Jwm..I'm surprised you went for the PD MPS-5 if your aware of its sonic character since your into tube gear.The warmest CD or SACD player's on the market are the Rega models, the Isis, Apollo or Saturn.
The Cary 306 Pro, the Marantz Reference SA-7S1 which has just been discontinued, and the most organic and analog sounding SACD player, the Accuphase DP-700, damn pricey and hard to find used. |
Hifitime..never deceive yourself on the price of a speaker.
Look behind the curtain and study who the engineers are and their history. Michael Kelly is a legend in designing drivers and speakers since 1974, the year he became V.P. of A.D.S. and their chief designer. He is a engineer and designs his own drivers. In 1975 he had A.D.S. build a 40K size plant and by the end of the year was making ten thousand drivers a month for other speaker companies.. His partner since 1974 is Dave Marshall, a brilliant crossover designer. The Aerial 7T was three years in the making and Michael went through twenty drivers before he was satisfied. He designed the tweeter, midrange and woofer in house. The tweeter and woofer are custom made for Aerial by ScanSpeak. The midrange is made by SB Acoustics in Wisconsin, who also make all the midrange drivers for Wilson Audio. The $10K price is due to the nine layer bentwood cabinets made in China. The speaker is a mind blower. Takes a 1000 watt amp with no sweat. Performance is stunning. Better than Wilson or B&W. They roll off around 22hz. No need for a subwoofer. |
Kool-Aid? Thats so 60's..Red Bull Baby!.I need to clarify further on feedback designs and why preamps with feedback methods are inferior. Since the early 80's, designers of Preamps loop and feedback the signal current through the Preamp several times which raises the gain level. Your best Preamps in the world all have S/N ratios between 125 and 135 db's since they use different methods to avoid or minimize feedback looping. The negative with feedback is lower S/N ratio and more distortion. FM Acoustics in the 90's developed the most advanced circuitry called feedforward instead of feedback which avoids looping the signal. This keeps noise and distortion out of the signal path and boards. Hegel has come up with a patented feedforward design they call SoundEngine which eliminates feedback, equal to the FM Acoustics design, which is why their $7500.00 P-30 Preamp sounds and performs like a Preamp costing $30K and above, and why the P-30 has a S/N ratio of 132 db's. A real game changer. No bullshit. I recently heard the Hegel system with the P-30 through a pair of Amphion speakers. Blew me away. Very, very analog sounding. Rich, lush, slightly warm, with very smooth highs and mids. Bass was killer. |
Good point..I jumped the gun on the D.R.E.I. topology and moved on..however, Bent Holter is in a whole different league at Hegel. He holds a degree in micro electronics and is a transistor engineer. His challenge was to equal FM Acoustics at a fraction of the price with his Sound Engine patent. Mission accomplished. I'm still shaking my head how damn good the P-30 sounds for $7500. I have not heard any better up to $35K. And its been compared to units at much higher prices. |
Jwm..I don't buy your opinion of the Playback Design MPS-5 player. It needs a minimum of 500 hours to break in. Why do you think some of the top disc players from Sony years ago had a very warm organic sound? Andreas Koch, thats why..the years he worked at Sony as their chief digital engineer resulted in designs he implemented which were used in their top players including the SACD technology he invented..The MPS-5 is the closest I have ever heard to vinyl..the player sounds identical to studio master tape. |
Hifitime..not chasing my tail at all..the system separates I describe in this thread all have a very natural warm organic character. For example, the Sanders Magtech amp, which is manufactured by CODA, is a co-effort design between Roger Sanders and Eric Lauchli who use to be the head design engineer at Threshold when he worked for Nelson Pass back in the eighties, then broke away and started CODA when Nelson left to start Pass Labs. The Magtech amp uses the Linear voltage regulator that is Sander's own design and the rest of the amp is Eric's doing. The linear voltage regulator is not used in Coda's house amps. |
Syntax..not unfair at all..their are two types of Audiophiles I have experienced over the years, the ones that have the big bucks, that buy,sell..buy,sell.. every year, constantly in a loop of a endless obsession to have the latest and greatest high end gear to display like a game trophy from a hunting expedition, to impress their friends as if they bought the latest Beamer. Music is secondary to them. The other type is the Audiophile/Musicphile who has very deep passion for the love of music. where the music is their life, who enjoy Coltrane, Davis, Getz and Beethoven. The system components I suggested in this thread are designed by engineers who are at the top of their game. True Tier One designers whose products and techniques are closer to true analog sound regardless of price. Over the years, I have heard $100K systems in peoples homes that sound like crap and $30K systems that sound spectacular. |
OK Auditor..heres your $5K System that will sound spectacular..a pair of three way full range speakers..the Swans Diva 5.2's for $1049.00..sold by Audio Insider. The
Onkyo Reference P-3000 Preamp for $1699.00..online at lower prices..the Wyred4Sound ST-250 stereo amp. $1000.00..
