@carey1110. @whitecamaross
thanks for clarifying on alexia’s superior performance compared to DAW.
Jay/WC
one thing which intrigues me that yours is the only setup i have seen where you place the speaker so much away from wall.
90% of daw and alexia setup photos and rooms and including dealer listenings rooms, i have not seen anybody place this far away from wall.
i agree that odin1 is better than odin2 in price to performance ratio.
but in true price/performance ratio even odin1 sucks along the spectrum of cables.
Jay/WC, Based on your experience with various cable which cable or cables models (power , Speaker and XLR ) do you think have the best price to performance ratio , especially i meant cables for sasha daw and alexia
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@viber6. i have the same question on ansuz. many dealers who carry both ansuz and nordost say that even an ansuz c2 is far better than odin 1
@whitecamaross or anyone has any thoughts on ansuz vs nordost. c2 vs valhalla 2 or c2 vs odin 1 or odin 2 |
@viber6 i think you missed my point.i said all 4 carry both nordost and ansuz.
even from a probability point of view, why would all of them support ansuz despite carrying nordost as well.
iam not talking about a dealer that touts only the brands he carry are the best.
also when they say A beats B, i mean they have had a cables installed in the same system, same room,listened for countless hours done A/B test and are talking about the overall performance.
we cannot even say there is sales or profit motive as both brands are high margins.
although we can easily brush off as not to believe the dealer, they also have years of experience and all of them saying the same thing does mean and indicate something. |
@whitecamaross
regarding your speaker placement deep inside the room away from the wall.i know rooms at shows they have no choice.
but if you even see the rooms at wilson audio factory, they do not place their own speakers so far.iam sure they want their speakers to sound the very best in their own setup and testing rooms.
obviously when you bring out speakers so far out, bass will decrease which you might have to over compensate by a powerful amp with more volume and power. |
@whitecamaross
have you also thought about bringing in balance, predictability in your choice of cable looms while testing your whole system.
- like one way is to use whole loom of nordost valhalla 2 from power to speaker cables, whole loom of transparent reference or XL etc or odin 1 etc.
- second way , even if you mix and match but to use price appropriate series of products.like for example a valhalla 2 can be termed reasonable for daw or alexia 2 but odin 1 may not be.
- first it brings more stability and predictability while assessing the performance of various gear
- second it also makes your system more rational and balanced.
like whats the point of using odin 1 power cords and speaker and IC when your speakers just cost 55k (alexia 2) or daw (35k).
its just like.i can pour in more money to tilt the balance of performance in one or way another.
- i mean for example would sasha daw with odin 1 beat performance of alexia 2 with valhalla 2. i highly doubt and i think alexia 2 will perform better.based on speaker and electronics combo.
- i think using cables of disproportional price for the system, makes the debate and assessment around performance more convoluted & irrational
these are just suggestions. having said that you are doing a phenomenal job and i love your insights and assessment of various combinations you share with us.
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@viber6 i agree with you and iam not averse to pricy cables and neither iam questioning the high price or value proposition.
my point is if iam spending an extra 20k for odin, instead of that if i put that money towards alexia 2 and valhalla 2 instead of sasha daw and odin 1, that v2 with alexia 2, would that not give better leap in performance?
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@carey1110 thanks for responding. I understand why WC is doing it and iam not questioning that at all.
@whitecamaross
WC
let me simplify this and ask you a simple question
say you have X amount of dollars ,electronics that could drive both daw and alexia 2 and a room that could support both speakers.
for x amount if you can buy either a (sasha daw and odin 1) OR ( alexia 2 and valhalla 2 or tyr 2).
WC/jay which option would you choose?
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@whitecamaross
hope you have tried connecting the amp directly to wall instead of thru the niagara.
your amp is quite power hungry and the peak transient current demand is quite high. |
folks take it easy, who are cheering down gryphon after WC’s observation.
iam sure WC/jay with his extensive experience with amps is going to find the root cause, tame the gryphon and bring back the synergy soon
and WC’s observation on Merrill is spot on.their Gallium Nitride based amps do not sound anything like class D and i know 3 folks who own this amp and everyone who uses it supremely satisfied.the designer has created a magical amp.
