Wow Marvel bro, oh my god! You just can't fit the Tidal CDSE in a big apartment of yours anymore. 6db more on the output gain of Analog Domain amplifier is not kid's playground. You must feel like a caveman now. NO big deal, as the story goes, get a bigger pair of speaker. Or move the CD SE to your bedroom upstairs. That may be easier to handle. How come you have upgraded your apartment without a corresponding job on the speaker? Maybe, you need a home theatre subwoofer to boost the energy up????? Can anyone help?
Voy, you just spot on....now I am facing the challenge of insufficient energy to fill the room given the much bigger breathing space. A bigger pair of Tidal, Agoria, if not Sunray, is no doubt the answer and certainly in my radar for long. Before that happens, I still want to do something to improve the current situation which I may live with for quite some time.
I encounter this problem before when I firstly moved to Beijing. No matter what you do, you cannot change physics. Move the system to your bedroom, or get a bigger speaker. You waste a whole lot of your fine gears. What puzzles me is why you did not make a dedicated well thought out room as you have the luxury of space that normally people in HK is dying their whole lives for. If you have a perfect rectangular shape without any walls or structural stuff in between, you do have a freakingly great area for audio development. A well thought out plan should also integrate the system aesthetically with the living room.
Thanks for your advice WChow, I think things do work out well after the work by / with PT yesterday. Much of the hollow sound was originally created by my attempt to separate the speakers wider. Now I am hearing more 'direct sound' from it with a narrower gap in-between and fine adjustment on the toe-in angles.
The forum has been quiet for awhile. I like this discussion. Thanks Marvel again for bringing up such provocative case study of your room acoustics. This morning, I tried to increase the output gain of the Calysto to get a sense of your product. 6db increase in output gain is hell of a lot!!!!!! I had to turn it down immediately. Your big apartment just sucks so much energy. What about your ceilings?
But the design of Tidal speakers requires adequate reflection. This is the nature of the design. You should plan renovate your room later on if the assitance of PT and some other experts. Do not do it by yourself. You seem have no clue.
Uncle Ray, we are all clueness at some point in this journey. It is the spirit that counts. There are both physical and non-physical constraints imposed by the family too. It is real interesting for me to work on a system with an apartment of this size. I was clueness too. After 3 hours, I managed to improve the system tremendously despite the constraints.
Voy, I need to 'contain' the energy within a certain perimeter of my listeing area, so I will deploy a few refection boards particularly on the right hand side. I might change 1 or 2 cables to get a bit more weight on the bass spectrum but this may only help marginally as I don't want to engage with any heavily colorated cables with a fat bass....longer term solution is a bigger speaker to match with the room....
(1) & (2) in my original post below helped to boost up the energy ...
This is my try to write English. My son helped me. I write English because I want many people to know my feeling. First, I want to say Marvel and Big Boy Kei tell truth about the sound. I go to AE yesterday listen Jacky Cheung. I must say my feelings are so strong because I feel Jacky is real. It is truth real. It is so touch my feelings are truth strong. I think no other showroom can produce this level. And so marvel is telling every truth words. PT cannot say anything is also I understand.
The Artemis is a deceptive amplifier. If you judge by its looks you would assume it is an amp with power and control, and you will be right. Bass is superb. Soundstage is expansive. Every piece of music is handled with ease with much to spare. It delivers the grandeur of a symphony and then some more. The noise floor is incredibly low and makes live music especially enjoyable because you capture every detail.
What surprises me though is that the Artemis also handles delicates passages of music extremely well, be they female vocals or piano sonatas. Vocals are very detailed and hence carry a sense of immediacy and often sweetness. You do not find that in many big blocs. What you also do not find is any hint of the sound being over-analytical or dry. My experience with high-powered amps is that they can often produce great sounds but not great music. The Artemis is all great music.
