It’s been a few weeks now since Colin came out and set up my WVL SONs. I’ve been too busy listening to write about my experience. It was a busy, long day while Colin was here. Not only did he set up the speakers, but he brought a few different speaker cables and ICs to try out. Also we had to play with positioning the SONs on floor, carpet, and the Sistrum stands.
In my 11w x 17L room we ended up with the front of the speakers about 4 feet from the front wall and the outside edges just under 2 feet from the side walls. That position gave us nice solid bass with boom and clear highs without honk. To make a long story short regarding cables, I settled on the Hijiri speaker cables. I really enjoyed the energy and transparency of the Sternklangs but in the end the more laid back musicality of the Hijiri speaker cables was what suited me best. I have been torn between Hijiri HCS interconnects that I already owned and the Tchernov Ultimates that Colin bought. I think I’m going with Tchernov IC. Both wonderful cables yet markedly different.
It was pretty clear that the Sistrum stands were the way to go. I’ve used them for years on my Audiokinesis Jazz Modules and they really worked their magic with the SONs. We set them up directly on the wooden floor and they sounded great. For aesthetic reasons, we pulled the area rug in the room and placed it under the front spikes of the Sistrum. The rug has a thick pad so we couldn’t get the spike through it to make direct contact with the floor and this ended taking away the magic we heard previously so pulled the rug back again.
Others here and in reviews have described the sound of the SONs better than I could, and I heard much of the same qualities that they have. While setting up the speakers and testing positions, we listened to a recording of the Roches singing Hallelujah that Paul Weitzel of TRL (who made the incredible Dude that I used to own) had given me. Colin commented that the lead singer sounded pretty much like she was in the room and the harmonies as the other singers came in were glorious. The word that came to my mind with these speakers was “palpable”. You could just feel the music through deep rich bass, solid dynamics, and emotional highs.
When Colin was here we didn’t move the speakers out further because we needed to be able to fully open a bathroom door on the side near the speaker. A few days after he left, I decided to hell with the door, I’ll try moving the SONs further into the room and deal with door later. So I moved the SONs about a foot further into the room and this really increased the 3d quality of the soundstage in terms of depth and width. There was mare air around voices and instruments and more sparkle to highs.
I think the Circle Labs separates work very well with the SONs. Colin, as well as many of you on this thread have suggested the New Audio Frontiers 211 integrated as an amazing match with the SONs. So I will have to go to Colin’s shop or have a home demo to see whether I would want to trade the Circle Labs M200/P300 in. Need the audio coffers to be replenished first!
Finally, I plan to trade in my Starsound SP-101 Sistrums and an extra Sistrum 3 level rack and purchase the newer Rhythm-JR stands that would fit more cleanly under the SONs and the Rhythm rack under my amp. So more on that front later.
It’s late, but more later.