@zprr the task of designing one great universal cable for different amps and speakers is a very difficult one and almost impossible.
a cable has to match and optimize according to the load (speaker) and source (amp) impedances.
in a way i like the strategy adopted by transparent cables ,where they build the reference and higher series cables.they ask you what specific components you are using and design for specific amp and speaker models.
same like what MIT cable does for spectral amps.i think it is the best approach.
at the higher end audio segment if we are paying big bucks for cables ,customizing the cables is something all manufacturers should follow
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@viber6 i think WC is on point with the complications of moving ultra high end for things like moon 888 , mephisto etc.
i would not be surprised if mephisto has better synergy with some cables and components only
we already know that as a fact for example spectral amp needs MIT cables.
and again it's too early for WC to admit this way or that way that merrill is better or there is less benefits of throwing this much money in mephisto.
in a 2-3 weeks we will know based on WC's further experiments withe the cables and the new pre-amps he is going to try. |
@whitecamaross
- WC why don't you try the same gyphon's matching pre-amp to eliminate any guess work or unknown variables.
remember you yourself said this when testing luxman how c900u and m900u have best synergy and you cannot spend any amount of money to better/best that.
- also break in of amp and cables combo will only have an incremental effect and i doubt if things are going to change night and day there so matching gryphon premap might be your best bet and probability.
- it would be too soon for you to think about boulder at this point.boulder owners and dealers who carry both boulder and simaudio describe it as muscular, dynamic and dry, similar to simaudio |
@whitecamaross
WC/Jay
just curious why do you keep stacking the dac and the clock and the preamp on top of. each other.you have a space to the right of it, an available space in the top middle of the rack. why don't you place you preamp there?
second, are you completely happy and satisfied with bass of alexia 2 or do you have any plans to add a subwoofer? |
@speedbump6
i would wait for @whitecamaross WC/Jay’s video today to get an answer of alexia 2 bass and whether he needs subwoofer or not now or down the road
Having said that, no good hifi system is ever complete without a subwoofer.
even 850k wilson wamm chronosonic system with huge drivers and better bass still needs subs.
and subs are not just to increase bass or SPL , they improve the space and definition in both lower and mid bass region.
since WC believes in continuous tuning, improvement and has an eye towards performance and perfection, there may be a time WC may choose to get subwoofers. |
@whitecamaross its good to know that finally you have been able to nail the performance out of mephisto and i had no doubt about it that eventually you will be able to.
but equally its quite alarming and is quite a shame than an amp of this high calibre and price would be so allergic to different cables, which will affect its performance.
whenever somebody says that high end amp sound performance and synergy is so much dependent on cables.i think it poorly speaks to the instability and inconsistency of its power supply design & engineering.
amp depending on high end cable is still ok.but to say it won't play well with odin or hurricane but only a few brands like gryphon or some thing else is not very encouraging as well.
ideally an high end amp should work well with a decently designed cables where power supply transformer, filters & rectifiers should a stellar job of giving. a stable and predictable performance |
@whitecamaross
these are great talking points and looking forward to your video.
do you have any thoughts on differences between the whole valhalla 2 line vs odin 1 line (power cables, XLR and speaker cables)
like how close or valhalla 2 in performance to odin 1 and when does it make sense to get valhalla 2 and how do the highs/treble and the low end bass compare on valhalla 2 vs odin 1.
is ansuz c2 line better than valhalla 2?
if you can either share your thoughts here or in the video .either way, it would be of great help.
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@whitecamaross
you could also try synergistic research with gryphon. ted denney frequently uses SR at demo at shows with gryphon mephisto and has claimed the best synergy |
folks,
catching up messages after a long time. i was surprised to see preamp vs dac direct debate cropping up again and again.
for me having an pre-amp is a must and is a no brainer
i have a dcs rossini and have done countless hours of listening to come to this conclusion.
the biggest problem for dac direct is that, volume control is done in digital domain and to put it simply, bits are shaved off to achieve this and this is where you loose accuracy and precision.
conventional wisdom and engineering design has always proved that volume control done over analog domain is far superior than microprocessor based digital volume control.
this is especially true for lower volume listening as well.
my assessment is you do not even need a very expensive pre-amp.say for example a rossini plus clock is 30k, even a 740p simaudio preamp at 9k or a passive preamp like townshend allegri reference 7k will do a stellar job.
theoretically of course better performance , precision and accuracy can be achieved over digital domain but i feel even high end dac manufacturers have not invested in coming up with those solutions because this would increase their cost and they also know that most audiophiles who buy high end dacs also buy a good preamp.
