This also shows the power of Tidal impressing many of us even half handedly. I experienced the same when the midrange driver of one channel of PT's Cessaro Alpha was out of order but yet no one noticed it...
I will visit his showroom again tomorrow...prepared to be shocked.
Pity that you are travelling so often, the more % of time that you are on the plane, the shorter the period that you would likely be staying on the ground and that would mean for some fce to face meetings that demand you to travel, you can actually replace them with high quality video conference....that is what we are providing to senior executives like Mike and Sandy....next time if you want to meet them, try to book a Cisco Telepresence session with them...
I was the lucky one then. I was there on Sunday afternoon together with some big boss from mainland China auditioning the entire system for 3 hours (after the fatal error was corrected - I did not know until I received PT email this morning).
I truly doubt if there is any system from other showroom that can come close to what I heard on Sunday. The demo of Spartan is just amazing. The entire system was plugged to the Spartan and yet the sound is vivid with tremendous micro motion details. The boss from China requested to play his GHOST DRUMs disc. His eyes were wide opened after the track plays a few seconds. Some other very experienced old folks from Thailand was speechless too. The big boss just bought it on the spot. After struggling for two days (I wasn't able to turn on mine after returning to Beijing on Monday evening), I bite the bullet today.
For those you had been experiencing the "sound of confusion" from this system should go again because the very error PT did was no different from "committing suicide". I was told two pairs of mono block will arrive soon to drive the bass, and that will be another level.
I hope not. He's a passionate and knowledgeable man, well-read on all fronts. I flew to HK to attend the HK Hi End show with disappointment. Other than the Ktena speakers designed by Franco Serblin in the Excel room and the TAD room, it was just a big sales function. It's fine if some can demonstrate serious stuff with proper knowledge as backup. I don't blame PT's mistake because that is a huge system. I also had no clue about active crossover and bi-amping etc.... He was relieved so much on Sunday afternoon compared to previous phone conversations with him saying he is not happy with the overall quality but had not clue why until the savior - Uncle Ray appeared.
This attitude makes a whole world of difference between AE and others..... He even shares his "fatal faults" with all of us, presumably. The 3 hours on Sunday was well spent, I didn't want to leave even at 7pm, and so were other folks.
I went to AE’s showroom again last night after PT has made several changes to his system including the rectification on the external cross-over, speaker positioning, adoption of the Tidal super phono built in as part of their flagship preamp, adding of the Spartan (a mega power distributor by Tripoint for those who are not familiar with this product) and a pair of Impact monoblock replacing the Impact Stereo thus making a bi-monoblock configuration. Total sum is more or less enough to buy a nice 2 bedroom apartment in Hongkong Island even at this crazy property price surge in HK. Anyway, $$ value is not important and does not normally in proportion to the performance of the overall system in many of the setups that I have listened to…
Last night’s experience to me is that Tidal is the only system that I have ever listened to with an absolute transparency and close to live musical coherence. It can deliver a musical image just mirroring on what the original recording was, whether it is a near or far mic recording, live recording in a concert hall, in a church…it just recreates the environment in front of me. If one imagines a musical picture is a jigsaw puzzle, some speakers may create a picture with some missing pieces and / or have some overlapping or non-matching pieces lying here or there. To me, whether it is the Sunray in PT’s showroom or the Contriva Diacera SE in my system, the jigsaw puzzle is complete and every pieces fits in with each other seamlessly. How can I verify this? Is there any broken or overlapping soundstage on orchestral music? Does the music flow from high to low smooth enough when playing violin? Does the transient traverse fast from slow and slow from fast in a natural way on vocals? Is the harmonic decay produced completely on a piano key stroke dove tailing nicely to another key stroke without being broken? In the Tidal system that I heard last night, I could hardly spot out anything like this. Also, the more I listen to Tidal, the more I realise that they are not aiming to seduce you with some coloration or sweetening on certain frequency range, to stun you on some impactful punch sound effect, to over engulf you to create a forceful presence...it is all about presenting back the original recording environment in the most articulated and natural way letting the original rhythm and tempo of the music to guide you on the intended musical journey. Obviously this cannot happen without a competent source and room acoustics treatment which need no further introduction for those who follow closely on PT’s showroom development.
