It's been a busy couple of weeks for me. My Piega C8ltd's arrived and I also sold my three existing sets of speakers. Now it's time to find the ultimate amp and preamp combo to go with the Piegas.
At the top of my list is McIntosh gear, as others I have talked to say they mate up with the Piega's very well. I would be looking at the MC402 amp and C2200 pre combo.
Some other equipment I have been thinking about are:
Belles 350A amp and 21A pre.
Moscode 401HR amp and CIA PLC-1 passive pre.
Herron Audio M1 amps and VTSP-2 pre.
Any comments or suggestions?
Congrats on the new speakers and selling your old ones so fast!
I heard the Moscode and Placette active passive at RMAF. One of my favorite rooms. Very clean pure sound, good synergy between them. Can't remember the speakers, maybe mentioned in the RMAF reviews somewhere. Nice guys all, I would trust them with my money. Home trial on both brands if they fit on your credit card... :)
Well, you know what I like... And I would've never ended up here had I not heard it in person first.
The c220 and 402 are not as good as the c2200 and 501 mono's I based my decision on.. but I simply could not afford the top o' the line. Also, the nice thing about Mc is that when it IS time to move up, I'll get most of my money back in the resale.... even if that's 20 years from now. hahaha As IF I could keep a system that long.
However, I do feel 'finished' with the Mc/Piega combo. I like Scot Nixon's non-oversampling USB DAC also. I pretty much copied Hantra's system piece by piece over the past few years. They still both sound very different from one another... but they do things that are very enjoyable.
This is a long way of saying it'll be hard to say what you will like in the end because only you know what will connect you to the music best. The Piega's are a fairly neutral speaker and can sound harsh or sweet depending on what's in front of them. They will provide a wide and deep soundstage and stunning imaging.... and show off everything upstream, from source to speaker cables. The Piega's aren't lively or relaxed. They just do their best with what they get. I learned this over and over... basically... it's NOT the speakers.
Anyway, they do like power, despite their reasonably efficient claim... The Mc's autoformers will work well with these speakers and give them a coherency that compliments their sound well. If I didn't go with a Mc, I'd look for good tube amps... Not sure what would be a good suggestion in that price range.
I have either limited or no experience with the amps/preamps you're considering. However, I can't see how the Belles would be a good match... from the little I know... just me. I would wager that'd be a bit on the cold side if that's what you like but with good impact. I like warm and sweet with detail and realism... sort of a tubey sound.
Anyway, that's what I know.. bottom line is you'll need to hear some stuff in your room to make this decision.. and comparing amps is tough.
Oh, one last note.. the C220 needs 2 things... new tubes or cryo'd existing tubes... and you must isolate the transformer. (fairly easy to do both) Then it's about as good as the 2200...
-C
You have an Odyssey Stratos that puts out a lot of powee and is probably on the clean side. I think you should do some listening with that for a while to get a handle on how the speaker/room voicing balances. Choosing the amp/pre should be based on what direction you want the system to go. Without a proper baseline, you'd be shooting in the dark.
The Odyssey will also give you a handle on power, specifically whether you need more. This will be important. My feeling is getting your tube fix out of the preamp and/or hybrid amp makes sense. The tube forest you'd need to properly drive those speaks would be ridiculous.
I'm finding the Lamm is plenty of tube in my system, even without the Yamamoto.
We have a Mac dealer in town (Magnolia), you should see if they'll let you demo the stuff
I'd agree completely. Start with the Stratos. It will show you what kind of bass capabilities you're going to have and also give you a good handle on the amount of power required.
'Voicing' the system to the mellower side with a tube preamp would also be my suggestion. I know the combination of my Korato (with VH OIMP output caps and old RCA BlackPlates) coupled with the Mono Extreme SE's is a sweet combo that I'm just loving with my Dynaudios. Never sounded so good top to bottom.
Bryan
I'd be curious to hear what they sound like with the 3205...prolly won't rock the room, but......
:?:
WEEZ
I tried the Stratos with the Piegas last night. The additional power was a plus, but the amp is too unrefined in the top end. The treble sharpness stood out like a sore thumb and was only good for a short listening session before fatigue set in.
Over the weekend I plan to try bi-amping the speakers with the Stratos on bass and the Bella on the top end.