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@viber6
rossini does not have an analog preamp, also does not have analog volume control or for attenuation.
voltage gain stage is present and almost happens in all of the devices whether it is dac or preamp or power amp but current gain stage is present only in power amp.
you are right that with 6v you do not a need a preamp, but that is from a gain perspective.
but do you need a passive or active preamp which can do a 0db pass thru with a well built analog volume control.
since there are myriad of different sources that produce any where from 0.2,0.6, 2v and 6v, that is why most of the good preamps have an adjustable offset from anywhere to - 6db to +6db, so that you can carefully match to your power amp and speaker load appropriately
also very few dacs have adjustable voltage on XLR like dcs.pretty much most manufacturers have fixed 6v on XLR these days. |
@whitecamaross
finally i see things are coming together for you with pandora preamp,AQ cables , CMS stand.
very nice and happy for you.
i find the perennial personal attacks and unfounded criticism on jay without understanding what this thread stands for is quite irritating.
jay you definitely deserve to take your thread to a better forum, where the thread initiator has better control. also where we can like and upvote and share some pictures in thread.a bit more modern community forum with more features. |
my guess is mephisto would absolutely benefit from CMS stand.CMS is the best of the best and pretty much a leader in that category.and considering its been custom designed for the mephisto, i think it will easily outperform artesania or anything else. and iam optimistic that mephisto will benefit greatly from it |
@carey1110
fully agree with you on different hearing perceptions and arguments around the same.
thats why i trust WC judgments and description as a base truth rather than deriving it by listening to the youtube video.
i find jay to be very dispassionate and impartial with gear, and hence basing & deriving the further arguments based on what WC says reduces ambiguity and confusion for me. |
@viber6
regarding CH M1.1 vs Mephisto. Mephisto was not in my shopping list as 200W pure class A amp is not my cup of tea or preference.i was looking for class AB amps.
and you were spot on while describing what is dark.
i talked to another mephisto owner and this was his description of dark
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Dark refers to the fact that the upper treble range has a tendency to be slightly recessed...extremely clear, all the details there, but not as forward. By contrast, when highs are emphasized slightly in the presentation, they become 'spot lit'...hope that makes sense. In the case of the Mephisto, it is exceedingly organic (which some might say is warm)...but is not nearly as 'dark' as its historic predecessors (Antileon)..
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there is no correlation between sweetness/warmth and detail at all. infact the sound of many instruments on the upper mids to high frequence is not sweet or warm at all.
with so many variables from how the band of instruments or orchestra that performed to even determine the spacing and detail of instruments to what a recording engineer added or removed or compensated, its hard to draw a reference line.
the best one can start with is that the components/electronics we use have to be transparent , uncolored and neutral and not warm or sweet in first place. second have an idea about how texture, timber and tonality of each instruments sound.
for people who have no interest in going the above route, better to stick to their personal taste of what sounds best to their ears.
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pandora preamp is important to extract the best performance out of mephisto.
although it sucks and it's the bane of this industry that for impedance matching, input switching and volume control one has to spend 40k.
gryphon is in the best position to understand the impedance, load, characteristics curve of the power amplifier.so kind of the secret sauce and hence the premium being extracted out of the same.
of course gryphon alone cannot be blamed and everyone does it.
also from a mindset and psychological perspective the buyer who gets gryphon mephisto, even if gryphon sells a cheaper preamp , the buyer will be second guessing himself considering the chain of high end components in their system. |
@whitecamaross
jay many congratulations on getting both boulder and gryphon.
you are doing something which very few can dream of even as reviewers. thanks a lot for your persistence and hardwork and bringing such experimentative perspective for high end.
i always felt this thread got a bit sidetracked with some magnepans, benchmart,bryston talk etc and some mindless criticism sucking the energy of this thread. nothing wrong but its just you are doing some very unique things it makes total sense to continue doing that in the zone of ultra high end stuff.
keep up your great work and thanks a lot for your imagination and hardwork |
i do not think sasha daw and alexia 2 have boomy bass by any stretch of imagination.its all about tuning them correctly and mating them with right set of components.