Having said that, PT also demonstrated one thing to my other buddies who came along last night. He disconnected and connected the Orpheus Prestige SACD player (acting as a CD transport) onto the Spartan when playing a vocal CD. May be they can share a bit more in this forum on how they feel. Even though I am a current user of Spartan, I do not always AB compare the with and without scenario. In the small demo last night, PT only chose only the CD transport with all his other 4 monoblocks, preamp, turntable, DAC, x-over….still connected to the Spartan. Yet, the difference is not subtle. How much noise are we confused with the actual ambience and air of the recording that we used to evaluate a system? Few weeks back, when PT has not installed the Spartan in his showroom, I was talking to him wondering the minute and perhaps limited difference that Spartan can introduce given his acoustics treatment, powered by SMREE conductors, etc etc….now I realize under such extremely transparent system, Spartan can really take away the last film and blockage to unveal the true fidelity instead of hi-fidelity!! Do I experience any compression or coloration with the holy 4-monoblocks, 3-storey preamp, power amp consumption like Vekian DAC, etc etc…absolutely NOT. To me, this is a statement product far far ahead of the curve from any other products in the market of this category. I am yet a serious listener like Mr. Zanden, Raymond sir, PTsang, DSo, but I am absolutely clear that this is an essential component rather than a nice looking coffee table like accessory.
Thanks for PT and Marvel's arrangement I had the opportunity to visit AE showroom last evening. The room is not large nor small compared with other hi fi show room but the decoration made me feel very comfortable. The wall and ceiling are treated and the material is very home friendly.
Sound wise, as all AE big brothers commented, it's simply great. PT played a LP of piano music and it is so real just like I seat in the first row of a small jazz hall, although I don't quite like the way nocturne is played by the pianist.
The demonstration of spartan is such an eye-opening experience to me. To me, the music is much more natural with spartan. This demonstration is not only the show case of Spartan, but also totally reflects the transparency of the whole system - even a small change in power support of the transport can be clearly communicated to the listeners, surperb!
I visited the show room with Marvel big bro and small potato. Just the visiting time was too short for me to appreciate all the exotic stuff there. Perhaps I don't need to say any further on the tidal system. It is just transparent, that's it. No wonder PT keep on saying one of his customers keeps on saying "tar ma dig (chinese version of fxxking), how can it be so transparent?"
What I want to say is the magic of Spartan which PT demonstrated to us using less than 5 minutes time -- simply just unplug and plug the power of CD transport and make A-B comparison.
I have heard of Spartan for a long time but this is the first time I really listen to it. The effect of Spartan is just so obvious. Supposingly, the CD transport uses the least power. However, when the CD transport is connected to the Spartan, the outcome is so dramatically changed. The most obvious is that the soundstage became much wider. Subtleties and details of the music were more "visible".
One more amazing thing on Spartan. Basically, all the components in the AE showroom are connected to it. This include four mono block power amp. However, there is not any trace of compression for the entire frequency range, from treble to bass. There is not any loss of control or degrade in any aspect by connecting to Spartan. Really thumb up for it!
The only "drawback" of Spartan is perhaps the price =P
I will arrange with PT later for visiting the AE showroom for a longer period.
I know you are a perfectionist at heart, so does PT, so both of us know you will have Spartan with you...start to save up $$ and you will be there soon....
PT told me, if you had not visited him yesterday and spent 4 hours to do the fine tuning of speaker positions with your rich musical knowledge through you acquainted LP, my listening experience could not have so rewarding.
I am not an expert like Uncle Raymond and other fellows here but I felt the current speaker positioning coupled to the room very well. I played all kind of recordings today and was impressed by every single one of them. PT told me that the "enveloping" experience was simply "NOT" there before yesterday. And I thought such immediate presence can only achieved by high efficiency speakers, this particular setup of solid state/silver cables sounds nothing like what they intuitively suggests. It is simply outpouring music all over.