The Denon 2012UDCI universal bluray player..plays all disc formats including SACD..$900.00..Total cost..$4648.00..the remaining balance of $352.00 will get you a complete cable package from Morrow Audio..their low priced solid core interconnect and speaker cable or whatever budget cable you prefer. |
I have listened to master tapes in studio's many times over the years and have two friends that are recording engineers with state of the art studios in their homes. I doubt very much you have listened to the MPS-5 player. Andreas Koch who is considered the best digital engineer in the States, worked in the Studer broadcasting studio's in Switzerland as a designer, and also worked in the Dolby Labs studio's as a designer as well in addition to the digital design work he did for Sony. |
Peterayer, let me elaborate where I'm coming from and you'll fully understand my
position, first and foremost, I am not a dealer or conform to any of the crappy high end mags on the stands that favor products based on the ad revenues they generate annually from their high end audio companies ad contracts..I don't give a crap's ass on the brand of the month, whether its Boulder, Levinson, Krell, Rowland, Esoteric or the Euro brands. I focus on one thing only, the audio design engineers behind the scenes who are the best in the industry who are never fully recognized and given the credit they are due based on their contributions providing the most advanced design technologies in the high end field on world class audio products at reasonable prices. As far as setting up a system, I have been doing that for years. As any true audiophile knows, never set up a system in a square room to avoid standing wave problems. |
Boy Jwm..what a load of rubbish..your assessment of the Playback Designs player is completely false..I love it when some shill is threatened by a product that blows away products at three times the price. Last summer I heard the MPS-5 for the first time at a Audio Club meeting in northern Washington. Their was just over twenty people in the room for the demonstration. Next to the MPS-5 was the three piece DCS Scarlatti. At the end of the session it was unanimous with the group that the MPS-5 was far superior to the Scarlatti, ehibiting a very organic, warm analog character with a lush full midrange with an outstanding bottom end. Not bad for a $17K player up against a $50K player..next!.. |
Ooops!..type-o.."exhibiting"..not "ehibiting"... |
Jwm..Don't believe you ever owned the MPS-5...you buy a $17K player then listen to it and decide you don't like it after you make the purchase?..yeah, right..any legitimate Audiophile will ALWAYS test a piece of gear and evaluate and listen before spending that kind of money..I have twenty acres of swamp land I can sell you in Florida..only costs $17K.. |
No..but there has been Sasquatch sightings.. |
Jwm..I'm still puzzled that your MPS-5 sounded very lean due to the fact that the reviews during the past two years out of Europe and the States, are the most positive I have ever read on any SACD player during the past ten years. All the reviews are consistent how analog and organic the player sounds with excellent full midrange bloom and outstanding bottom end. Having heard the player twice during the past year struck me as the most unlean playback I've heard from a disc player. What Preamp and amp were you using with the MPS-5? |
For those who have listened to the Playback Designs MPS-5 Player, it did a very poor job on Red Book prior to the summer of 2011 when the player had a major firmware upgrade
for Red Book last summer. The firmware upgrade is downloadable from the internet. My experience with the player was mostly with SACD's. The performance and sound quality from SACD is phenomenal. Not thin or cold, but rich, warm, organic, full and scary dynamic's. With the firmware upgrade Red Book sounds great. SACD becoming a dead thing ? No way..the new SACD technology known as SHM-SACD has taken the SACD format to a whole new level and Acoustic Sounds in Kansas is selling these discs like crazy..they sell for $60.00 a disc..but when you listen you won't hesitate that they are worth every penny.