@whitecamaross - jay , may be once you are done with gryphon and boulder, think about nagra HD or VTL.these both have fantastic synergy with alexx and sometimes you do not need the amount of power of gryphon or boulder.may be with lesser powered amplifier you will have more control over tuning the speakers in terms of bass and you might have better precision, resolution and clarity in midrange and highs too. |
@whitecamaross
jay i just heard peter mcgrath saying that the cabling inside wilson alexx is transparent opus series. just in case if you want to try or play/experiment by using transparent opus Speaker Cables /IC for maximum synergy.
i have to come to believe that in high end most of the amplifiers and speakers are very transparent and neutral and cable is the least transparent among all and greatly affects the sonic output and listening impressions. |
@whitecamaross
you got to come up with some unique way of comparing mephisto stereo vs boulder mono
- boulder is twice as powerful but each amp only needs to work half as mephisto
- even if you choose a lower to moderate volume, the channel separation and isolation itself is going to reap a lot of dividends |
Jay,
it really does not make any sense to worry or think about stock or AQ power cords.there are already so many variables in the system and difference in synergy when comparing diff components.
either ways the mighty boulder monoblocks are going to road roll the poor stereo mephisto.
I also think you should go back to vivaldi from rossini.bcoz at the ultra high end level you are comparing , source becomes very important and its were everything starts.since you are rest of the chain is so transparent, you should truly have a reference source like vivaldi or MSB Select to do justice to the rest of the chain. |
fantastic effort jay. sounds phenomenal.
@pokey77
you are absolultely spot on.
thats what gyphon owners say.it has a slightly warmer,darker recessed presentation
boulder has a slightly lit and forward presentation with more energy in the highs.
boulder hands down wins not because its my personal preference., because you can always tune a boulder system with wamer cables like for example kubala sosna or transparent, but you cannot tune a gryphon system otherwise.
you can tame the energy in the highs, but if in first place its dark or recessed you cannot get back the energy |
jay, just ignore it and let it go.its not worth your time replying and giving credence to such eternally pescimistic comments from known troublemakers.
you have a lot to be proud of.enjoy your holiday week :) |
@whitecamaross thanks for honestly sharing your thoughts on CMS footers. although CMS has a very complex and good engineering and construction, its such a wierd thing that a product sounds like crap for 3 weeks and one day it magically transforms into a eureka moment or like a miracle.incremental changes i can understand but one fine day complete transformation is unbelievable.and if it is so the product maker better have a white paper to explain the dynamics behind their material science and construction and change in properties of of why this happen other than just terming it as settling in or break in. even other products break and settle in but nothing changes as in day and night. |
@whitecamaross
jay - you have done a great thing by installing a full loom of one brand one series.this will ensure great consistency and predictability in evaluating the system.
at your level of system full loom is the best and needed approach to follow.
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@ron17
far from not affecting the sound, jay has reported that it has deteriorated the performance and this is pathetic.
it also indicates and we can infer that generically designed components will not work as one size fits all..
footers custom made for components are needed, factoring in the weight distribution,center of gravity, placement of transformers etc for a component especially like boulder for which the footer has to be custom designed. then we can predictably talk or expect about the footers doing some good or enhancing the performance positively. |
@ron17 - i get your point what you are saying.trial and error should also have some basis .it should not be some fluke or totally random thing.
the manufacturer here seems to be clueless on when the product will settle in or give results or what is even the right way to install it for boulders.
ofcourse we are thankful to jay for doing the trial and error so that we came to the correct conclusion.not everyone can be experimenting like jay as well.
ofcourse audiophiles experiment and there is trail period which is good.but this is precisely the problem with the high end audio industry. resonance control is not vodoo and its a far more predictable science than cables or any other thing.
at these kind of prices if these products dont come up with proper explanation of working. behaviour, installation and results, it is apalling.
and more than treating this trial and error it teaches us the lession that at this level of components one should not be buying such generic components without any basis or explanation, instead of go for custom made according to characterstics and specs of the electronics in use. |
absolutely jay. when you reach to a system of this level.elecronics, amps and speakers become most transparent.and cables and accessories become least transparent comparatively and they are colored.so every change in cable or accessories lead to noticeable difference in sonic output and coloration. |
@whitecamaross
jay i disagree with you on this. its neither about you room nor its about lack of bass or SPL.
