Hello -
Everything sounds AWESOME on my system because I've been working at "searching for the sound" now for 40+ years and I think I've finally nailed it (yay)! I was listening to Pink Floyd's Wish you were Here (just the basic pressed CD, not the Mobile Fidelity version) and I heard things during that session that I've never heard on the CD before and I've been listening to that CD/album since I discovered it in the early 1980's!! And to ensure I hadn't ingested something by accident prior to listening, a week or so later I invited a friend over and had the same experience in addition to watching my friend experience it for the first time. First things first. The pre-amp (preamplifier if you will) is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR SOUND SYSTEM!! The pre-amp is the brain and if your brain cannot process a signal correctly and/or accurately, what do you think the end result will be? Inaccurate and/or poor sound recreation of what the artist/band/symphony/sound engineer/producer intended you to hear. I'm a firm believer in not being able to hear the person sitting next to you talking when I listen to music. Besides, it's also the only way I can listen to music without having to hear the ringing sounds caused by the bilateral tinnitus I experience (which really stinks to begin with!). So I use a Mark Levinson #38 as my pre-amp (which was at '52' for the "Wish you were Here" event). And from there, the signal runs via Cardas XLR to a pair of self-powered Meyer Sound MTS-4's (yes - google them). Each cabinet contain an 18-inch woofer; a 15-inch woofer; a 12-inch woofer and a 2-inch throat (4-inch diaphragm) horn. And each driver/horn has it's own 620-watt amplifier to draw from (2480-watts per cabinet and each cabinet retailed for $17,000), not to mention they're made to travel. I grew up with a pair of Bozak 410b Concert Grands that were way under powered by a McIntosh 2200, but hey, this was my dad's stereo, not mine (although I inherited and still have both the 410b Bozak Concert Grands [which I would love to update and tweak with new drivers and crossovers not to mention some sound deadening materials] and the McIntosh 2200 - although I now have a McIntosh MC-2300 driving the Bozak's and they're much happier but they are all original and all from the 1970's). And I have a PS Audio Perfect-Wave CD Transport going into a Mark Levinson #36 (which also receives a signal from a BlueSound Node II - and that sounds great as well!). I'd put this system up against anything costing $100,000 or less! I also own a pair of Merlin International Excalibur's (and prior to that, a pair of Signature 4's that I sent back to Bobby P., to have bi-wired - although I did not care much for the TSM/VSM era, they did sound incredible for what they were. Bobby P., is like a Jedi Master in the audio industry - at least to myself and many others his genius electrical/sound engineering skills touched!). And there it is. The system that has the ability to send shivers down my spine! It's as if I'm getting the opportunity to listen to every thing I own for the first time! It's beyond my vocabulary to articulate any further how good my system sounds. You just have to experience it to believe it.
