Opinions on why this system is uninvolving

I am the original poster and I'd like to update you all on how things worked out becasue I have made a lot of changes. I have finally gotten the Revels to sound great. I still have the Hovland and I took BWhite's advice and kept the EAD transport. I bought an Audiomeca Ekianthus (also BWhite's suggestion) and that helped a lot. Then added Cardas Golden Cross speaker cables and Neutral Reference interconnects, which got things smoother. Traded the MFA amps and the Proceed amp for Bruce Moore Custom 225 monoblocks and that made the greatest difference. Now I can finally play the Revels as loud as they should be without fatigue, but by the same token I can play them at lower levels and not feel deprived. Vocals are now fantastic although perhaps not as great as on the Quad ESL 63/Gradient subwoofer combo I also bought but am thinking about selling. The Quads on many recordings are more intitmate (e.g., real sounding; timbres, trasnperency, liquidity, etc.) than anything I have ever heard, but then on some recordings they simply can't match the dynamism of the Revels. I have also experimented with a REL sub with the Revels which seems to work well, but I haven't had one long-term enough yet to tell if I really want it, or whether what I'm hearing is simply novelty.

In any event, I really appreciate everyone's help.

Znak_m, good to hear that you are pleased.

Per my original post near the top, I have found that the amplifier is the most critical component for so many sonic areas including 'involvement'.

Only because some to many amplifiers have some to many deficiencies that some to many simply overlook or are unaware of.

-IMO

Hi,

As a dealer we run into this all of the time. There is no doubt that room acoustics/components/speakers and their interactions certainly play a role. We've found though that most of the difficulty lies in the inherent problems in cable designs limiting the system's performance. That's why we have chosen Sahuaro Audio cables to finally solve this problem to our customer's delight. Sahuaro is a breakthrough product, based on "physics" rather then the traditional "electrical engineering" concepts, that allows components/speakers to reach their full potential. Although we represent many component and speaker lines we suggest starting with Sahuaro first. It will provide that natural and emotionally involving ultimate performance that we are all searching for and save you money in the long run. You might just find that your system is really every bit as good as you had hoped it would be.

Enjoy!
audiolon.com

Hi Rx6man - thank you very much I appreciate the kind words. Digital IS a big issue and right now I am personally going through sort of a revelation. I'll tell you about it but first I have to explain where I am coming from - as well as where I've been lately.

Pardon me while I ramble...

About 9 months ago, after trying almost every CD player I could get my hands on, I completely left digital in the dust (sold all digital gear) after I got my first analog rig - a simple Linn LP12.

Needless to say, the Linn gave me everything I hoped I would get from my digital devices & it took only seconds to realize that my perception of what "analog like" meant was way off base. Warmth is often considered to be a trait that makes a digital device seem "analog-like" but this is not necessarily true. A Shelter 901 on the Linn LP12 with a good clean recording will sound more high rez than either of the new High Resolution formats. Lets just say that after hearing the Linn in my system, it became immediately evident that digital devices were missing so much more than just "warmth". Analog has a certain completeness to it whereas everything is there... the entire venue... and CD seems to loose that information.

In retrospect, my earlier problems with digital were primarily a result of my comparing digital devices to digital devices. It became like Baskin Robbins, 31 flavors of digital... which one do I like today? Each have merit but.. none truly matched analog in any way whatsoever.

Then, I stumbled across the Meitner BiDat which is a cheap old DAC designed by Ed Meitner who is responsible for much of the technology behind SACD. BiDats have been around for a while and there are many iterations of the units since they have been modified since their inception. Today, these units are being supported and modified by John Wright. John's latest mods offer a complete transformation of the Bidat. John has taken the good, bad and the ugly mods of the past and refined these to produce a set of modifications which make the BiDat a world class DAC. John even incorporated some crazy, witch doctor type tweaks like black fingernail polish painted on some of the chips. Whatever works I guess.

The Bidat give you a sense of completeness and I do not know how or why, it just does. This is not something I can say for any other CD player I've ever tried. The BiDat doesn't have a flavor per se' it just plays music and to someone with ears that are used to the latest whiz-bang sonic signature, that lack of flavor in the BiDat may send you walking the other way. But.. for good listeners who are familiar with what I mean when I say COMPLETENESS and NATURAL SOUNDING, the BiDat is the answer.

Well that's where I am now. I have a simple BiDat which has been modified by John Wright. I am still tweaking with cables and trying to find a great reliable transport. An EAD T7000 I purchased recently arrived DOA from Canada so.. I'm still hunting for a good transport. Right now I am using a Sony S7000 DVD player and it seems to be an "okay" transport.. but I need better.

That said, the BiDat is SO close to vinyl it has turned my listening preference back to CD.

I've compared the BiDat to Linn, Oracle and SME20 turntables and the BiDat (strangely) competes with them all such that it becomes more a matter of vanity if I or my friends even keep our turntables.

The one weak spot of the BiDat seems to be with LARGE scale music - Mahler, for instance. The BiDat does not capture the scale at all it shrinks the venue and seems to compress that which should be enormous into a very tight and well defined, and not too dynamic space.

My potential solution for this is to run an SACD player as a transport (SA-14 Marantz) with the digital out going to the BiDat and Analog out going to the preamp. In my experience SACD seems to capture that largeness of scale, dynamic slam and impact better than CD and it certainly quieter than vinyl.

So perhaps the solution is - SACD transport + Sweet DAC.

Bwhite, you need to try some analog that is a little higher up the scale. Perhaps its time to re-discover that Teres project lurking in your garage. I, as you know, have spent 10 years with an LP12, and compared it to many Oracles, and am quite aware of their performance levels. The Teres 245 is a "whole 'nuther smoke" entirely. And there are tables that do even better than my Teres. That is when you will see the gap widen again, between analog and digital.

That said, I'm glad that you have discovered an improvement so profound as this BiDat. I think that Ed knows his stuff.

You're just a platter, bearing and motor kit away from a major improvement. You could have the distinction of having the first "hairy" Teres. :^) - (inside joke)

I think that when you start playing, you won't even notice anything but the sound. If you had something like a Verdier or a Walker or something like that, then I wouldn't make the suggestion, but I am keenly aware of how much difference there is between an LP12 or Oracle, and a Teres.