I would like to hear the Herron pre and amps someday even though they are pretty much out of my price range.
I was talking to Marty of BFS a month or so ago about all things audio.
He mentioned Herron (as one of only a few brand names) and likes them a lot.
I have come to trust Marty's judgement on components I have not had the opportunity to hear myself, so I made a mental note to try and hear the Herron gear.
Has anybody here had any experience with Herron, any thoughts?
FWIW,
Lin
The Stratos (std) by itself is a bit tipped on the high end. The Extreme is much smoother. Coupled with a good tube pre, I find the highs to be just right - may not work with the Piega's though. My main question would be did it do what you wanted on the bottom understanding that you're still trying to do the room setup thing.
Bryan
I like the bi-amp idea a lot. You may have all the tools right there without spending a dime.
I use a Herron phono stage, it's a great unit. Ever so slightly strong in the bass, not enough to be plummy, but enough to be noticed. Never had a problem with it, I'm just now getting ready to order new tubes after 6 years.
I've heard the older line stage (VTSP-1) and it's also a fantastic piece.
Harry Pearson reviewed the new Herron pre a couple of months ago as part of a line stage survey. It kind of flummoxed him. He felt is was an extremely neutral and it took him a while to come to terms with it.
Quote from: bobrexI use a Herron phono stage, it's a great unit. Ever so slightly strong in the bass, not enough to be plummy, but enough to be noticed. Never had a problem with it, I'm just now getting ready to order new tubes after 6 years.
I've heard the older line stage (VTSP-1) and it's also a fantastic piece.
Harry Pearson reviewed the new Herron pre a couple of months ago as part of a line stage survey. It kind of flummoxed him. He felt is was an extremely neutral and it took him a while to come to terms with it.
Thanks
Lin
So Mike....how goes it with the Piega C8's ? Thanks.... :wink:
The Piega/Mac system is starting to sound very good. Carl mentioned that the Mac amp takes a couple of months to break-in and so I have been letting it play almost non-stop since I bought it. There is still a bit of brightness/sharpness/tenseness to the notes, but it is getting better. I do see why the Piega's like the Mac amp, as they can soak up a lot of power.
I still have a terrible bass problem in my room. Measurements show my bass is as follows:
-6db at 31hz
-13db at 40hz
-8db at 50hz
I have tried lots of different placements with my bass traps, and the above numbers are the best I have been able to achieve.
I think as soon as I get the bass figured out, (still looking into ASC tube traps) things will be sounding very good :D
Thanks Mike....good luck getting it all together.... :wink:
Mike, those numbers are not bad at all, are they unsmoothed? If so you are doing great. There is always a place for more bass trapping, but without some diffusion on front and rear walls it will start to sound dead at some point, as you well know. So the bass dips are better than deadness. Ethan Winer does consulting for pro sound studios, and he has said that even the million dollar rooms strive for +/- 6dB. That's about as good as it gets. Since you know you have good power now, you could experiment with boosting 40Hz just a bit if you wanted to, maybe a couple dB, just to flatten that area. The behringer EQs are good, as long as you do the processing in digital and use external DAC afterward.
Rich
Miklorsmith and I did some simple testing using a Stereophile test disk and a rat-shack meter. I have not been able to figure out the program I downloaded from Hometheatershack.com as of yet.
It's clear though just listening to the system that it is missing low end punch. Bass notes and drums have no impact making music very dull and uninspiring to listen to.
The ASC website lists a local dealer (Definitive Audio) and I am going to go in and talk to them this week. I believe they also have a guy they work with who builds custom tuned traps for rooms. I am hoping they will be able to help me out.
If you just have those 3 dips, then I'd start playing with seating position to get into peaks instead. Those can be more easily dealt with via treatment and tweaking speaker position.
I stronly suspect that the big null is based on a bounce off the rear wall behind your seating position but no way to know for sure.
Bryan
About 3/4 of the rear wall is covered by Boltz CD racks. I have one panel directly behind my seat and another up high mounted to the exposed wall.
Miklorsmith and I tried using both the Mondo traps behind the listening position with no benefit.
I have tried placing my chair at 3/4 the rooms length, at 62% back and nearfield at only 38% back. All were about the same as far as bass was concerned.
