Hi-Rez Highway New high resolution SACD releases, players and technology.

---

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Hi-Rez Highway ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

Some pictures of our new system

Posted by Christine Tham (R) on August 7, 2005 at 02:40:33

Took most of Saturday to assemble - the hardest job was to labelling all the wires so we don't get it wrong. The next hardest job was assembling the new cabinet (named "Gecko" - pretty appropriate, since I feel about as decadent as Gordon Gecko), finally the A5 power amps are REALLY heavy!

The preamps and power amps are all new and therefore need a suitable burn-in period before they will sound their best, but already things are looking promising.

Notice the "hole" on the bottom left reserved for the HTPC. The Silverstone LC14M case hasn't arrived, so you will notice the HTPC in the "old" case (Antec Sonata) tucked on the bottom right next to the surround left speaker. The PDA is an Asus A730W running NetRemote - it's currently used as a remote control for the HTPC over Wi-Fi (driving Media Center as well as Windows Media Player) - eventually i hope to use it to drive the whole system via an infra red transmitter connected to the HTPC.

Overall quality in stereo (via A3.2cr preamp) is good - definitely an incremental improvement over the Denon in terms of better detail and wider soundstage. Also the bass seems a lot more well controlled.

I'm surprised by how good sounding the Cary is. Switching between the Cary doing digital decoding and analog output via the a3.2cr, i could not tell the difference - maybe i didn't need to buy the a3.2cr after all. And listening to movie soundtracks is a real revelation - everything seems so much better defined - i keep hearing the "atmosphere" of the soundtrack in terms of ambient noise that i never noticed on the Denon.

Multi-channel on the TA-9000ES preamp also shows a huge improvement - the slight "softness" in SACD high frequencies is completely gone - everything comes through with brilliant scintillating tones. In fact, the overall sonic signature is a bit too bright for me - but I suspect this is the typical Sony sound prior to burn-in - I remember my XA777ES was the same when brand new so I'm hoping some of the brightness will come down eventually.

What was really surprising listening to 5.1 and 7.1 was just how much more "solid" and well defined the sound was - it's now obvious the denon was adequate in stereo but hopelessly underpowered in m-ch, and the A5's are finally revealing just what the B&Ws are truly capable of.

So, even though it's early days yet, I'm currently having a BIG smile on my face! It's a nice early birthday present (my birthday is on Monday)

Unfortunately, the vinyl playback has been a bit disappointing to date. The glass cabinet may be very pretty to look at, but glass unfortunately is highly resonant. You will notice in the photo I've tried to dampen it using superballs between the glass platform and the cabinet, and also sorbothane sheets between the turntable feet and the glass platform, but the playback is still not as good as on my old cabinet (with lots of isolation tweaking). I might try doing more isolation tweaking, but my fallback plan is to replace the glass platform with an MDF block (suggestion from sister in law).

I'll update my system details on the Asylum in the next few days ...

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---