Thank you all for your kind and at times, humorous comments.
A lot of very good points and observations and I’m really liking the different perspective you all have.
Ghosthouse: very good point on the difference in recording quality. When I first hooked up Spotify I wandered around for awhile and then listened to a live recording of David Crosby singing "Somebody Home." It was beyond good. The first 30 second were so real it was unnerving. Other recordings make my rig seem like a big AM radio.
djohnson54 - You’re absolutely right. I need to give my system some time. I just took delivery of the Primaluna four weeks ago and it is still breaking in, as are the speaker cables. Nordost purple. (couldn’t bring myself to spend the really big bucks)
Mapman - another excellent observation. If I read your comment correctly you inferred that different digital sources will more or less sound the same through the same dac. Your comment resonated with me and I think I will try the Gungnir and see if it makes a significant difference. The DacMagic 100 I have was purchased just to get the system running and I was not intending it to be a long term purchase. However.....if it turns out that there is little difference I’d save some bucks. My 64 year old ears may not be able to discern an improvement.
To all of you...
I’m a jazz musician first, funk, blues and rock and roll further down the line. I also played for several years in our local symphony. I am not a pro, rather an amateur hack that has been lucky enough to share the stage with some really good players.
I’m the grade school kid that wanted records for my birthday and Christmas. I’m also the kid that listened to music nonstop and would sneak my dad’s jazz records into my room.
I’m also the guy that now after almost 20 years of no real music in my house has it back and if I didn’t do another thing with my current rig I’d still be happy. It is so, so very wonderful to begin and end my day with music. So wonderful I don’t have the words to describe how I feel.
I guess that as long as I’m here and feeling like typing let me share with you why I purchased the Quad 2805 speakers.
The last Quads I heard were about 23 years ago or so at Definitive Audio in Seattle.
At the time I had Martin Logan Monolith 3s with the active crossover. They were bi-amped with Manley 350’s on top and a pair of Krell KMA 160s on the bottom. A CAT preamp, Linn turntable, 3000 records and some power conditioning. I forget the cartridge or arm and don’t remember the cables.
It was a large system, played loud and soft and threw a huge soundstage. It was pretty damn fine and I spent a lot of hours in our basement listening. Oh yeah, I even had some dedicated power outlets.
I stopped in at Definitive one day had they had some Quad 63 US monitors with Goldmund electronics playing. Mark invited me for a listen. Some sort of jazz was playing and I was sucked in. In a lot of ways, that system didn’t do anything as well as mine but the music was better. Let me repeat; the music was better. But why? It was much smaller, had 1/4 the power and cost less. I sat there, alone for about an hour getting lost in the music, went home and listened some more. At the end of the day I found that the Quads gave me a much better musical experience than my rig did.
They still do.
When I began building my current system I only had one thought and one goal; "I just wanna listen to music."
Thank you all again, I’ll keep you posted. Going to mess around a bit this weekend with speaker placement.
-- Bob