Since the demonstration of Spartan is such a big fun, so today I asked PT to disconnected the 2 pairs of mono blocks and connected directly to the wall behind with 100 meters of FMR conductors. Before he dropped the needles, he asked me a question, "Do you think you can tolerate 1 minute?" The result is probably about 20 seconds I told him to stop and reconnected them to the Spartan. All the dynamics come back. When the mono blocks are drawing directly to the wall, I felt there is tremendous amount of noises across the whole frequency band. Not only that, I specifically concentrated on the elasticity of the piano keyboards on the bass session. With the Spartan, the bass key simply "springs" up and down with elasticity; absent the Spartan, everything has become discreet like 0 and 1. The straight forwardness is obviously not the original intention of Horowitz. Even at the thunderous episode, the bass harmonic decays is simply stunning developing from lower mid bass all the way to the bass.... Without the Spartan, the progressive development of the bass development is CUT SHORT - and seems to sound faster but all the harmonic decays of the bass are completely gone. It is very clear to me what means music and what means not.
PT said he and most AE fellows are not happy about the performance before he rectified the "biggest mistake of his audio life". I am the lucky one because the rewarding experience today would be gone if guys like Marvel and Alecy had not given further hints to PT to improve this mega system.
My intention today is to shop for my Xmas present (It is 4 months away but I do need to save). The choice is clear - the Spartan. I agree with Marvel, it is a must own item if you are serious about hi end audio.
It was a very insightful and fun Saturday afternoon to me as well. Not knowing quite what to expect, I came with the intention to re-calibrate my own Richter scale.
My first impression is the quietness of the room – acoustically very pleasing – and something that is extremely difficult to achieve unless one has a dedicated room of critical size and the craziness to turn it into a cocoon. I was no musician nor a high hand so PT & I just settled to listen to a couple of CDs (玉置浩二) and LPs (Pires, Szeryng and Collegium Aurem). The Spartan is noteworthy and the LHS wall reflection is addressed. All the while, however, I felt the color (chromatism) of the music been filtered down behind the concrete beam (just in front of the listening position) which destroys the completeness of the playback. The music carried on but PT and I both sat quietly and I sensed we both felt that the presentation, despite all the shinings, are still substantially below the capability of the entire set up.
Something is missing and I know it is not coming from the Tidal because in my junior system, I can feel the flow of music even though the bottom octave is missing. It surely can not have been the room or the infrastructure as no way it can be inferior to my small listening room with all the associated shortcomings. However, as a Tidal user for a year now, I had played around with speaker positioning and the results could be quite dramatic – the readers should take note that I am NOT saying it is a Herculean task to fine tune the position. I actually enjoyed the process because the transparency of the system makes fine tuning a rewarding experience with calibration accuracy. Since the Sunray also have backfiring ports similar to my PD, and I know as a fact that the distance away from the back wall will have a determining importance on the fluidity of the music, we pulled the Sunray out by about 2-3 inches without toe-in.
We spinned the same LP and immediately re-discovered the passion that drives all these craziness. The scale, the completeness and integration of the entire space tears apart all schools of playback philosophies. Goodness can only be felt and not defined. I honestly was lost in terms of the potential of dreamable possibilities. But the sound we have on Saturday afternoon now justifiably deserves the dollar investment. If any of the high hands think you have heard or achieved what is believed to be statement, now is the time to revisit your conviction.
I am considering to change camp, probably at the end of the year or early next year. I will revisit the big Tidal and audition the mega Cessaro Beta.
Make sure everything is connected correctly. My time is extremely limited. Please try to remove the turntable away from the center position. My reference will be CD, not LP. There are too many parameters affected the vinyl including temperature.
I will have my secretary pen down the date soon.
By the way, Alecy, good to see you back in action. When are you going to write something more exquisite for us?
This is the first time I am managing a big system in a big room (compared to my past experiences). There are many parameters that I would to get it right before venturing into other issues.
VR - you are right that I am considering to disconnect the VINYL section completely because the present position of the Gabriel is acting as a diffusor; but then I have another two at the back.
There is so much more to be done especially with respect to the adjustment of the active crossover in relation to the room acoustics. Over the past few weeks, I have listened to many different opinions coming from a diverse background and subjective listening experience. I took all the opinions seriously.
Somehow, I felt losing focus lately as opinions start diverging. I need to digest, solve problems step by step. I must keep an analytical mindset to tackle different issues step by step.
The basic configuration/connection of the entire system was only "correct" for less than two weeks. The 2nd pair of mono blocks just arrived last week. Many parameters are developing.
