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In Reply to: aren't those f18s killer? posted by Mart on January 3, 2000 at 22:33:47:
I'm envious of your twin subwoofer combination of FSR18's. Judging from the tremendous output from my F1800XR, which has a smaller amp, your setup must be a real treat on Starship Troopers, Fifth Element, and the Professional. I had considered buying another subwoofer to balance left and right, but alas my room size simply does not allow it. To compensate for the lack of subwoofer fun, I now have a Paradigm X-30 active crossover with variable phase (!) on order for $120 that I want to play around with.About wires, I'm not much of a wire zealot. In my youth, I knew wires were different, now that I am older and stupider, I actually bought those expensive wires, and when I'm truly cash-flush and senile, you'll see me sporting some biwire Goertz AG-3. To give you a frame of reference, about 8 years ago, I purchased some Tara Labs Analog Standard and some Kimber brand that they probably don't make anymore, along with some Monster Interlink. I found that the Tara Labs was the darkest and quietest of the cables, the Kimber seemed neutral, and the Monster Interlink was dark, thin and awkward. Cables out of the box were sometimes better than those Interlinks (though with worse shielding). That was my wire experience until 6 months ago.
When I was shopping around, I heard all the great things about the Harmonic Tech cables, so I decide to check out the Precision Links, which are the polyethylene version of the Truth Links. I found that the sound was smooth and the overall balance was neutral - not rich, not thin, and certainly not dynamic range "whitened". Another cable, the Monster 550I, also had great reviews. The 550I has strands individually insulated with MicroFiber dielectric. The 550I was rich in harmonics. Neutral, no, precise, no, but pleasurable, yes. If I had to reoutfit my entire system with Monster 550I, I wouldn't mind, but I think I would care if I bought tube amps. For me, I would like a cable with the Monster 550I richness and the Harmonic Tech pureness.
Speaker cables caused a larger difference in sound for me. The Monster speaker cables that I had tried were the low end non-MicroFiber cables. They had big bloated bass and smeared highs, causing integration problems with the Concertos and the F1800XR. The well regarded Tara Klara sounds thinner and more clear than the Monsters. The Goertz MI2 was remarkably different - very clear, very transparent. The bass bloat was gone, along with the subwoofer integration problems. I now have the MI2 biwiring my front & center.
I don't understand why the Concertos performed so poorly in your audition, perhaps it was the source or broken speakers. I've always found the Concertos cast significant air and space with good amplification (they can sound flat on a receiver). On rock and HT, the Concertos can sound muted, perhaps that's the flat effect that you heard.
I am familiar with the B&W 302s, having heard them for 2 weeks on my old audio system including a Magnavox CDB650/PS-Audio 4.6/Proton D1200 amp. They sounded reasonable at the store, but when I brought them back home in a near field setup, I started noticing a vague coarseness to the timbre, much like my Accord stock stereo, something not present in my JBL L20Ts. I called up the B&W dealer and he told me to break it in for 2 weeks. I did. But even after that time, the timbre was nowhere near as smooth and as pleasant as the L20Ts. The highs didn't have the purity of the L20T titanium tweeters. I suspect the paper cones were not well made (and lest you think I'm a polypro bigot, the Concertos have a paper cone based driver made by Vifa). Maybe I had a bad batch of 302s. Disillusioned, I returned them and raised my $2K HT budget to $10K. Later that year, I bought a demo Classe SSP25 from the same dealer.
Anyhow, these are some neophyte opinions... I really haven't been looking at audio equipment that long. Happy listening for the new year!
Yours,--andy
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Follow Ups
- More (long) - Andy Hung 13:31:36 01/04/00 (1)
- Re: More (long) - Mart 14:36:36 01/04/00 (0)
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