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Vienna Die Muzick flagship speakers

Looks like the new flagship speaker from Vienna Acoustics are going on sale in North America in September or October
for $27K. If I interpret correctly the blurb found at:
http://www.sumikoaudio.net/va/prod_themusic.htm
they seem to be almost like single driver speaker with multi-driver extensions. a flat midrange driver covers 7 octaves from about 100Hz to 20Khz. If I understand correctly, the flat driver is expected to exhibit a pistonic movement, which in turn is designed to eliminate phase distortion caused by uneven excursion/timing between the rim and the center of the driver. The bass goes down to 18Hz through 3 10 inch drivers in a separate enclosure; if these bass drivers are similar to those found in the Mahlers and Strausses, they are also flat pistonic drivers. At the top there is a Mirada supertweeter extending to 100K.

I have heard that final production units will be shown/heard for the 1st time both at SEDIA and RMAF in September and October in Denver in the Sumiko/Soundings Suites. I won't attend SEDIA, but will be at RMAF.

I heard 2nd hand very favorable remarks about them from industry insiders that heard prototypes at CES and the past Montreal show. Has anyone heard these speakers already?
please post your findings here.

And if you were asking, the answer is a very sad NO. . . my wife won't let me buy them! G.
guidocorona
dcstep
1,518 posts
 
He's using the Capri/312 combo.
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
I listened yesterday afternoon to Die Muzick for the first time at Soundings Hifi in Denver in Dave's excellent company. Initial system setup was complemented by Primare CD31 player, JRDG Capri, Rowland 312. ICs and speaker wires were Cardas Golden Ref; 312 was powered by an Analysis Plus Oval 9 PC. Speakers placement was not totally optimized according to Rod Tomson. Speaker Die Muzick were temporarily toed in 2 degrees, which was not optimum for the particular room. Sound was as expected extremely extended, but slightly out of focus, with depressed harmonics that gave an impression of unwanted coolness, and an audible hump in the mid bass; treble had a tendency to be a little on the hard side.

We applied then the following changes:

a. Replaced the balanced IC from Primare to Capri with AudioQuest Sky XLR. Bass hump was essentially removed, and oddly enough, so was most of the glare in the treble; top to bottom extension seemed increased and we could hear more exposed harmonic content; we still perceived some moderate lack of focus in instrument images and staging.

For sake of contrast, Toe in was changed to 0 with speakers firing completely forward. . . sound became cold, hard, and completely unappealing.

Rod then optimized toe in to 5 degrees and things became suddenly focused; staging seemed to extend to about 18 to 20 ft laterally wile speakers were 12 ft apart. A residual image suck out between speakers was totally filled in and the speakers sonically disappeared; Subjective perception of depth of the virtual stage varied between recordings from just several feet to perhaps 60 ft or so; exposed harmonic content increased significantly; this is when Dave and I truly started to smile because we were now listening to real music. The beauty is that Muzick have controls for rake angle and toe that can be adjusted to clearly marked values. . . so you can play with adjustments without losing the ability of reverting to your previous optimum position. . . extremely nifty! But this simply underscores how crucial careful speaker setup can be to a musical sounding system.

Primare CDp was then replaced by a factory fresh Marantz SA7S1 that Rod had just received from marantz minutes before. I never listened to this CDp before. This is when I realized that the Primare may not have been doing justice to the rest of the system. The amount of filigreed detail, extension and musical ease that the totally not broken in creature introduced was amazing.

I am writing this post from my hotel room at the Marriott. By coincidence, the hotel put me in room 515, which is just a few doors down from 505, where the Soundings crew is now busy setting up the Muzicks. If everything goes according to plans, the Capri will be replaced by a JRDG Criterion; and Dave will loan his PD MPS-5 for the duration. I also hope to be able to contrast the well broken in MPS-5 with the totally factory fresh Marantz.

That's it for now. . . I'll keep you posted. G.
dcstep
1,518 posts
 
Great report Guido. I really have nothing to add. I've had more time with the Muzicks, but nothing inconsistant has happened in my three listening session.

The pleasant surprise was how well the Marantz CDP performed, stone cold out of the shipping box. (I guess that I shouldn't be surprised since I talked Soundings into giving the Marantz a try). This is a very nice CDP. I'm not selling the Playback Designs yet, but I can say without reservation that it deserves to be considered with the top echelon of players. I heard some things that deserve further comment, but only after it gets a lot more hours on it. Still, it's clear that it's a contender.

Dave
Ag insider logo xs@2x
drubin
3,274 posts
 
Sumiko did a demo of The Music at the Palo Alto Magnolia a few months ago. Not my cup of tea at all, but I'm looking forward to hearing them again at RMAF this weekend.
guidocorona OP
4,298 posts
 
Spent several hrs yesterday in suite 505 while Die Muzick were being set up with the Masters process, driven by JRDG Criterion and JRDG 312 with MPS5 and Marantz SA7 as source. There are some limitations because of the very small suite, but overall results were extremely good. . . I believe Rod may be still doing some tweaks this morning until show opening time at noon. Some listening observations are on the Criterion thread at:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1216693488&openmine&zzGuidocorona&4&5#Guidocorona
Got to run folks. . . will write more later. G.
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