I am as hurry as all of you but I do need time to reach the sacred zone, which my heart knows it is not there yet.
Comments
This also shows the power of Tidal impressing many of us even half handedly. I experienced the same when the midrange driver of one channel of PT's Cessaro Alpha was out of order but yet no one noticed it...
I will visit his showroom again tomorrow...prepared to be shocked.
Pity that you are travelling so often, the more % of time that you are on the plane, the shorter the period that you would likely be staying on the ground and that would mean for some fce to face meetings that demand you to travel, you can actually replace them with high quality video conference....that is what we are providing to senior executives like Mike and Sandy....next time if you want to meet them, try to book a Cisco Telepresence session with them...
Marvel
I truly doubt if there is any system from other showroom that can come close to what I heard on Sunday. The demo of Spartan is just amazing. The entire system was plugged to the Spartan and yet the sound is vivid with tremendous micro motion details. The boss from China requested to play his GHOST DRUMs disc. His eyes were wide opened after the track plays a few seconds. Some other very experienced old folks from Thailand was speechless too. The big boss just bought it on the spot. After struggling for two days (I wasn't able to turn on mine after returning to Beijing on Monday evening), I bite the bullet today.
For those you had been experiencing the "sound of confusion" from this system should go again because the very error PT did was no different from "committing suicide". I was told two pairs of mono block will arrive soon to drive the bass, and that will be another level.
This attitude makes a whole world of difference between AE and others..... He even shares his "fatal faults" with all of us, presumably. The 3 hours on Sunday was well spent, I didn't want to leave even at 7pm, and so were other folks.
Last night’s experience to me is that Tidal is the only system that I have ever listened to with an absolute transparency and close to live musical coherence. It can deliver a musical image just mirroring on what the original recording was, whether it is a near or far mic recording, live recording in a concert hall, in a church…it just recreates the environment in front of me. If one imagines a musical picture is a jigsaw puzzle, some speakers may create a picture with some missing pieces and / or have some overlapping or non-matching pieces lying here or there. To me, whether it is the Sunray in PT’s showroom or the Contriva Diacera SE in my system, the jigsaw puzzle is complete and every pieces fits in with each other seamlessly. How can I verify this? Is there any broken or overlapping soundstage on orchestral music? Does the music flow from high to low smooth enough when playing violin? Does the transient traverse fast from slow and slow from fast in a natural way on vocals? Is the harmonic decay produced completely on a piano key stroke dove tailing nicely to another key stroke without being broken? In the Tidal system that I heard last night, I could hardly spot out anything like this. Also, the more I listen to Tidal, the more I realise that they are not aiming to seduce you with some coloration or sweetening on certain frequency range, to stun you on some impactful punch sound effect, to over engulf you to create a forceful presence...it is all about presenting back the original recording environment in the most articulated and natural way letting the original rhythm and tempo of the music to guide you on the intended musical journey. Obviously this cannot happen without a competent source and room acoustics treatment which need no further introduction for those who follow closely on PT’s showroom development.
Having said that, PT also demonstrated one thing to my other buddies who came along last night. He disconnected and connected the Orpheus Prestige SACD player (acting as a CD transport) onto the Spartan when playing a vocal CD. May be they can share a bit more in this forum on how they feel. Even though I am a current user of Spartan, I do not always AB compare the with and without scenario. In the small demo last night, PT only chose only the CD transport with all his other 4 monoblocks, preamp, turntable, DAC, x-over….still connected to the Spartan. Yet, the difference is not subtle. How much noise are we confused with the actual ambience and air of the recording that we used to evaluate a system? Few weeks back, when PT has not installed the Spartan in his showroom, I was talking to him wondering the minute and perhaps limited difference that Spartan can introduce given his acoustics treatment, powered by SMREE conductors, etc etc….now I realize under such extremely transparent system, Spartan can really take away the last film and blockage to unveal the true fidelity instead of hi-fidelity!! Do I experience any compression or coloration with the holy 4-monoblocks, 3-storey preamp, power amp consumption like Vekian DAC, etc etc…absolutely NOT. To me, this is a statement product far far ahead of the curve from any other products in the market of this category. I am yet a serious listener like Mr. Zanden, Raymond sir, PTsang, DSo, but I am absolutely clear that this is an essential component rather than a nice looking coffee table like accessory.
