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My exp. with Focal Sopra No.2 , Harbeth 40.2, Passlabs XA30.5 and Hypex NC400

Hello. Long time reader here.

I want to share my listening experiences since i bought my Sopra No.2’s last year. I think it may shed some light on people who suffered from brightness on their system. Please excuse my English as it is not my native language.

My other components are Primaluna Dialogue Premium Preamp and Gustard x20pro Dac with Singxer SU-1 via HQ-Player and Roon. Interconnects are DH Labs Silversonic and speaker cable is Kimber 8TC. My room is 45m2 and not treated. I would say my room has some echo and can sound harsh on higher volume levels. (I will deal with this later hopefully.)

I will try to keep it short below:

Sopra No.2’s with NC400’s:
Pros: Extreme clarity with huge sound stage , speed&timing , dynamism , attack , total control on bass , good instrument separation. NC400 allows all this without breaking a sweat.
Cons: Fatiguing after some time , especially with higher volume. Bright and forward on almost half of the music i listen to and neutral on the other half but never warm. (I listen to almost every kind of music though it’s mostly Jazz both with vocals and instrumental only.) Mids and low-mids(esp. on vocals) were not rich and full as i wished.

The fatiguing alone bugged me to change my speakers and my dealer sent me Harbeth 40.2’s to try at home.

Harbeth 40.2’s with NC400’s:
So compared to Sopra No.2’s it was less hi-fi and more of a live music experience with the midrange of Harbeth’s as we know it. Non-fatiguing , just slightly warm ,sweet sound and overall a wonderful match with the speaker and the amp. Believe it or not it was more than just a glimpse of when i listened to 40.2’s with Dan D’Agostino MOMENTUM LIFESTYLE AMPLIFIER. Last weekend we tried the NC400’s with my brothers SLH5’s and i think he is now considering selling his Naim setup which is 6 times more expensive then NC400’s :)

I wanted to keep Harbeth 40.2’s but we could not agree on price with the dealer so i kept my Sopra’s and decided to try a well regarded amp with it. That was Pass Labs XA30.5.

Sopra No.2’s with Pass Labs XA30.5 :
Brightness and fatiguing gone for good. You get the magical warm sound of Pass Labs , suddenly Sopra’s are different speakers now. The amp really has it’s own color as they say. Bass is less controlled and almost too slow compared to NC400’s. I was worried about 30w is not going to be enough for my room but i never miss 200w’s of NC400’s unless i listen to electronic dance music.

I am never selling my NC400’s as they will come handy when i want to listen instrumental tracks or EDM.
For example , Chuck Mangione - Children of Sanchez or Charles Lloyd & The Marvels - La llorona gives you goosebumps when listened through NC400’s while with XA30.5 they won’t impress you as much.
They are really more than their money’s worth but the XA30.5 is still a better match with Sopra No.2’s.

I guess i couldn't keep it short. Oh well..


tonediary
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,841 posts
 
Part of your problem is your ancellory gear isn't up to snuff.

The more revealing a set of speakers the more it shows you the limitations of your cables and Gustard Dac.

With a $14k speaker that are resolvling you need far superior dac and cabling. 

Ncore amps are highly detailed but lack the magic that conventional Class A/B amps have hence you prefered the Pass.

We tried a number of highly rated Hypex and Ncour amps  impressive but not magical. Your tube preamp was partially responsible for you getting good sound in the beginning. 

As per Naim vs Ncore, if your friends system was wired up with Naim cabling he has never heard his system and a brighter amp might add more excitement to his rig. We love Naim hate their cables. 

Go find your self a T+A Dac 8 DSD and an Innous server and you will be shocked at just how much better your system will sound..

Ditch the 8TC for better cables, also the Silversonic is okay at best. 

Also treat your room by using bookcases filled with books or wall haniging some rugs. 

You will see that a well matched set of speakers with resolution trumps a set of "musical" speakers which don't have the resolving power, but are more laid back. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
prof
3,479 posts
 
And of course, a high end dealer will be happy to sell you much more expensive cables ;-)

tonediary...keep nugat's post in mind.  Your wallet will thank you.




contuzzi
413 posts
 
Wall hanging some rugs, or book cases filled with books....

for someone who acts like such a high end snob -- it’s amazing that you use guesswork for THE most important aspect of sound after speakers (maybe before?).

Maybe you should try to learn a bit about REAL room treatment and acoustic science before you keep posting on here like you are an all knowing superior audiophile (aka salesman).

