May you help speakers amps

Correction:  Mag’s have good mid range but not audiophile clear. I can’t figure out what to gain better clarity and crisp clean highs without being harsh. I don’t use equalizer at all. I’ve taken out my CD player and perhaps it might be a good try in order to see if Bluetooth iphone Pandora to Rocketfish is creating a source problem. I only listened to CD’s before 5 years ago but like most people we all just stopped buying them

I don’t use a pre-amp. 

Well that is quite a collection of gear. You should probably be telling us what works well together, rather than us telling you. Not sure if you have Vandersteen 2s or 3s. If it was me I'd run the Vandersteen 3s, the BGW amp, and a really good preamp. If you are running the Maggies or the 3s, you need to pull them away from the wall. Also not sure your source is helping you out. 

get tidal or qobuz for streaming

use the maggies or vandy’s but get your room set up right... the maggies are not placed correctly by your brief description

with decent streamed source music, those speakers, your completely acceptable quality electronics, there is no reason you won’t have a decently good resolution treble response with proper room and setup

also - you might get your hearing checked medically to make sure that is not an issue

Thank you guys. Yes, had medical hearing test. BTW, I am a physician.  I wonder why a pre-amp. Paul at PS Audio suggested not using a pre-amp and using the McIntosh. I fully understand each person’s ideas and believe me, I welcome them all. I really do. Ok, I will go with Qobuz. I have been reading that it offers the best source audio and has an Apple app. 2ce’s just to clarify. Gosh, thank you so much for your posts. I am glad that u guys think my equipment locker is still ok. I am thinking it is Pandora quality that makes all this good stuff sound like old vinyl. I’ll post in a couple of days. Does anyone think that series connecting speakers is a good idea?  Some speakers image well (Maggies) but highs better in an aluminum tweeter box speaker. I do appreciate all opinions. We are all different fish but this one has lost his way a bit

PS. I wish I could tell u what works well together. Actually, none of the combinations sound crisp, hence the post. If I had an answer to that one then no need to stretch my hand out into this forum so far.   I will try to go to Qobuz and even drag out my CD player for a trial. I do appreciate the feedback. Music is emotions in reflection

The Quads are the largest in my locker. Any fans of those comparatively? 

+1 on moving the maggies ~ 4 ft from the wall, good for virtually all hi-end speakers: they need to breathe. Also, get proper stands to raise the maggies off the floor. You didn't mention flooring, but thick carpet will limit music from sounding 'crisp'

Also Mac tends to be smooth. I am 73, almost 74. I bought a LSA Voyager 350 GaN amp from Underwood HiFi, Incredible in every way

hth

 

I wonder why a pre-amp

Because it is the heart of a system. I don't think I'd want to hear the BGW without one.

Find out what your speakers are producing. Go forth with that knowledge.

FINALLY, after all these years, I bought myself a sound pressure meter, $20. Amazon.

 

mounts on a tripod, put at listening position ear level.

Then see measured output of specific frequencies, see what you are getting, in that position, with those speakers in that location.

I use this Test CD with 29  individually selectable 1/3 octave tones 25hz to 20,000 hz.

 

https://www.discogs.com/release/7290000-Various-Amazing-Bytes

Great ideas. Hardwood floors. Sure, I have some thick marble slabs, perhaps 4 inch. I’ll get them cut to bring the Maggies up. The sound pressure meter is up. My buddy has a frequency generator.  My music is only streaming and the iphone controls volume so still not sure about adding a pre-amp. I don’t need to switch to another source or use a volume control. I set my volume on my iphone to be at max when I use the amps that have adjustable pots like the McIntosh. You guys are giving me some great ideas. Thanks. 

So plot a range of spl’d vs frequencies at the optimal listening point and see if there are any areas falling down on the graph, eh 

Music timber is probably the best word to describe the loss to you guys

Bluetooth and Spotify / Pandora are probably the major culprits for the lack of detail. You have a very resolving system but the source can’t provide the detail your system can provide.

Try the free Qobuz trial and see if that helps.

 

Danager, u hit the nail on the head!!

I signed up Qobuz hihest quality. I switched between this and Pandora. David Gray, Please Forgive me, there is a bell that has a ringing harmonic on Q but not P. The mid-base is punchy and I can feel the spl as a push of sound wave (like a sub). I like mid-base punch. I had to turn the Maggies down because that extra punch caused the left speaker to distort when the music punched. The left speaker buzzes at moderate volumes. This is at the top center of the mylar. It stops if I touch that one part of the mylar. Not sure if mylar separation is common or how to fix it.  Can’t listen to them when it is doing this. 
 