Michael Fremer's review in the February 2010 issue of Stereophile
was prior to the firmware upgrade and his gripe was with Red Book. Not SACD. " As an SACD player, the MPS-5 is, or is very close to the best I've heard " Michael Fremer |
Lula..The information I got recently is straight from the horses mouth, from Jonathan Tinn who is Andreas Kochs' partner and who runs Playback Designs. During the past three years there has been over eleven firmware upgrades to the player including last summer. These firmware upgrades apply to both DSD for Hi-rez files and PCM for CD playback. The firmware that applies to PCM, upgrades the algorithm's to further improve Red Book and SACD playback. |
Peterayer..make no bones about it..I will be purchasing the Hegel P-30 in several weeks. As I have already indicated..the Pre-amp uses their Soundengine feed forward technology which is why it has the performance level of FM Acoustics. Both Solutions and FM Acoustics use a feed forward design which is why they sound so darn good, but you will get the same performance from the Hegel at a fraction of the price. However, I more than likely will purchase the Cary 306 Pro SACD player since the $17K price for the PBD MPS-5 is a little to high for me and I can live with the Cary at $8K and get a discount through my network. |
There is absolutely a group of Preamps globally that are recognized as the best due to their designs and their ability to have extremely low noise and distortion levels that result in superior musical performance. As I already indicated, all these top Preamps have S/N ratio's over 125 db's. Companies such as Boulder, FM Acoustics, Solutions, and Sim Audio and Luxman have these numbers in common. Since these products are beyond reach for most due to their very high prices, then we have to settle for products we can afford that still perform well, but not on the same level as the top units that cost between $25K and over $100K such as the FM Acoustics 268. For Hegel to design an active Preamp using a feedforward design with a S/N of 132db's is a very rare achievement. You will not find an active Preamp anywhere with a S/N of 132dbs at $15K or below which is why the Hegel P-30 performs like a Tier 1 Preamp. |
If you have read my thread during the past two weeks I made it clear that I have heard it. It floored me. Over the years I had Pre-amps from Coda, BAT, Counterpoint, Musical Fidelity, Pass Labs, Carver and other brands. The Hegel is the best I've heard ever in its price range and equals Preamps I have listened to in the $20K to $30K price range. Bent Holter, the prodigy designer of this piece, has a degree in Micro Electronics with the emphasis on transistor engineering. The micro dynamics and imaging is remarkable. The soundstage is first row, yet it has an organic character that is relaxed, warm and lush with a deep 3D midrange. It sounds more like a tube Preamp with the slam of solid state. The one spec that is very relevant in Preamps is the S/N ratio. All the top Preamps, again, have a S/N of well over 125db's. Less noise equals lower distortion which results in less interference to the music signal and gets you closer to studio quality sound. |
Sarcher30..having been a hard core Audiophile since the mid 70's and a former member of my State's Audio Society..I have reached the point of burn out of listening and evaluating gear for years around the country and at shows and retail stores coast to coast. There are many high priced, high end components that are a rip off that sound like sh*t and other high end products that are true state of the art that are 100% faithful to revealing the exact reproduction of the music as the artist and recording engineer intended. I don't give a crap what the brand is, or what Robert Harley or John Atkinson endorse, I focus on the word of mouth reputation of the brand and listen, which is much more relevant than the mags, and the Hegel P-30 regardless of its price, is about as musical as you could ever want or desire. |
Invenio 78..if you want a Pre-amp that will hold its own against any Pre-amp at $10K or below, I would highly recommend the Wyred4Sound STP-SE Pre-amp for $2K. Its the best product they make. Don't be deceived by its bland appearance. The board work, massive power supply and lay out is a work of art for the price. The best Pre-amp in the country under $5K but will perform equally to more expensive Pre-amps. Pick one up used for $1500. You won't be disappointed. |
There is just a handful of Preamps on the market that have zero feedback, feed forward designs which vary from one company to another. Companies such as Luxman, Accuphase, Soulutions, FM Acoustics to name a few as well as others.
