Fabrice Rossi wrote:
Patrick Dixon a écrit :
Incidentally, I don't know if you have the Foo Fighters' album 'In Your
Honour', but it's a really good recording.
It's the last one, isn't it? I've not listen to it yet. Do you remember
their debut album? That was a piece of bad mastering, in my opinion.
I've got this - it is a really good recording. The music's not bad too!
However, I thing the SB2 is now the best
part of my system, so I need first to change the rest before modding
this tiny box.
I don't know what the rest of your system is, but I'm a firm believer in
the 'source first' principle. It's always amazing how much better your
speakers and amp sound when you feed them properly! I don't know how
handy you are, or what other sources you are using, but you could do
worse than look at some of the gainclone amp designs that are about.
The ones I built, were used with JBL Control 1 speakers and the SB2's
digital volume control, and it all sounds pretty good for a total cost
of about £350.
I was more on the other side, the loudspeaker first, but my experience
with the SB2 tends to make me wonder about my former beliefs. My system
is way from being audiophile. I've got:
I guess I'm right in the middle on this. There's got to be a balance.
When I first got my SB1 I played around with various DACs and I found
that I couldn't hear any difference between a Perpetual Technologies
P3-A, an Arcam Delta, an Art DI/O, and the SB1 analogue out. This was
through a Rotel RA820A (£120 15 years ago) and B&W DM610 speakers
(£200ish, also 15 years ago).
So, I got my soldering iron out and modified the RA820A (the usual
audiophile tweaks - replacing caps, upgrading opamps, removing crap from
the signal path, etc.). I also added an additional output to drive a
separate power amp and now run a bi-amped setup with the RA820A driving
the HF speakers and an RB850 driving the LF.
The difference is spectacular. I recently took my amps to audition a
pair of Monitor Audio MA20s and the seller had a Musical Fidelity
nu-vista m3 which retails(ed?) at $4500 (?) and is widely regarded in
the audio world. My Rotel combination was better, to my ears. His £2000
CD player sounded better through my Art DI/O DAC too!
In summary, my point is that the components of your system should be
well-matched or you're wasting money.
- a pair of old Audio Reference loudspeakers (columns). They costed me
around 900 € 14 years ago (around £600). They are not so bad, but I tend
to raise the sound level to hear everything (less now with the SB2)...
- a CD changer from phillips (CDC 935), quite old and completely useless
now that I have the SB2, as the sound it produces is clearly far less
detailled than the one of the SB2.
- a sony AV receiver (GX900ES) 10 years old
- some entry level cables by real cable
You would almost certainly find that your system will sound better with
a better amp. Can you bi-amp your speakers?
I was thinking about switching to smaller loudspeakers (Quad 11L for
instance) and to get a nice AC receiver (Denon 3805 for instance), but
my musical experience has been renewed by the SB2 and while I'm still
convinced by the team I mentionned (I had the opportunity to listen to a
Denon 3805 + a pair of Quad 11 L and I thought the result was pleasing,
but I did't check the source), I'm now considering more options, such as
having a dedicated and basic AV system for some DVD (I watch maybe one a
week at most) and something much better for music (and also dedicatec)
rather than an all in one system.
You will almost certainly get better sound with a dedicated two-channel
amplifier than using an AV receiver.
R.
--
http://robinbowes.com
If a man speaks in a forest,
and his wife's not there,
is he still wrong?
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