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.
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.