Pulling  the speakers from 2 ft to 4 ft added a fullness to the recording studio. 
I can hear the squeak in the guitar strings when the musician moves his fingers. 
The voice is clear and crisp but lacks breathiness. That might just be the quality of the recording. I can still feel like I am listening to David Gray through an amplifier and speaker. Even if I was in a 200 person venue I still am still very aware I am listening to “Peavy band” speakers and not to the breathiness and clarity as if he was in front of me. 
On another piano artist I like I also feel like I am listening to the piano amplified through a set of band speakers just off the stage where the pianist is playing through concert speakers. 
Overall, it is 1,000x better and probably as good as it has ever sounded. I just wish i could get that breathiness into the vocals and beyond the feeling I was listening to concert speakers and more like a real person. 
Thank you. 

Maybe M’s are normal and I am just driving them too hard 

@geworthomd

Magnapan repair how to

It just comes down to the dollar. It’s still about the source but as you know front row seats cost more than the seats in the back. I would recommend a new DAC and streamer to get to the front row.

You can move up to the forth row for as little $250 Allow Boss 2

and then for an additional $60 a year for Volumio Premium. This will allow you to control Qobuz (or Tidal) using a phone or PC on your home Wifi in a browser. session and you’ll still have to pay for the streaming service. What’s weird is that Spotify is supported on the Volumio app for free but it might move you back a row or two.

Qobuz (and Tidal) don’t support a PI based app directly so you have to use the Volumio premium service to play it on your system if you go that way.

You can easily move to the front row for around $2000 and climb on stage if budget isn’t an issue.

Personally I purchased a dedicated fanless PC to run Qobuz (and Amazon HD) and then connected my dac to that. Windows has a built remote control app RemotePC which lets me control the Music PC windows sever and I can sit on the couch, log in and it works great. Their are a lot of other prebuilt music servers but they usually don’t support AmazonHD but do support Qobuz (or Tidal).

I’ve been the Bluetooth, Chromecast Audio, BubbleUnP, RasberryPI - Allo hat route and next to a really long USB cable the $300 dedicated PC to my DAC is the best solution.

Good luck let me know if you have any questions

Cheers

 

Thank u, esp Danager. You were so perfect in your Sherlock Holmes. Here was my work this week:

iPhone built in DAC 46 kb/s

MacBook Pro to Dragonfly USB max 96 kb/s 24 bit but music has to be corregated through software and computer internal electrical parts.   The chipset cannot go more than 96 because it is USB powered and at max. 
 

Next up is 120volt DAC. Expensive for sure but wait…

Music storage device is even better sampling rate. Control needs computer screen?  IPhkne control machine adds even more. I don’t have that much lossless yet. Internet streaming for the millennials and storage for us older folks?  
 

Enter into the picture, older brother, audiophile since the 1970’s. 2400 lossless albums. Not the most current music collection but pretty darn good.
 

Thanks to Danager this is what I did:  Big brother lending me a copy of his music in two 1Tb hard drives.  Bought Sony HAPZ1ES second hand for $700. Downgraded my TMobile plan to eliminate extra 10 gig of hotspot. Enter TMobile Home Internet with unlimited broadband and faster than 5g cellular. Home Internet is $50. I save $15 for canceling the TMobile 40 gig package. Now my tv will hopefully stop buffering during those high bandwidth use Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings. I can still stream on Qobuz for $16 /mo without having to buy Apple’s music streaming for $10 per month in order to get lossless populated into my iphone /setup /music 

i have not received it all or pulled it all together. This has been a journey. Yes, I did feel the need to bring up my hearing quality because I am 62 and had self doubt in my ability to appreciate the quality of music at my age. 
 

Enter Danager. He (and my older brother) made me realize that we have been slowly duped by the music industry. The convinced us to stop buying 16 bit 48 kb/s Cd players and music stream plus buy those songs we want for a bargain price of 99 cents each. Forget buying a whole album when there is only one good song, right?  Oh, then there is Bluetooth from your new iPhone and a Rocketfish Bluetooth receiver $15. Now we have wireless music streaming from our iphones to our stereo, on demand!  We have our own Pandora playlist too. All this was too good to be true. We are in 2020 technology. The heck with all those CD cases all over the place and the towers of file storage or the Sony holder player of your 150 CD’s on shuffle so you never get tired of listening to them ever again. 
 

The trouble for me was sitting down to finally listen to streaming music was Lost-Full and I did not know why. Thank you to Danager. The problem wasn’t in buying better and better speakers and amplifiers and figuring out what sounds best. The Bluetooth was the problem. No amount of money spent was going to give my stereo an upgrade if i kept the iphone to Bluetooth combination but who lets John Q. Public know that we have gone down the wrong path. 
 

it isn’t so much about older age hearing loss. It isn’t about buying Audioquest’s $4500 carbon fiber RCA cables or changing out older McIntosh 120v cables to the wall plug in the ever ending search to just be able to enjoy music again. Ditch the iphone music app. Ditch the Bluetooth and live again. Buy a 120 volt DAC and if you can afford it, some storage. 
 

