??? What Is The MOST Expensive System You Ever Heard ??? What Was Your Opinion ???


So yesterday I stopped by the dealer who sold me my Harbeth speakers..I was invited into the "BIG System" room where he had finally got everything set up & dialed in on the nearly 1 MILLION $ MBL system(price after tax,delivery & set up)..
Everything,& I mean EVERYTHING,from the thick cables,to the amps & pre to the turntable to the 6’ tall speakers was FREAKING HUGE!
As I settled into the sweet spot he dropped the needle on a freshly wet cleaned & vacuumed heavy pressing of "Kind of Blue" the VERY first sound that greeted me was a horrible THUMP as the needle hit the groove!
I spent the next 10 minutes or so listening intently..Never in my life did I imagine imaging & staging like those big MBL Omni directional speakers threw out!Every single inch of that room where the recording was made was laid out in micro detail,you could hear feet shuffling around & tell as horns were swung up & down or side to side..As far as those aspects of the demo were concerned it was very impressive..However I didn’t hear that anything unique about the natural warmth & "more"organic tone always spewed about vinyl,plus the tics & pops from the record were pretty annoying & thinking about what I heard as I made the nearly 2 hour drive home I didn’t recall ever having that melt into the presentation feeling of relaxation I value when listening to music..On the contrary,I did recall a constant barrage of individual aspects of the performance that were highly noticeable but IMO there was never a unification of what I heard & sometimes the performance came off as a little mechanical & hard...
When I got home & settled in,I qued up the SACD copy of the same album on my Elite multi disc player..The imaging & staging of my meager little system shouldn’t even be called imaging & staging compared to that MBL system..Micro detail was pretty much non existent when compared as well..But the music was relaxing,it didn’t beg to be dissected & analyzed,only enjoyed..Oh & 1 VERY important difference was that while the tape hiss of the original recording was clearly present & evident,there was absolutely no THUMP when the song started & ZERO pops or tics from that needle following roughly cut grooves in vinyl!
All in all,the experience makes me appreciate what I have even more..

freediver

I will never forget Austin Acoustic 750K set up. It has liveness and musicality. Everyone in the room are shaking their head how good the system is. This is at I believe CES or axpona Westin Hotel ground floor.

Top of the line MBL. You could walk into the soundstage and the location of the instruments was stable. I’ve heard a few others but none even came close.

I had the good fortunate to spend an entire day at the old World of McIntosh Townhouse that used to be in SoHo, NYC.  The Townhouse was closed, it was the day after an album release event, but the Director gave me total control of all 5 floors and every room, which all had specially designed systems utilizing the McIntosh family at that time (February 2020 -- McIntosh, Audio Research, Sonus Faber, Pro-Ject, Sumiko).

 

The Main Room (a 2 story living room/reception area) had their famous $1 Million System -- Four XRT2.1K Floor Standing Loudspeakers, 3 amps driving each speaker, multiple Subs, surround speakers, highest end preamps, processors, turntables, CD Players, Streamers...just an insane setup.  The gear took up an entire room behind the 2 story bookshelf that you sat in front of to listen.  

 

It was just surreal.  An original Banksy was on one wall, and a Klimt was on the other wall.  I've never heard sound systems like I heard that day.  Every room was mind blowing, but the showcase system was a bucket list item for me.  I still contact Franz (the Director) to this day thanking him over and over.

Convergent Audio Technology is about 15 miles from me, and I get to hear the latest and greatest of the CAT amps and SL-1 occasionally... always very impressive. Usually in the $100K to $200K range, depending on the gear. I’ve heard the Magico S5 MkII a few times, some modified Hales, Avalon and Merlins with CAT amps. I missed out on the MBL speakers when he had them there. Looking forward to hearing his new Clarysis Audio Studio + soon. yes

under $500k mine is very nice, over that price the system at quintessence is Chicago is stunning, the system that burmester did at axpona few years ago, stunning