helomech
Responses from helomech
| Six DAC Comparison The Benchmark DAC3 was SOTA when originally released. Its measured performance was surpassed by cheaper DACs years ago. These days there exist $200 “Chi-Fi” DACs that objectively outperform the DAC3. | |
| Listening to what we Like Instead of what we have to Within your budget, call Ty at Tyler Acoustics and describe your dilemma. | |
| MoFi or Harbeth (used) I picked up a pair of 30th Anniversary Compact 7’s a few months ago, just to compare to the other Harbeths I’ve owned (Super HL5 Plus 40th anniversary and P3ESR SE). They really wowed me, as well as some of my audiophile friends, and I kept... | |
| Quick question for the Cables Don't Make a Difference Crowd. Think about the logic of your post, really…think about it! | |
| Bluesound I get a “connection” error now and again but it doesn’t seem to actually affect the function in any way. | |
| Subwoofer Advice Just realized you have the Coda No.8 I had the V1 version of that amplifier. FWIW, my Yamaha A-S2100 provides more grunt in the lowest octave of bass. IDK how it does so but it does. | |
| Would McIntosh Auto Transformers affect speaker sound? Their “engineers” have been resting on past laurels for decades. Here in 2024, one can get a $500 “Chi-Fi” preamp like the Topping A90Pro that absolutely smokes the $5500 C49 (yes, I’ve AB’d them!) So Mac would be better off with some new designe... | |
| Amps that don’t impersonate space heaters. @audphile1 I tried a variety of preamps. The Benchmark LA4, Topping A90D, Mac C49, and the preamp section of the Yamaha integrated. | |
| Amps that don’t impersonate space heaters. @audphile1 I know the sort of thing you’re referencing regarding bass quality vs quantity, but that’s not what was going on with the No.8 vs the Yamaha. With the Yamaha, the bass sounded as though it dug a whole half octave deeper. I asked Doug ... | |
| Would McIntosh Auto Transformers affect speaker sound? In this rare instance I actually agree with AudioTroy. The reason Mac amps sound so warm with otherwise neutrally voiced speakers is the autoformers. The same goes for other brands’ transformer-coupled output stages. It’s essentially the complete ... | |
| JA Pulsars vs Harbeth 30.2 I don’t have the Pulsars but I do own a pair of Tyler Taylo Reference speakers that use the same Seas drivers (albeit a larger woofer) as the Pulsars. For me the choice would be easy, I’d go with the Pulsars. They have a tweeter that retails f... | |
| Amps that don’t impersonate space heaters. Slam” is a very interesting attribute. What does it mean? Do you hear this “slam” when listening to live music? Is this “slam” an accurate representation of what’s on a recording or is it emphasis of particular frequency range that one component ... | |
| Amps that don’t impersonate space heaters. I also thought I was getting good “slam” from the Coda until I swapped my Yamaha 2100 back into my system, and subsequently the Parasound A21. That experience really highlighted for me the power of expectation bias. Apparently bass strength is a... | |
| Amps that don’t impersonate space heaters. The aforementioned Codas run quite cool for their topology, much cooler than Pass IME. My Parasound A21 also keeps fairly cool. For its bass “slam” and depth, I prefer the A21 to the Coda No.8V1. The latter is slightly more refined however. I al... | |
| Clearaudio Concept with Satisfy Tonearm or Technics 1200 GR The upper end Clearaudios are good tables, but the entry level Concept is nothing special. Subjectively, the 1200GR competes well against belt-drive tables in the $3.5K-$5K range. The Concept competes well against other <$2500 belt-drives. Obj... |