I won’t even get started with your cable beliefs. So funny. Maybe start using your spare time to learn a bit about human brain biases and such before you make your next annoyingly long winded post on here.   Do you even realize that several of the well known cable manufacturers don’t even agree on what the actual effects of different speaker cables are?  For instance, some state that their cables will add warmth to a system, or tighten up the bass, etc — while Audioquest for example, completely denies ANY of that is possible, and all cables are doing is removing noise from the signal to give you the purest signal possible.  I won’t even get started on how many times cable companies have falsified comparison demos and gotten caught.  If this stuff really made an audible difference, why would they go to such great lengths to fake it?

Only exceptions of course are the speaker cables that have actual in line devices that actually do change the sound (think MIT).

You are such a grasshopper and you don’t even realize it.
audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,841 posts
 
Contuzzi many people don't have the funds to invest in real room treatments. Hence our comments.

As per being a high end snob, guess what we aren't at all or we would not even made that recommendation. 

If your definition of a snob is to recommend the appropriate cabling and accessories then we are. 

Your argument doesn't hold water. Cabling is like tires to a car, go buy a Ferrari and put on some glass ply tires at $200 a tire vs the $1,000.00 Pirelli P0 that Ferrari specs on the car and see if the car performs.

If you lose information from point A to point B you are not going to get it back no matter how good the components and speakers are. 

As per room treatment, trained with Tony Grimani of Lucas Films and did the Russ Herchelman course, you can see the Theater we built for Rev Runs Rennovation. Online look up DIY networks Rev Runs Rennovation.

You can also see pictures of our rooms at the different NY Audio shows with different acoustic panels, Shakti Holographs and other acoustic devices

https://www.facebook.com/audiodoctor1/photos/a.122500301156525.22643.122499304489958/163219852685335...

or here

https://www.facebook.com/audiodoctor1/photos/a.122500301156525.22643.122499304489958/138072913200029...

Dude your ignorance is showing through when you dismiss cables and power conditioners, I sit here in our reference room and I am demoing one $5k power conditioner vs a $14k one and guess what they make a huge difference with the expensive one not right now sounding better than the cheaper one and if I plug directly our amps directly into a dedicated 20 amp circuilt with Furutech outlets the sound is way more flat and lacks a huge amount of the life that running throught the power conditioner adds.

As per cable demos we can give you the names of clients where we have changed one cable and we both heard a large and noticable difference.

AQ cables are hardly our reference standard, as per cables sounding different yes they do. We were a Kubala Sosna dealer and all of their cables imparted a bit of warmth to the sound. Nordost cables all tended to sound super clean and detailed, and the Wireworld tended to be the most balanced.

Again, your ignorance and bias is showing through. 

We have invested thousands and thousands of dollars in showroom cables, way over $22k in fact, do you think we would have spent that kind of money if there were not difference manifested in our demo systems?

Contuzzi you sound like many of the angry audiophiles that deny the facts that many, many people who are Doctors, Lawyers, CEO's of company smart, educated, people would not pay money for cables or power condtioners if they weren't demonstrably better and made their systems sound better. 

Yes certain companies do make ridiculous claims, others do not.

Our experience is based on empirical testing we listen.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ


prof
3,479 posts
 
audiotroy,

I don’t think you are trying to hoodwink anyone and that you, like many into high end audio, are quite convinced about your experiences with cables and other such things.

"If you lose information from point A to point B you are not going to get it back no matter how good the components and speakers are. "

You aren’t losing any (audible) information if you simply choose a well constructed cable for the task at hand, and it’s trivially easy to choose a 6 foot (or much longer) cable that won’t loose audio information. If you swallow cable manufacturer marketing, you will think you are...but the electrical properties of wire have been known for a looong time.

I sit here in our reference room and I am demoing one $5k power conditioner vs a $14k one and guess what they make a huge difference

Can you tell the difference when you don’t know which you are listening to, in a carefully controlled manner to make sure bias isn’t the factor?


Our experience is based on empirical testing we listen.

Homeopaths, astrologers and faith healers will tell you the very same thing. They test empirically: they do their thing, if someone reports a difference...viola! It works just as they think!

That’s what you get when you aren’t controlling for variables, especially the variable of human imagination and bias. Any belief system can flourish under those conditions, and the experience will be as convincing and vivid for everything you find at the local psychics fair as in the local high end audio salon.

No one is immune from it. Not even audiophiles, believe it or not!

I don’t rule out the high end cables can possibly make a difference in sound; it’s just that the methods audiophiles use to determine this are extremely unreliable. And whenever I’ve used a more reliable method; blind testing, the results do not favor the claims of cable makers. (Though there have been some intriguing results here and there in blind tests...there still isn’t enough reliable data to make the case that super expensive high end cables make an audible difference over sane-priced competently constructed cable - e.g. Belden, Canare, etc.  And even IF high end cables could make some difference, they are still without doubt the biggest, ballsiest cash grab in high end audio)



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