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High End and Classical Music

Being quite new in the world of high-end, I would like to ask the following question: how many Audiogon Forum members are listening exclusively or almost exclusively to classical music? My impression is that regrettably rather few "high-enders" are interested in classical music. On the other hand, having a lot of friends - professional musicians - I also know that among them there are hardly any high end owners. I am one of them myself. Recently bought the following components: Mark Levinson 383 & 39, ProAc 3.8, cables Van den Hul The Revelation and MC Gold Hybrid. Although I am completely satisfied with this system (sounds tremendously!), I realised too late, that for the kind of music I am listening al the time (especially early music and baroque), there are maybe better combinations. So the question is: are some components more suitable than others for a particular kind of music? Thanks in advance for any reactions.
koen
detlof
1,899 posts
 
To give you also my 5 cents worth: Mes and Rcprince have said it all. Enjoy!
koen OP
8 posts
 
Thanks a lot for all reactions! Very valuable!
kthomas
911 posts
 
Xyzdim - I'm in your flock. Depending on the time and mood, I enjoy Ben Webster or Albert Collins, but generally I listen to rock / pop in all it's sub-genres. There's been a lot of articles lately about "guilty pleasures" - music that you know you "shouldn't enjoy" but do. At nine o'clock at night after a 12 hour workday, I find that I enjoy a lot of this guilty pleasure music and, to boot, don't feel particularly guilty about it :-)
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Koen, to get back to your original question, starting this thread, I would say that for chamber music Quad Electrostats with either first class tubed electronics and top of the line XLO or Purist wires would be your best bet. Jadis comes to mind, or Aethetix, as far as electronics are concerned. If you can find the Jadis 80 monoblocks somewhere on the used market, those combined with the Quads will take you to heaven! You could add a Gradient subwoofer, if you want to enjoy a rich, full cello rendering. What I've also heard and liked with the Quads were the Spectral electronics, together with the MIT wires. The Bartok string quartets, which are full of dynamic nuances, seemed to me rendered best through this combination, but if besides sparkle, you love your strings to bloom and spread, stick with the above mentioned tube stuff.... voices, through the Jadis (or the Aesthetix) have a wonderful threedimenionality, which so far I have not heard elsewhere.
If you want bigger sound, more dynamics from pppp to ffff and you own a couple of oilwells, your choice could be a Jadis four chassis front end, their 200/500 or 800 amps and a pair of the big Soundlabs or the Pipedreams or even better, one of the bigger horn loaded speakers from A-Capella. With the Soundlabs you might have to think of a pair of SS-big babies driven subwoofers, with the other two you will not. I would combine the a-capellas with Lamm gear and enjoy the illusion of being transported to the Chicago Symphony or to Carnegie with spl close to the real thing. Imperative to achieve this, to my ears at least, with big orchetral renderings of classical music is a top notch vinyl front end. So you'll need some more oilwells.
wirehead
140 posts
 
I'm with Sean. I just got into audiodiction recently and once I stopped buying equipment every other day I started to listen and wanted that "hair on the back of the neck" feeling. I'm a Deadhead and bluegrass fan and I started to listen to Miles and 'Trane and now Copland and Holst. For me the journey started with the equipment and keeps getting better. I'll listen (and buy) anything that is well recorded, as classical seems to be. Problem is its tough to put American Beauty or the Seldom Scene on, I think I've been spoiled, or grown up.
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