Integrated amp for my Sonus Faber Guarneri

Thank you Loydelee21 for taking so much time, and your consideration and thought on this very big issue with me. I really appreciate this.

Today I invited my old friend who is a Julliard graduate, ex-player for the NY Phil, and now 1st cello in the symphony of the city I live in now in Japan. I would say his ears are pretty good. :) When he arrived, I had a Shostakovich string quartet playing, and before he even entered the room the Gs are in, having heard a few notes, he announced that they are good speakers. He is a critical person when it comes to classical music, as you can imagine, and would not say such a thing meaninglessly. Without listening to genres other than string quartets, he decided that the Gs were best for that area and he guessed he would not enjoy listening to them with, for example, Talking Heads live in concert bootleg uploads on youtube... ahem...Anyways, the first few seconds he was listening to the speakers, but soon afterwords he was listening to the musicians and their music.

After about an hour of listening (and eating the many delicious bribes wifey prepared), with some comparison to the Yamahas (very little, actually, as he had heard them before at my house and knew their character already), his suggestion was that I keep the Gs and use them to study the chamber music of the great composers with, as he claims it is through chamber music that they experimented with their ideas, and once I get better educated in that area we could discuss those areas of interest better.

However, he was also convinced of the Gs being great over a very narrow range, a range more important to him than to me. He did not know about Sonus Faber, and had no biases, and thought they were remarkably good, but suggested I borrow a pair of Rogers LS3/5 from our friend the oboe player and try them side-by-side, because he thinks they are also quite pleasant for chamber music but without the "cluttered extra trappings of Italian fashion overkill all over them."

He then brought one of his cellos into my house from his car, and began to play various bits by Dvorak, Shostokovich, Bach, and on and on...with the result of shockingly awakening me from imagining that the Gs somehow sound "real." Side by side with a live cello in a small room, the difference is so vast that I have to change my idea of what stereo is, and appreciate the Gs, as you said, from a different perspective.

By the way, he plays a real Guarneri cello, owned by the symphony, at concerts, and said its character is having a weak bass, and the mids and highs are tied together more than with most cellos - sounds very familiar, eh? - intentional voicing in the Gs by SF designers?

Having these Gs in my home right now is certainly an interesting exploration.

About my system:

Source: iMac playing flac or wav files via Toslink to iDecco DAC output to integrated amps: Luxman L-507, L-309 (both starting from 1973), L-550 (1983), or McIntosh MA6800 (all amps SS). Belden Studio 497 Mk2 speaker cables.

My Gs are about 2 m apart, toed-in a bit, and my seat is at the apex of a triangle formed with their separation as a base.

I know this is a low-to-mid-fy system and inadequate to show what the Gs can do, but I think it does tell me in relative terms at least where the strengths of the Gs lie in the spectrum of musical genre in terms of my own taste, and that the Gs for me are exquisitely superior for small acoustic groups but inferior to my lesser speakers for most other genres.

Deaf_in_left_eye, I think that as I have said before, you are simply NOT hearing the GH's for what they can do.
As we talked about before, the other equipment that you are using is just not in the same league as the GH's! What you are now listening to, is not in fact really the GH's doing there thing, BUT the true sound of other gear.
It may seem hard to fathom this, but the GH's are truly dependent on what is fed to them upstream. I can well understand your preference for the Yamaha's since they are far more in synergy with your other equipment. I really think that you are attributing various attributes to the GH's that are in fact not their fault at all.
For instance, in my system they have a VERY wide and deep stage that allows all the musicians to be in their own space with plenty of air around them. The reproduction of human voices and strings of all kinds is IMHO as close to real as any speaker I have heard. ( I have owned 'stats',planars, and many other speakers over the many years).
It seems to me a real pity that you are coming to these conclusions with out the benefit of truly hearing what these speakers can do.
If I can give you an analogy; it would be like this: You just bought a Ferrari and you are using diesel gas in the tank... Not only does it not run well, BUT you cannot even out accelerate your Honda Accord. Therefore, you feel that the Honda is a quicker and better car!

D-I-L-Eye,

Sounds like you've made a lot of progress in your assessment! I would agree with your assessment, with some minor additional things you may wish to try. First, your assessment:

- yes, chamber music will be very good, jazz ensembles
- yes, this is a small speaker...it will not reproduce anywhere near live. in fact, if it helps you at all, i have not heard a speaker that comes close to live
- the power of a live instrument is sometimes very shocking to people when they actually compare side by side. however, what you will find in reproduced music is 2 things: variety of music from amazing artists you cannot have in your home, and sometimes a microscopic view of the music playing (which you cannot get in a concert sitting 150 feet away)

As for the Gs and possible "tweaks":

- Greater toe-in can sometimes "concentrate" the sound to give more impact...play around. toe-in such that you cannot see the sides of either speaker from your main seated position. you may have set them up perfectly already...obviously i cannot say.

- How far from the back wall? how you set up the speakers relative to the back wall will have an impact on bass quality and quantity

- Sub...i know, i know...more money. but i used to run the G's with a Velodyne Sub, and it make quite a difference. In my room, i had the sub cut off around 40-45hz, and it not only gave me bass...it added an overall larger soundstage and fullness of sound.

- if you can possibly "squeeze" it...budget wise and also room wise, its worth a shot. Subs are very, very difficult to tune into a system as demanding as the G's, but when dialed-in properly, you may get the best of both worlds...wonderful chamber music, life, organic human vocals...with the fullness for "Talking Heads bootlegs".

Just mho. good luck and best wishes,

D-I-L-Eye,

Depending on your budget/desire to maximize the output of the Gs, i can say that i found a dramatic change when i switched speaker cables. i used to use Audioquest Crystal from the early '90s. i then bought a pair of very old, used Transparent REference cable...holy smokes, big difference. not a subwoofer, but i was surprised at how much more full it was. i do not know Belden, so i cannot say how good/not good Transp Ref might be...just another thought. good luck.