Marvel
If PT's Tidal flagship is a Leica M9, my mini-system is at best a Lomo.
Sound wise, as all AE big brothers commented, it's simply great. PT played a LP of piano music and it is so real just like I seat in the first row of a small jazz hall, although I don't quite like the way nocturne is played by the pianist.
The demonstration of spartan is such an eye-opening experience to me. To me, the music is much more natural with spartan. This demonstration is not only the show case of Spartan, but also totally reflects the transparency of the whole system - even a small change in power support of the transport can be clearly communicated to the listeners, surperb!
What I want to say is the magic of Spartan which PT demonstrated to us using less than 5 minutes time -- simply just unplug and plug the power of CD transport and make A-B comparison.
I have heard of Spartan for a long time but this is the first time I really listen to it. The effect of Spartan is just so obvious. Supposingly, the CD transport uses the least power. However, when the CD transport is connected to the Spartan, the outcome is so dramatically changed. The most obvious is that the soundstage became much wider. Subtleties and details of the music were more "visible".
One more amazing thing on Spartan. Basically, all the components in the AE showroom are connected to it. This include four mono block power amp. However, there is not any trace of compression for the entire frequency range, from treble to bass. There is not any loss of control or degrade in any aspect by connecting to Spartan. Really thumb up for it!
The only "drawback" of Spartan is perhaps the price =P
I will arrange with PT later for visiting the AE showroom for a longer period.
I know you are a perfectionist at heart, so does PT, so both of us know you will have Spartan with you...start to save up $$ and you will be there soon....
Marvel
PT told me, if you had not visited him yesterday and spent 4 hours to do the fine tuning of speaker positions with your rich musical knowledge through you acquainted LP, my listening experience could not have so rewarding.
I am not an expert like Uncle Raymond and other fellows here but I felt the current speaker positioning coupled to the room very well. I played all kind of recordings today and was impressed by every single one of them. PT told me that the "enveloping" experience was simply "NOT" there before yesterday. And I thought such immediate presence can only achieved by high efficiency speakers, this particular setup of solid state/silver cables sounds nothing like what they intuitively suggests. It is simply outpouring music all over.
Since the demonstration of Spartan is such a big fun, so today I asked PT to disconnected the 2 pairs of mono blocks and connected directly to the wall behind with 100 meters of FMR conductors. Before he dropped the needles, he asked me a question, "Do you think you can tolerate 1 minute?" The result is probably about 20 seconds I told him to stop and reconnected them to the Spartan. All the dynamics come back. When the mono blocks are drawing directly to the wall, I felt there is tremendous amount of noises across the whole frequency band. Not only that, I specifically concentrated on the elasticity of the piano keyboards on the bass session. With the Spartan, the bass key simply "springs" up and down with elasticity; absent the Spartan, everything has become discreet like 0 and 1. The straight forwardness is obviously not the original intention of Horowitz. Even at the thunderous episode, the bass harmonic decays is simply stunning developing from lower mid bass all the way to the bass.... Without the Spartan, the progressive development of the bass development is CUT SHORT - and seems to sound faster but all the harmonic decays of the bass are completely gone. It is very clear to me what means music and what means not.
PT said he and most AE fellows are not happy about the performance before he rectified the "biggest mistake of his audio life". I am the lucky one because the rewarding experience today would be gone if guys like Marvel and Alecy had not given further hints to PT to improve this mega system.
My intention today is to shop for my Xmas present (It is 4 months away but I do need to save). The choice is clear - the Spartan. I agree with Marvel, it is a must own item if you are serious about hi end audio.
Puyi
若时间多, 我也会到演奏厅感受一下世界有名的乐队现场演奏, 我可肯定的是现场的低频表现和家里的系统是相反, 现场的低频速度和爆发力并重. 我的系统尤如一支重型机枪伏在地上连环发炮, 就连唐山再一次地震也动不创它. 此种感觉在于上海友人另一套超级胆机Wavac 833配Kharma大喇叭更为显著. 老实说, 低音毫无一丝活生感, 缺乏层次和速度, 只有种在地上的爆发力. 我的FM1811功放也是走此方向, 只不过是高频泛音较多更为华丽.
