dac, the improvement in the lower mid bass is phenomenoal. In comparison, the stock cable makes the lower mid region sounds relatively hollow. I was just using some stock cable with the Zanden dac all the time.
In the end, I just feel you have to use good stuff in every section.
Thanks. Today, even though all the DEEP BLUE DIFFUSORS were sold, I will take out the secret acoustic weapon SYLAN - 森之精靈 ( www.noe.co.jp )and put it in the corridor to see how it performs.
Later, I need Peter Tsang and other interested AE fellows' help again to determine the new speaker positioning after I widen the width in between the main speakers. idth But before I can do that, I need to pull the craze rack out to create enough room.
The bass really ROARS now at a fix position. We can sense the bass moves air inside the recording.
The bass lines of the piano are now as solid as the real thing. Extremely stable.
Do anyone know if he can escape?
Marvel
Marvel Bro, sorry that could not visit you thisk time. PT keep telling me your setup is much better then your old one. Will try to pop in next time.