I'm running out of options to try :shock:
OK. Then those issues by default must be a combination of:
Speaker location in relation to the wall behind and beside them
Seating location in relation to the width of the room (contrary to popular belief, sitting dead center side to side is not preferred)
Seating location in relation to the height dimension (difficult to deal with and generally up much higher in frequency
Modal issues which are tangential in nature and are a combination of width and height dimensions
Bryan
Mike
Try to spend some time getting the acoustic software to work. I will gladly help you if you want it. It is not hard at all. It will enable you to see what is going on, not only in frequency response but in the time domain too. You will be able to move speakers and treatment and instantly know whether it helped your specific problem or not. No wasting time with subjective judgement. Bass guitar's lowest note is E=40Hz. So you might be missing a null that is a higher harmonic. Most bass will be in the octace from 40-80Hz with overtones above that. There is no bass tones below 40, only organ (20Hz - rare) and a half octave of piano. You have to see the freq sweep to know what you're dealing with.
The guy you mentioned who makes bass traps probably can scan the room for you with a handheld analyzer, but maybe not for free?
If you have a subwoofer from HT rig, even cheapo, you can use it to map the bass in the room easier than moving speakers around. You can put the sub at your known listening position (even on the seat) and measure potential speaker spots for flatness. You can also locate good spots for bass trapping by placing sub in one corner with analysis mic in far opposite corner (ceiling even better), move traps for best flatness.
It sounds silly, but make sure you are getting a flat signal out of the speakers. With all that trapping, your bass should be coming through clearly, unless gear is not making it. Take your SPL readings up close to the bass drivers to make sure your getting what you think you're getting. I have a mp3 of Ethan Winer's 1Hz per second sweep that you can use with SPL meter to watch speaker response. If you jam the meter in low range up close to the driver you will reduce room effect by a large margin. At least you will learn something. Let me know if you want the mp3.
I found that leaning the 6" thick 2x4 panels (mondo) on the floor against the sidewalls with the end starting at the speaker line and moving out into the room was a great place to trap bass without affecting soundstaging at all. I am allergic to any absorbtion behind the speakers, except 8th nerve, which is reflective on the front.
Try some more radical experiments to get a better understanding of the problem. Put the speakers deep into the corners of the room, with and without absorbtion in there. You should get a lot of bass reinforcement from the corners. You'll also get problems, I know, but this will tell you something, and maybe show you how placement can help a little. If it helps, you can absorb or diffuse reflections behind them if you have to. Also try out in the middle of the room, close side by side, at say 1/3 length while you listen at 2/3s. These are ideal theoretical distances for minimizing bass nodes at least on the length dimension. Move them around without any preconceived notions of what is right and wrong and see what you can learn. Try the long wall as front.
At this point you have tried a lot of things and not getting traction. Now let your hair down and see what your imagination come up with for experiments! If you desire it this badly, then the answers are within you. Report what you find and Mike or Bryan can help interpret it. Pretend it is a fun hobby for just another couple days before you start throwing equipment out into the front yard! :D :lol:
Sorry it is being so difficult Mike. I hope you get it figured out soon. Let me know if you want the file or some help with the software.
Rich
Thanks for the tips and the words or encouragement :)
My big problem is, I really hate having to deal with all this stuff, I just want to sit and enjoy music :evil: I will dig in though and try and get the software up and running. It looks like there are some pieces I will have to pick up at the local rat-shack first.
I should be able to download the sweep tones off Ethan's website, no? Then I would just have to convert them to flac so I can play them with the Squeezebox. Is this on the Realtraps site or Ethan's personal site?
I have tried the speakers and the seating in every position I can think of, even moving them to the long wall. I will try jamming them into the corners to see what happens. I'll also try the traps angled on the floor like you mentioned.
If you have the Room EQ Wizard, it will feed the signal output from the PC/Laptop audio card. Just run that into your preamp input instead of the Squeezebox. Use a sweep from 20-300Hz over about 3 seconds.
Also, I know it's a PITA but do as much measurement as you can with no treatment in the room so we can get the best response possible prior to the treatments. If they're doing their jobs, they'll be masking some of the issues.
