Apple HomePod

CatmanV2

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48,541
We're you twirling your handlebar moustache with one foot resting on the tyre of your spitfire when you typed that :D

Difficult to deal with doesn't look like an exaggeration, no answer on either number and no option to purchase on the website

:lol2:

C
 

TridentTested

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Messages
1,819
politics, religion, hifi ,hmmm

decided the leak amps arent for me but I do like the idea of a tube amplifier but it'd need to be integrated , i'm reading kt88 valves are good with these speakers so i'm going to start looking

I have my Spendors partnered to another great British design: the Puresound A30 valve amp, 30 Watts of class-A goodness. The combination works well. http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/puresound/a30.html
 

Wack61

Member
Messages
8,764
I found a bewitch A30 for £525 but the seller isn't responding to my emails so I've bought an icon audio 40i SE , I may have to buy a mad professor wig and smock to wear for the full effect though

icon_st40i_r1.jpg
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Wack61

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8,764
It was £525 from a hifi shop with warranty and £200 worth of new valves fitted, the current version is the MK3 which is £2099 so I thought for 25% of that I'd give this a go

Having spent a few days looking at HiFi no way would I buy any of it new , it's like photographic gear , always chasing something better so really good condition items are available for 1/2 price

Like the terminators arm in a glass case , I'm sure they've built a camera that can take pictures in near darkness with no noise and a hifi that sounds perfect and every year they take £500 increments towards it
 

Wack61

Member
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8,764
Icon gets decent reviews, with the new valves fitted I saw it as a bit of a bargain plus coming from a shop it has warranty which most used items won't have, Icon make integrated amps up to £7,000 and power amps for £16,000

http://www.iconaudio.com/
 

TridentTested

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1,819
Not all valve amps sound "warm". Before I bought the Puresound I tried a Melody which is Australian. It was harsher than a very harsh thing, it nearly made my ears bleed. One of my mates heard it said that must be voiced for listening to Inxs at max.

Good luck with the Icon - it should partner your Spendors well.
 

TridentTested

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1,819
This thread started as a discussion around an internet connected device powered by servers in California, and has veered into pre-war vacuum tube and classic British cabinet speakers.

Lovely.
 

montravia

Member
Messages
1,617
Not all valve amps sound "warm". Before I bought the Puresound I tried a Melody which is Australian. It was harsher than a very harsh thing, it nearly made my ears bleed. One of my mates heard it said that must be voiced for listening to Inxs at max.

Good luck with the Icon - it should partner your Spendors well.

Reminds me of my own search about 3 years ago. Having tried quite a few modestly high end set ups in demo labs including some of the brands here, using my own reference material from synth, through choral, chamber, to piano solo, it dawned upon me the feeling that I had the last time I went through this. Exceptionally clinical (detailed the 'experts described them). F++cking harsh in my own terms.

Fortunately, sat amongst a chamber orchestra soon after, and that simple experience reminded me of the richness missing.

Well, we all have listening preferences, and indeed different auditory responses. I might be quite aged but the frequency sensitivity isn't too bad.

Fortunately, sat amongst a chamber orchestra soon after, and that simple experience reminded me of the richness missing.

Then I recalled that Marantz were always considered a warm interpreter of digital formats, so I sought out some Marantz's to listen to.

So I saved meself £10,000
 

Wack61

Member
Messages
8,764
Good luck with the Icon - it should partner your Spendors well.

I heard the spendors when they were connected to the leak valve amps so I'm hoping this will sound similar but I have the distance selling regulations to fall back on if it sounds awful , I've even bought a new stand for it to sit on so I hope it sounds OK
 

TridentTested

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1,819
Fortunately, sat amongst a chamber orchestra soon after, and that simple experience reminded me of the richness missing.

I go to chamber and piano performances regularly, occasionally full symphony orchestras. I often close my eyes and try to imagine I'm doing an audio magazine review of the "system" in front of me. Funnily enough these live performances often fail on 'sound stage' - you know when reviewers like to say "the sound stage was so amazing it was like being in the orchestra", most audience members hear the music simply coming from in front of them - cos that's where the musicians are.

The one audio factor which live performances have above most average hifi is the depth of the low frequencies. Even a humble solo violin resonants at some pretty low frequencies.

Of course live performances trump even the best system on the performance experience. I love watching how chamber musicians interact with each other; you can tell when they are pleased with their own performances.
 

CatmanV2

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48,541
This is a very valid point. Some concert halls have some *awful* acoustics.

The other thing that is often missing from HiFi is the dynamic range. A full orchestra can go bloody loud, and yet the quiet passages can be just that!

C
 

urquattrogus

Member
Messages
838
I think the 50's Jazz recordings by Mingus and Coltrane etc take some beating for atmosphere.

I think they were mostly recorded in one take with two mics - amazing how good they sound considering.

One of my favorites is the Great Summit Recordings of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong.

I do like other music than Jazz to BTW :)
 

montravia

Member
Messages
1,617
The one audio factor which live performances have above most average hifi is the depth of the low frequencies. Even a humble solo violin resonants at some pretty low frequencies.
.

That's probably at what I was referring, the 'fundamentals ' are often absent. Never ceases to hit me in the chest. That's why one of the test recordings is piano solo. The musical growl of a concert Steinway coupled with the complex high resonances are quite revealing of any imbalance or absence. If it can't cope with that, then it won't reproduce what I want to hear in anything else, irrespective of being synthesised or traditional instruments at source.

Even the best speakers struggle at those low frequencies, and of course these low v's are the most greedy on power. Most just can't even cope with that low, it's just absent, at whatever power....... fumph, fumph. It all comes back to the view that the weakest link in the system is the electromechanical devices in speakers. I do recall electrostatic planar speakers as pioneered by Philips were pretty good, but that was yonks ago, and I think that such things now are quite expensive.

In any event, it's a bit pointless concentrating so much on the intermediate amp stages when there's so much colouration/drop off in the final stage.

When vinyl was popular, the same argument seemed to apply to the front end.

Always concentrate on the speakers and colour
 

CatmanV2

Member
Messages
48,541
Always fancied a pair of Magnaplanars :) My current Vienna Acoustics are mad. There's a track on the Christina and the Queens album that makes the room shake even at very reasonable volumes. The extension is crazy. They are quite large(ish) though

C