Does the music produced by the Artemis sound like real, live music? Sorry, if we measure by that loft goal we are bound to be disappointed, as my recent visits to the Berlin Philharmonia and the Boston Symphony Hall tell me. On reflection I also would prefer the music to have a bit more the luxurious/glorious tone that amps like FM acoustics produce, although I am sure all of you in the Forum will say that is coloration. But as an overall package the Artemis is really excellent in every dimension and breaks new ground, and it stretches my horizons. In my view this is a must-hear, whether you are looking for an amp at this price range or not, and whether big solid-state amps are historically your cup of tea or not.
Having said that I am sure PT and JLam will bring out the Athene and the Apollo in due course, which will once again show that there are always better amps out there! But kudos to PT and JLam -- where and how could you find such great products that are so little known before?
cassph should be the new benchmark for AE now. All your beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes characterize your system. There is a more specific dimension to the Artemis. Motor Mimicry, if you play people music of happiness or sadness, they will smile or frown back. It doesn’t merely fall into aural harmony. Audience will mimic the music’s emotional state. This is what is meant in the technical sense, by empathy.
I am looking for an opportunity to visit your Hi End palace. I would like to listen to the luxurious/glorious tone of FM acoustics. Sure it could be a merit for FM….
Enjoy reading your nicely written review. We have similar taste. The Artemis is one hell of an amp. After analog domain, there aren't too many amplifiers out there that can be really claimed as "amplifiers". My days with FM were gone. They are truly great should one like the bespoke tonality backed up by immense power. Absent, however, are the delicate passages you highlighted.
Comments
Don't be a caveman.
But the design of Tidal speakers requires adequate reflection. This is the nature of the design. You should plan renovate your room later on if the assitance of PT and some other experts. Do not do it by yourself. You seem have no clue.
What are you going to do to fix the fundamental problem?
How did PT exactly help you to reap an tremendous improvement? Can he make some energy out of nowhere? I am curious to understand.
Other than that, congrat on a new apartment!
(1) & (2) in my original post below helped to boost up the energy ...
Any advice?
This is my try to write English. My son helped me. I write English because I want many people to know my feeling. First, I want to say Marvel and Big Boy Kei tell truth about the sound. I go to AE yesterday listen Jacky Cheung. I must say my feelings are so strong because I feel Jacky is real. It is truth real. It is so touch my feelings are truth strong. I think no other showroom can produce this level. And so marvel is telling every truth words. PT cannot say anything is also I understand.
Crazy!
What surprises me though is that the Artemis also handles delicates passages of music extremely well, be they female vocals or piano sonatas. Vocals are very detailed and hence carry a sense of immediacy and often sweetness. You do not find that in many big blocs. What you also do not find is any hint of the sound being over-analytical or dry. My experience with high-powered amps is that they can often produce great sounds but not great music. The Artemis is all great music.
Does the music produced by the Artemis sound like real, live music? Sorry, if we measure by that loft goal we are bound to be disappointed, as my recent visits to the Berlin Philharmonia and the Boston Symphony Hall tell me. On reflection I also would prefer the music to have a bit more the luxurious/glorious tone that amps like FM acoustics produce, although I am sure all of you in the Forum will say that is coloration. But as an overall package the Artemis is really excellent in every dimension and breaks new ground, and it stretches my horizons. In my view this is a must-hear, whether you are looking for an amp at this price range or not, and whether big solid-state amps are historically your cup of tea or not.
Having said that I am sure PT and JLam will bring out the Athene and the Apollo in due course, which will once again show that there are always better amps out there! But kudos to PT and JLam -- where and how could you find such great products that are so little known before?
I am looking for an opportunity to visit your Hi End palace. I would like to listen to the luxurious/glorious tone of FM acoustics. Sure it could be a merit for FM….
Thanks for your support
Enjoy reading your nicely written review. We have similar taste. The Artemis is one hell of an amp. After analog domain, there aren't too many amplifiers out there that can be really claimed as "amplifiers". My days with FM were gone. They are truly great should one like the bespoke tonality backed up by immense power. Absent, however, are the delicate passages you highlighted.