For a reality check, here is a link to the Stereophile review's frequency response at 50"
http://www.piega.ch/review_archiv/img/stereophile-01-2004-c8ltd-anechoicresponse_g.gif
That shows pretty clearly that they're very very dependent on room positioning and reinforcement. Not sure where Piega came up with 28Hz +/-2 unless the S'Phile measurements were way off but they look like a smooth rolloff starting at about 50Hz from a hump at 60-80Hz.
I'll agree that a sketch showing the room, seating position, and speaker position as it stands now would help a ton to determine where we're starting from. Hang in there, we'll get it better.
Bryan
Ethans sinwaves in 1 Hz increments are available on his website in a Sonar4 file format. I collect recording software like Stereofool collects speakers :lol: so I mixed it down and posted it here (http://parkwestlake.com/nopw/rich/hifi/sine/sine.exe) as flac. Let me know when you got it so I can take it down. I don't want to dilute Ethan's plan. My host is blocking flac file extension or something, so had to rename it to exe to get it to download. Not sure what's going on there, but just rename it back to flac extension. I did not test it after compressing, so let me know if it is a dud.
With the panels on the sidewall I was able to hear a lot deeper bass with these little speakers I am borrowing. I was actually surprised how low they went, but couldn't hear it before. I also put another panel along each wall further into the room behind the first ones. Not sure it helped at all, too small of a change to tell.
I found RoomEQWiz to be a little easier to work than ETF5 (http://www.etfacoustic.com/software/etf5.exe) but it's there if you need it, it has some features the other does not, but not quite as intuitive to use. Like Bryan said, increase the test time out to 3 seconds to improve the resolution. It will make the sweep tone go up slower.
An unfortunate myth perpetrated in high end audio is that you can fix anything with better components. In my experience, they only make your acoustic problems standout even worse because of the increased dynamics and crystal clear sound source. It seems like the more accurate sound system makes the room problems easier to hear.
With my speakers repaired, playing in the big room with all my 8th nerve stuff removed, it sounds fuzzy and covered with a thick coat of confusion. When I had the little amp and crap wires and didn't know any better it sounded fine. If you have a need for accuracy in your playback eventually you gotta deal with the room. Not as if you haven't been trying to! Since sound is invisible it is extremely frustrating, staying on a budget while experimenting is also difficult. A friend suggested his formula of alloting cash for the stereo system. He allocates 50% of the total for room treatment. At first I thought that was way too high, but now as I learn about diffusion products and architectural changes that are appropriate when using this level of playback equipment, it makes more sense. Some of the fantasy rooms Rives has made are probably worth more than all the electronics, plus devoting a room from the floor space of the house. Are we crazy?!!
Rich
Quote from: mcaThe Piega/Mac system is starting to sound very good. Carl mentioned that the Mac amp takes a couple of months to break-in and so I have been letting it play almost non-stop since I bought it. There is still a bit of brightness/sharpness/tenseness to the notes, but it is getting better. I do see why the Piega's like the Mac amp, as they can soak up a lot of power.
Mike:
You really have to abuse the Mc amp for a while to make it come to life. I burned out voice coils on a pair of old speakers I had before the 501's settled in. I don't recommend abusing the Piegas, but find some old beaters and just play the living crap out of them at 200 or so continuously.
OK, I've (finally) gotten the C8's into the my current room and have them in nearly the same place as the P5's were. I'm using the 402 amp as well... But I have the C220 pre w/ cryo'd stock tubes, and the Scott Nixon USB tube DAC.
I have loads of bass due to the room and the speakers... and plenty of detail. I have noticed a weirdness that I'm trying to isolate... I think my source is to blame for some issues... I just put a new tube in my DAC and that seemed to cure a little midrange suckout issue... Don't overlook your source, cables, etc. for issues with extension at either end. Scott's stock tube is a little 'boring' so I'm rolling a few.
Also, toe-in is critical with the tone these speakers produce... and the distance apart makes huge differences (for me)...
Lastly, power... One thing I noticed is the amount of power these c8's absorb from the amp. When I replaced the P5's with the C8's, there was a noticeable difference in volume... I'm running the amps in the 4-40 watt range now where I used to run in the .4-4watt range. I foresee getting into bigger amps down the road, probably the 501's... when I get into the bigger room. We'll see... right now I have no idea how the new room will sound... but looks like it'll be about 16x27 vs. 11x13... I just can't imagine the 402 will be enough... but who knows?
-C