Tekton Double Impacts

Reading teajay’s critique of McIntosh the last impression that I would perceive is that he’s a "hater". He was genuinely describing his listening experience with this brand. Interestingly I share very similar impressions having heard all McIntosh systems on several occasions.

Do I "hate" their products? Of course not! I simply prefer other alternatives more. We all listen to components/speakers and choose what we like best. Taste is all over the sonic map as one would expect given the pure subjective nature of it all.

There is no reason to be thin skinned in this wonderful endeavor, trust your ears and go where they lead you. There’ll always be people who share your taste and those who do not. This is what makes this such a fun passion and results in the sharing of excellent insights and perspective. This thread is proof of this concept.

Gentlemen keep it up 😊
Charles

Hi Kenny,
Given your vast listening experiences and ownership of many terrific amplifiers past and present I’m looking forward to reading your opinion on the Lyngdorf 2170. Curious to see how it compares and contrasts with the Aric 2A3 SET, LTA ZOTL 40 and the First Watt S.I.T.push pull amplifiers. Should be much fun for certain.
Charles

Hey Kenny
Can not wait to read your impressions. Best,mikirob

@teajay @grannyring  - Preparing for the purchase of some room treatments has me studying up on room acoustics. This youtube video addressed the role electronics, speakers and acoustics play in the sound we perceive. I found it informative. Yes, still a relative noob.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bbmWd00HYM

Long story short - Acoustics play the major role, followed by speakers then electronics. Bad acoustics can totally destroy the detail and resolution you were hoping to get out of that expensive dac. "All the recording engineers, whose music we are listening to, are listening to speakers that were carefully placed in a room and equalized. Good enough for them who do this for a living, should be good enough for you, as long as you use a good quality equalizer."-Anthony Grimani, MSR Acoustics, President

Personally, I've never heard room correction not improve a room, but that was with sparsely treated rooms. What I've never heard is a well treated room, with full tube electronics compared with and without room correction. 

The new sound I got from the Raven Blackhawk came through my Gallo 3.1s beautifully. No class D like digital nasties or listening fatigue, and far greater texture and tone all while running correction. I'm still open to the existence of artifacts of correction, especially when there are 30dB untreated room mode swings. A crazy looking wideband filter to perfectly counter untreated room effects requires unlimited taps and digital filter coefficients. Think infinite fourier series. In addition the cost function balances phase and magnitude response (digital mixed phase FIR filter from Live Dirac ), so phase corrections can still come at a price of frequency response ripple or vice versa. 

I read somewhere that room corrected tone/timbre, presence and the overall naturallness of sound dramatically improves once treatments were employed. This makes sense to me given the limited resolution of even the best room correction. Fixing the number of coefficients allowed, a transfer function curve fit is orders of magnitude more accurate if the target curve is smoother or better behaved (treated room).  

Live Dirac only cost $400, makes the most dramatic positive changes of any one component I've experienced. I'll turn it off if ever I don't like it.

Anyone see a reason not to use GIK?

Like others here I learn much from the discussions here and find listeners disagreements regarding components sound quite enlightening as it helps me to fully understand my listening preferences and how to achieve the sound I prefer.  I would hope ones dislike of a product wouldn't be taken personally, it's just ones preference......just like I wouldn't take it personally if someone didn't like the lime green shirt I'm wearing ( no matter how hideous it most like is!). As long as I like it's all good!

This audio journey is quite interesting. I can't tell you how many times I thought I had the most amazing piece of equipment only to hear something else that put it to shame. Charles' Frankensteins certainly come to mind, I didn't realize the sound I had could be improved so much. Now I enjoy what I have to the fullest while keeping an open mind as to how to possibly improve it. Having said that I hope my upcoming purchases of a new cd transport, DAC and amp will suit me for quite a while, my pocketbook needs a break! :)

brotw, you may consider yourself a noob but IMO you're well ahead of the curve by addressing the rooms acoustics. Jim Smiths book "Getting Better Sound" helped me understand the importance of proper room treatment. I'm still learning how to properly treat my room but can confidently say that building a dedicated listening room with bass traps, quadratic diffusers and absorption treatments was the best audio investment I've ever made. When I had the the DI's in my living room they sounded great to me but I heard much more of what they are really capable of when properly positioning them into my dedicated listening room......of course it's much easier placing room treatments in a room the wife doesn't care about ;)

thanks to all for your contributions here,
Tom

ps......welcome Aric. Can't wait to place your amp in my system and look forward to you insights here.