Best system for opera lover at $30,000

Fusilli, Forget Opera, cut this link before you go crazy!!!

My wife is a principal string player in the Minnesota Opera Orchestra . The first system of mine that actually kept her sitting and listening was a Metronome CD/DAC, an AtmaSphere MP1 pre, Atma MA-2's, and SoundLab A3's with Analysis Plus Silver cabling throughout. All gear was purchased very reasonably used on Audiogon in the last six months from several of our fine members. No offense to anyone (I hope), but she wouldn't stay in the same room with any of my solid state gear. We lasted about 45 seconds in a local Mark Levinson showroom. (Hey, don't ping on me, I kinda liked it...) She doesn't care one TINY bit about the look, price or specs of the gear. Not AT ALL. If it doesn't sound close to like it does in the pit, she won't stay on the couch. She'll be up making tea or watering the plants. So Metronome/Atma/SoundLab it is from the string players house. We've spent these poor folks $30k about 50 times.

The sound in the pit is vastly different from the sound the audience gets, or the sound of most recordings. It's good that you let your wife approve your system though, at least if she's going to be listening to it as much as you are. It's only fair.

to ambience; a couple of interesting things in you post re classical music. If you hear a lot live music your equipment preferences vary by where you sit. Several conductors I have talked to swear that only horn loaded speakers sound real. The one time I was near the podium during a recording sound check I could understand why.I personally prefer front of the first balcony. Any instrumentalist can drive you nuts when setting up a system since they usually want it voiced to what they hear whichisn't anyone elses perspective. Finally your experience with your wife parallels my experience with my wife and female friends. My wife who has degrees in physical anthropology has several fairly convincing foornotes on significant enough psychoacoustic differences between male and female to be an issue in assembling a high end system. I'll have to try the Atma's. BTW what does your wife think of analog?

Hey Plsl- thanks for reading my post. It's always good to get feedback from others. I would agree with your assesment of the Amati's, but an Amati is no Extrema. I owned a pair of Extremas in my 25x17x9 listening room and they could shake the floor (yes, even on the stands). A very well-rounded speaker for just about every type of music other than metal. In-room response was -4dB at 31Hz, which I thought was pretty good, considering the superiority of the rest of the frequency range. Cya-Fielden