However, all of this products are voiced subjectively to have a different sonic character from one brand to the other. Some are very fast, slow, bright, warm, hard, smooth, laid back or very forward that only work well in large rooms. Again, all the best designs all have S/N ratio's above 125 db's. Having the S/N ratio much higher also reduces distortion even further since there is lower noise in the boards which also reduces vibration. It was more relevant years ago that very expensive Preamps costing $15K and above produced major sonic differences but in recent years the science of audio engineering has advanced to such a level it is now possible, given the talent of a good modern day audio engineer, to design a Preamp in the $6K to $10K range that will equal the performance of Preamps in the $20K to $50K range. This is where Bent Holter comes in from Hegel. He is a true prodigy retaining a degree in micro electronics with an emphasis on transistor engineering. He has taken a whole new approach on feed forward technology that has further advanced the technique on the same scale as FM Acoustics at a fraction of the cost. The Hegel P-30 Preamp is the best Preamp in the world in its price range and will easily equal other Preamps in performance at much higher prices.
The P-30 is warm, lush, relaxing, very, very organic, with full midrange bloom and full, tight deep bass that is outstanding and the best detail, resolution and 3-D echo decay that one could ever hope for. It does not sound solid state. Its organic sound is like the very best blending of tube and solid state. No bullshit. Simply a damn good design. If your thinking about spending $10K or a lot more on a Preamp, put the brakes on and save your money and buy a world class Preamp for $7500.00. Once you hear the P-30 you will not believe the level of performance you get for the price. |
"But "voicing" is not something that a competent designer of amps and preamps would engage in." What a load of crap. Do you think for one minute that if an amp and Preamp in a audio components company sound room sounds warm, bright, fast or slow its by accident it sounds that way? Where is your brain. Its exactly how they want it to sound. Take ten different top quality solid state Preamps and run them through the same amp and speakers and the sonic character will sound different from each Preamp. Too forward, laid back, too warm, too bright, very wide of narrow sound stage. All high end companies have sound rooms to tweak and test their components over and over until its "voiced" to the exact sonic character they want to achieve. I first learned about voicing amps and Preamps from Chris Johnson, founder and designer of Sonic Frontiers. I had a long conversation with Chris back in the mid-nineties and he mentioned that he had in his company sound room the top tube Preamps from other companies and he would tweak and voice his Preamps, and he used the term "voice", to have a similar sonic character to his top competitors. You were saying?... |
Something I like?..more like high tech innovations found in these products not common in most separates such as Soundengine technology..Linear voltage regulation..and algorithm formulas not found in other SACD/CD players..
Hmmmmm...credibility?..I think I'll just sit back and have
a slice of Devil's food cake.... |
Facten..Its spelled humility..not humilitry.. |
I do not just rely on specs to determine the musical
quality of an Amp or Preamp. If that were the case, I'd buy my separates through a mail order catalog without listening. The point I made is that the most expensive and most musical separates globally that sell in the $15K to $100K range, brands that are well recognized and have outstanding international reviews for years, all have specs that are in common with each other. Higher S/N ratio's, ultra low distortion, and wider bandwidth's and higher damping factor's. Its not that these audio engineers at these companies try to get the highest spec numbers first before listening, but just the opposite. They all strive to design products with the lowest noise and distortion possible to keep the music signal as pure as possible without any disturbance to the musical signal. By achieving this goal will always result in specs with very high numbers due to superior design engineering. |
Atmasphere.."damping factor has a basis in mythology"..
disagree. The top mega-buck solid state amplifiers all have
in common very high damping factor number's. A list of some of those amps..Soulutions 501 and 700 mono-blocs have a damping factor of 10,000. Simaudio Evolution 880-M, damping factor 2000. Simaudio Moon 400M, damping factor 800. Accuphase A-200, damping factor 1000. Parasound JC-1,
damping factor 1,200. Hegel H20, damping factor over 1000.
