Well, I spent Monday afternoon listening to the Snells with three different systems in three different rooms and I can report first and foremost that theyre truly amazing speakers! Their openness, clarity and range was extremely impressive especially with the added power Id never heard before. Theyre behemoths but do they deliver! Wow.
My objectives for building a system around the Snells has expanded into the issue of introducing more warm, liquid, fluid sound into the live, neutral, clean sound to which Ive become accustomed with the B&K and a fairly bright room. Thanks Frogman for pushing this. Its really fun and enlightening.
The first system was the McIntosh C48 pre, MC452 amp and Rotel RCD1520 cd player. The room was the highly dampened room I visited earlier. This was not expected to be good for the Snells since theyre designed to be about 50-50 direct and reverberant. It was not. However, while the dynamic quality of the sound was quite muted, the staging was very noticeably deep and wide. The speakers disappeared. There was agreement among the listeners that this reflected a strength of the system. With the dead room, I felt it was an unfair venue for judging the warmer quality of the Mc but I still found myself wishing for more clarity and live feeling. While listening to the Royal Philharmonic Decca recording of Beethovens concerto for violin and orchestra in D with David Garrett, there was a very noticeable dulling of the bass. Timpanis I expect. I was concerned this was the speakers.
Second system was the intergrated Mcintosh Mc7000. Used the same Rotel cd player. This was set up in the best room in the store. Much more live and a good size for the Snells. Much better dynamics all around. Now, Im really listening for the warmth thing. Went through the music Id brought along and in the end, something was still missing for me. I just couldnt get the softness everything seemed wrapped up in UNTIL I heard a vinyl (on a Rega?) of Fleetwood Macs Rumors. Then that wrapping became a harmony of all the elements in the recording. Everything had a place and was in it. It was wonderful.
Last system was the Classe 2300 with a CP 800 pre with built in DAC and the CDP 102 player. The room was more live than the first but not as balanced as the second. More open to other spaces. I admit that I expected the Classe setup to resolve the warmer issue for me right away. It did not. By this time, Id gleaned some appeal of the warmer sound of the Mcs and the Classe set up simply did not elicit the dynamic range that Id clearly come to expect from the Snells.
Please forgive the lack of better info on the high, mids and lows performance; whether they were forward or backwards, full or clipped, etc. etc. Its just beyond by current ability to discern and I was trying to take in as much as I could while not wanting to over extend my welcome at the shop. BTW, hats off and a big thanks to Josh, John and Brad at Modia here in Austin. They were really helpful, enthusiastic and welcoming of my search. Especially young Josh
he helped me load, set up and move those refrigerators around!
So, fresh from this experience, I was determined to hear some real tubes. Next day I went to hear a set up of an ARC Ref 5, ARC 150, ARC DAC8, a NAD cd transport with a Sonus airplay driving a pair of Maggie 3.7s. I brought the same music along. It was good. Real good. But I consistently felt I was reaching through to get to the experience of the music. Tomorrow or next day I take the Snells to hook them up with the ARCs. Theres also a Bryston amp there.
BTW, listening to the Beethoven piece on the ARC set up, the timpanis were just fine
The journey and the fun continues