Thank you, kind sir. 

Sorry not correct price of $4500 for Audioquest RCA cables. I mean Paul’s Reference audio cables for $21,000 each. Not knocking a great company. I’m just saying I could have purchased all PS Audio and Audioquest upgrades and sat down to listen to my Pandora David Gray playlist through my IPhone to Bluetooth Rocketfish and…probably shot myself!

$51,000 for 10 ft biwired ones (each)

The King’s New Clothes, Aesoph Fable

I think I found a deal on a used Sony 1TB DAC, thanks to you. I am a Mac guy but there is no reason I have to use my primary laptop for this when Walmart has new Windows laptops for $300 and you say Windows has software built it. 
I guess u said I have to cancel Qobuz because there isn’t any software to support it between a laptop and the Sony DAC?  If I read you correctly?

Thank you again, new friend  I’m also on gmail if the rules allow me to say here?

geworthomd

Update on an old post:

It all came alive:

Cambridge Azure 851a amp, Cambridge CXN streamer, Qobuz premium subscription, good cables, power conditioner and B&W 802 speakers. 
Wow, awakened to the real world of music!

Unfortunately, the Cambridge 851a was one of the many, but not all, to sustain that dreaded turns-off just after it turns on. Eventually, after 8 months of Cambridge attempted repairs, I decided to go with Cambridge’s all-in-one EVO 150 “Award Winning”…

Piece of junk!  Wow. Back to Bluetooth sound!

Cambridge’s EVO 150 does not use a toroidal supply (851a did). The EVO 150 has it’s own streamer built in so I no longer used the CXN streamer. The EVO 150 had similar RMS output as the 851a but the EVO 150 is underpowered for my B&W 802’s. The EVO 150 uses a cheaper ESS Sabre 9018 chipset instead of a Pro. The EVO 150 is a class d vs the 851a is a class a/b. 
 

The EVO 150 has a broad dynamic range but not as good as the 851a. The highs are the same with both amps. The woofers flutter at the 7-8/10 volume whereas, the 851a would make your ears bleed. 
 

The Cambridge EVO 150 falls apart in the soundstage, timber and overall midrange. Instead of being in the front row of a concert (851a) the EVO 150 sounds like you are 100-150 ft back from the stage. Instruments blur at the same notes. It is hard to tell which instrument is playing because they all sound the same from that far away. 
 

Bottom line:  Music can be great but if you have heard better before then switch to the Cambridge EVO 150, you will be out $3,000 on a junk sounding machine. I could not imagine that an amplifier could make such a difference. The Cambridge EVO 150 is class D, no toroidal power, lowest of the ESS Sabre chipsets and I wonder if there is a streamer hardware cost-savings decrease as well. Compared with the Cambridge 851a, though reliability issues with but some, the Cambridge EVO 150 is unsatisfying and a major decrease in soundstage, timber and headroom. 

Update on an old post:

It all came alive:

Cambridge Azure 851a amp, Cambridge CXN streamer, Qobuz premium subscription, good cables, power conditioner and B&W 802 speakers. 
Wow, awakened to the real world of music!

Unfortunately, the Cambridge 851a was one of the many, but not all, to sustain that dreaded turns-off just after it turns on. Eventually, after 8 months of Cambridge attempted repairs, I decided to go with Cambridge’s all-in-one EVO 150 “Award Winning”…

Piece of junk!  Wow. Back to Bluetooth sound!

Cambridge’s EVO 150 does not use a toroidal supply (851a did). The EVO 150 has it’s own streamer built in so I no longer used the CXN streamer. The EVO 150 had similar RMS output as the 851a but the EVO 150 is underpowered for my B&W 802’s. The EVO 150 uses a cheaper ESS Sabre 9018 chipset instead of a Pro. The EVO 150 is a class d vs the 851a is a class a/b. 
 

The EVO 150 has a broad dynamic range but not as good as the 851a. The highs are the same with both amps. The woofers flutter at the 7-8/10 volume whereas, the 851a would make your ears bleed. 
 

The Cambridge EVO 150 falls apart in the soundstage, timber and overall midrange. Instead of being in the front row of a concert (851a) the EVO 150 sounds like you are 100-150 ft back from the stage. Instruments blur at the same notes. It is hard to tell which instrument is playing because they all sound the same from that far away. 
 

Bottom line:  Music can be great but if you have heard better before then switch to the Cambridge EVO 150, you will be out $3,000 on a junk sounding machine. I could not imagine that an amplifier could make such a difference. The Cambridge EVO 150 is class D, no toroidal power, lowest of the ESS Sabre chipsets and I wonder if there is a streamer hardware cost-savings decrease as well. Compared with the Cambridge 851a, though reliability issues with but some, the Cambridge EVO 150 is unsatisfying and a major decrease in soundstage, timber and headroom.