Get a tube preamp. I have the bigger brother to your CAM200, I have the CAM350'S, I use a Bottlehead Foreplay with that system connected to Magnepan 20.1's.. Best sound ever....
What is wrong with my system?
Hi everyone -
I’m posting here because individually I think my components are all good, but together my system is not making music, rather is is making bright bass less noise. Honestly, I’m thinking it’s no one component, but the matching of components that is causing this issue. I would like to get everyone’s opinion as to what I’m hearing. My components are as follows:
B&W 802D (first generation diamond)
Audioquest bi-wired Indigo speaker cables
Classe CAM-200 monoblock amplifiers
Audioquest Water XLR interconnect
Bryston BP26 preamp
Audioquest Water XLR interconnect
Mark Levinson 5100 cd player (PCM slow minimum phase)
thanks in advance.
Mark Levinson 5100 CD player
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- 109 posts total
Update, I’ve removed the Audioquest Water interconnects from my cd player to my preamp. I still have the Water interconnects between the preamp and the monoblocks. I replaced the interconnects from the cd player to the preamp with a pair of Audioquest Ruby cables. I don’t know if this is a recommended move or not. What I did find is that my system still has resolution but the brightness/sizzle at the very top is eliminated. Can anyone explain if this move makes any sense, or are the different interconnects ‘fighting’ each other? |
No nothing is fighting each other. Unproductive way of viewing it. I cannot recommend what you are doing. Others I am sure can. Not me. Not at all. Listen- every single one of your components is responsible for and contributing to the sound you are trying to avoid. Every single one. If you try and patch this over with cables all you will wind up with is a system that still sounds bad, only less glaringly bad. But still bad. Only now if you keep going like this instead of being bad it will in the long run be even worse. In the beginning a couple months ago all you had to do was start methodically removing and replacing one at a time all the analytical ML, Classe, B&W etc. Each one of these replaced with something good- NOT trying to patch over the others, just better than what it replaced. The advice to try tubes is well-intentioned but misplaced. Try that and you will look for super warm tube gear trying to offset your super lean gear. Big mistake. Forget system matching, that is really the band-aid approach. "My system is too harsh, so I will match all my harsh components with syrup." Yes I know that is what everyone says. Well sorry but it is wrong. This is the way you build a system: forget what you have, focus on what you want. Each step will then be in the right direction. Otherwise you buy a bunch of bloated bass heavy wire trying to tame the other stuff. Eventually when you replace the other stuff you are forced to deal with the bloated bass heavy band-aids. Don't buy band-aids! |
I have had the 802D's since new along with associated classe stuff. I had no ideal what I was doing, it was all new to me... and had a 200 watt amp hooked up to them, actually a ca-5200 in home theater set up... I have since bridged the 5200 to give me 400 watts, after I learned how much of an idiot I was... Putting a 200 watt amp to these is completely insufficient and risky. These things need a min of 400 SS watts to sound good. I know what you all are thinking, the 800's use to be hooked up to the cam350's at demo rooms and sounded good, yeah, but not great, untill they were hooked up to the mc501's. You want GOOD bass from them, you want them to sound much better, you want to prevent yourself from accidentally clipping and destroy those $1000 a piece tweeters (like I did, not sure they are still available anymore), ditch that amp immediately. My 2 cents worth, GL.
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- 109 posts total