国内超级发烧友常说FM是最贵的晶体机, Kondo是最贵的胆机, 是钱能买到最好的音响. 我花上数百万元并不是什么大问题, 但这些真的是最好吗? 那为什么那个钢琴在御品音响的真实感我拍马也追不上, 那些从来十分难听的意大利歌剧又为何播得如此悦耳, 整队乐团和人声给我一种和谐融合的感觉.
最令我震憾是那个漂亮的电源处埋 (Spartan), 定音鼓在乐队最后排一方开始爆发, 从鼓眼点清楚发声致鼓皮泛音散出致四周, 整个过程和现场十分相似. 若把功放拔出, 整个定音鼓的位置完全错了, 好像是放了在前排和弦乐组混成一堆. 真的令我心服口服.
梁先生的专业与热诚令我敬佩. 这十年来看着香江在多方面不停退步. 尤其是音响业, 一般知识和服务水平低, 令我常常担心有被骗的介心, 所选购的唯有跟风. 钱花了, 但又缺乏教育, 不停只说最贵就等同最好.
在下感激上了醒觉的一刻课
乒乓
八月十六日
It was a very insightful and fun Saturday afternoon to me as well. Not knowing quite what to expect, I came with the intention to re-calibrate my own Richter scale.
My first impression is the quietness of the room – acoustically very pleasing – and something that is extremely difficult to achieve unless one has a dedicated room of critical size and the craziness to turn it into a cocoon. I was no musician nor a high hand so PT & I just settled to listen to a couple of CDs (玉置浩二) and LPs (Pires, Szeryng and Collegium Aurem). The Spartan is noteworthy and the LHS wall reflection is addressed. All the while, however, I felt the color (chromatism) of the music been filtered down behind the concrete beam (just in front of the listening position) which destroys the completeness of the playback. The music carried on but PT and I both sat quietly and I sensed we both felt that the presentation, despite all the shinings, are still substantially below the capability of the entire set up.
Something is missing and I know it is not coming from the Tidal because in my junior system, I can feel the flow of music even though the bottom octave is missing. It surely can not have been the room or the infrastructure as no way it can be inferior to my small listening room with all the associated shortcomings. However, as a Tidal user for a year now, I had played around with speaker positioning and the results could be quite dramatic – the readers should take note that I am NOT saying it is a Herculean task to fine tune the position. I actually enjoyed the process because the transparency of the system makes fine tuning a rewarding experience with calibration accuracy. Since the Sunray also have backfiring ports similar to my PD, and I know as a fact that the distance away from the back wall will have a determining importance on the fluidity of the music, we pulled the Sunray out by about 2-3 inches without toe-in.
We spinned the same LP and immediately re-discovered the passion that drives all these craziness. The scale, the completeness and integration of the entire space tears apart all schools of playback philosophies. Goodness can only be felt and not defined. I honestly was lost in terms of the potential of dreamable possibilities. But the sound we have on Saturday afternoon now justifiably deserves the dollar investment. If any of the high hands think you have heard or achieved what is believed to be statement, now is the time to revisit your conviction.
A job very well done, PT!
Make sure everything is connected correctly. My time is extremely limited. Please try to remove the turntable away from the center position. My reference will be CD, not LP. There are too many parameters affected the vinyl including temperature.
I will have my secretary pen down the date soon.
By the way, Alecy, good to see you back in action. When are you going to write something more exquisite for us?
This is the first time I am managing a big system in a big room (compared to my past experiences). There are many parameters that I would to get it right before venturing into other issues.
VR - you are right that I am considering to disconnect the VINYL section completely because the present position of the Gabriel is acting as a diffusor; but then I have another two at the back.
There is so much more to be done especially with respect to the adjustment of the active crossover in relation to the room acoustics. Over the past few weeks, I have listened to many different opinions coming from a diverse background and subjective listening experience. I took all the opinions seriously.
Somehow, I felt losing focus lately as opinions start diverging. I need to digest, solve problems step by step. I must keep an analytical mindset to tackle different issues step by step.
The basic configuration/connection of the entire system was only "correct" for less than two weeks. The 2nd pair of mono blocks just arrived last week. Many parameters are developing.
I am as hurry as all of you but I do need time to reach the sacred zone, which my heart knows it is not there yet.