All class D amps have damping factors at 1000 or greater on average. The bottom line why these engineers strive to have high damping factors is the higher the number, the lower the output impedance, results in ultra low distortion coming out of the speaker. The most critical reason is the woofer. If you have a massive forty pound woofer in a 300 lb. speaker, you better make damn sure the amp you are using can grab and control that woofer with an iron fist.
Designers of high powered amps with high damping numbers and low output impedance are well aware that woofers have larger piston's that have longer back and forth travel distance since low frequency waves travel a longer distance than a midrange or tweeter wave. Having an amp with high damping and low output impedance, which is usually below 1 ohm, results in ultra low distortion and perfect piston motion in the woofer, to make certain the low end is as deep, clear and powerful as the speaker designer intended. |
The biggest sleeper at Hegel which currently is their best value product, is their new P20 Preamp, which is just about 90% of the performance of the P30 according to Jordan who I spoke to several weeks ago who is one of the largest Hegel dealers in the country at Adirondack Audio & Video in Queensbury, N.Y.. Jordan did listening trials with the H20 amp switching back and forth the P30 and P20 Preamp and there were times on certain CD tracks that he could not tell the difference between the two Pre's, their that close. Ander's at Hegel, the V.P. of marketing and sales, in a recent interview stated that the idea behind the P20 was to make a world class budget Preamp that is very close to the P30 which is not selling as well as Hegel anticipated. The P20 sells at $2900.00 and Hegel makes very little profit from the P20. It uses silicon germanium transistor's, which were invented in 1989 that are exclusively used in the computer and aerospace industry. Hegel is the first to use these very innovative transistors in a Preamp. The P20 is a no brainer for $2900.00 to buy getting just about all the performance of the P30 for over $4K less. |
Jimf..By chance have you listened to the Hegel H-300 integrated and does it come close to the Hegel separates? The reviews have been very positve and it appears to be Hegel's best selling product. Also, you probably are aware that Hegel will be coming out next Spring with
the H20 MKII amplifier with a larger power supply which will use the new amp platform that is in the H-300 integrated. |
World's best Pre-amp for $10K and above? When I started this thread Peterayer I did not phrase the subject title correctly. So be it. The subject that was intended was to point out Pre-amps below $10K that would be on the same sonic playing field as Pre-amps selling in the range of $10K to $20K which Hegel has achieved. Another Pre-amp that has achieved that level is the Parasound Halo JC-2. |
The one Preamp that would be a serious challenge to the Takumi K-10 is the Balabo BC-1 MKII. These two Preamps are at the top of the mountain and putting them head to head would be one helluva contest. It would probably be to close to call. |
Not exactly. There's a hole in the top of the mountain. Its a volcano. |
Tbg..what do you get for twice price? Really? Give me a break. Both Jonathan Valin and Robert Harley have gone on record and made the bold statements that the Balabo pre and amplifier are the best sounding gear they have ever heard to date in their entire audio careers as reviewers regardless of solid state or tube designs. What makes the Balabo BC-1 MKII superior over any other solid state or tube preamp designs? The Balabo BC-1 MKII preamp has the most advanced Potentiometer pot and four stage Attenuator assembly on Planet Earth. Its that advanced. No one can touch it. Not Koda, FM Acoustics, Boulder, Krell, Rowland or Spectral as well as Accuphase and McIntosh. Very forward technology. In some cases, you do get what you pay for. Zen |
My apologies Jwm and Grannyring. |