no audio system is complete without a subwoofer.
subwoofer is not added to compensate lack of bass.
it improves both the definition and spatiality of the bass.and subwoofer helps and augments the main speaker
there is a reason 350k xvx and 850k wamm come with add on sub woofer.
there is no main full range speaker in the world that can render sub 20hz frequency faithfully and it’s simply is neither possible nor desirable or should be expected from the main full range speakers
for example in REL 6 pack. each of the 3 pairs are crossed over at different frequencies.and once you hear the rel 6 pack or wilson thor or subsonic, its hard to go back to being without them. |
@whitecamaross
its not about your amps whether boulder or for that matter even a dan relentless.its about your speakers or for that matter any full range mains speaker.no matter what u do to drive them or how many kilo watts of power you pump them with ,they cannot do what a subwoofer does.
again i just mean quality,definition and spatiality of the bass and not its power or SPL.
and needless to say ,although your system is very good and you may be satisfied with what you hear, as you would know in audio , you would not be able to imagine or know what is better than this, until you experience an array of correctly tuned subwoofers, whether its array of 6 rel no.25 or four drivers of a wilson thor hammer.
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@kren006 you are mostly right and i agree with you .
talk of prerogative is irrelevant as these are ofcourse suggestions in general context whether jay goes this path or not.
But class D IMO works better and suited for subs and its not bad as its for mains speakers.class D amps are fast and efficient being well suited for subs.
and i disagree about loss of transparency. addition of a class D amp of REL will not cause any loss of transparency of the mains amp and speakers.
ofcourse the best and more costly approach would be to use passive subs like wilson thors or subsonic and run 4 power amps of same type ( 2 pairs of monoblocks).this would match the timber and tone of subs and mains to greater extent.
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@astewart8944 even i own alexx speakers and yes they also need subwoofers.
and nobody is talking about yours or jay’s somebody’s right or preference or prerogative or personal hobby to spend their money and create the systems they way the want.these points are utterly irrelevant.we already respect and understand jays choices at a specific point of time in his audio journey and these are just suggestions.
we are talking about general principles of architecturing and designing systems.
any audio system is incomplete without a subwoofer and this is a proven & tested concept. period. |
@whitecamaross
looking forward to hearing your observation on opus power cords.
if they perform well and elevate the performance, they will be a bargain compared to nordost odin and odin 2 power cords and AQ dragon. |
@whitecamaross
do you think opus power cord on boulder is better than SR galileo and AQ dragon.
also i agree with zaks and i think you should remove the momentum from top of the boulder. |
@tjassoc2
the arguments of comparing music either being true to source in recorded music or in live music is completely fallable and inconsistent.
this is the same thing articulated by harry pearson of TAS which i dont agree with
do all concerts hall of same music, sound the same.i would say no.depends on type of instrument, orchestra, auditorium etc.does any violins or two different instruments of any type sound the same.answer is no
same in the recorded music world.depends on the mic, mixing and the speakers the engineer listened.
i would say many would even prefer the sound of a properly mastered track rather than plain simple unamplified instrument.
there are simply so many variables no reference or base to compare.
we already know the cable as much as we want to think of straight wire of gain is far away from that and is the least transparent component among all others.
the point iam coming to is , that we all have to build systems with the sound signature we tend to like rather than chasing some reference live music bcoz it simply is not possible.
as long as jay is able to describe the sound clearly and coherently on what is listening to iam fine with that. |
@tjassoc
haha. don't get worked up for no reason.
who is talking about right and wrong. iam just putting up my point of view.
and having disagreements is fine
sure when i get a chance to listen to your system i will share what i hear then.
i have my fair share of owning high end systems,listening to concerts and listening a lot of high end systems in diff rooms and comparing tons of high end cables.
you are assuming my experiences to be conjecture and yours to be fact.lol.
not sure how u came to an apparent conclusion that what i stated is theory.
so what if your system is 250k and mine is 350k plus.does not mean or infer anything. you are sharing your experiences and iam sharing mine. lets leave it at that.
and btw jay does not mind any disagreements.disagrements and different points of view is what consitutes a healthy discussion. |
