2.1 speaker system

Adding a good sub (minimum 38cm) on a good system produces a huge inprovment on image, dynamic, matter, low, high, everything.

Here's a cheap but highly musical one:

Magnat Omega 380



PS: forget Rogers, it's crap.

Edited by oliverstoned

At least it's not a 5.1!

Let's dream on serious gear (i currently want to buy extraordinary 1000€/piece "Transparent Super" power cables ):

oliverstoned wrote: At least it's not a 5.1! Let's dream on serious gear (i currently want to buy extraordinary 1000€/piece "Transparent Super" power cables ):

What's wrong with 5.1 systems?

1000 Euros for cables? You get paid too much in France.

I tried 2.1 in the end I reverted back to 2  because if the two speakers are top quality the sub woofer (in my case)  only created less clarity , so I  stick with two very nice speakers  

Wow, oliverstoned, you give "audiophile" new meaning! 

oliverstoned wrote: Should i take it as a compliment? Audiophile was a pejorative word maybe?

No, not meant in the pejorative. Hey, we all have our fetishes! Mine would be my CD collection and ever-growing musical equipment collection. I'm not one to criticise!

Thanks Mike for showing what's to avoid: false speakers and a false sub...

Bob Greece wrote: oliverstoned wrote: At least it's not a 5.1! Let's dream on serious gear (i currently want to buy extraordinary 1000€/piece "Transparent Super" power cables ): What's wrong with 5.1 systems? 1000 Euros for cables? You get paid too much in France.

What's even more laughable is that these are POWER cables. What a joke ... sorry, but any engineer would literaly roll on the floor laughing his ass off when he heard about that.

These cables features filtering boxes which play the same role than power filter and it results in a huge improvment in term of soundstage, dynamic, remove a lot of harshness...
To sum up, a huge improvment on all criterias.
Same for interconnect cables, all very high end cables features these kind of boxes.

Those who don't hear the difference need their ears to be checked.
(we made the test to my father last weekend -who was quite septikal at first- and he was amazed by the result.
Now he'd like to get some for his own system, but gave up because of the price and will stay on cheaper cables).

Do you really believe that i'm fool enough to spent 500€ on a cable just because it's expensive?

And know that the equipment we use is sometimes even better than what they use in studio (I.E tube amps versus solid state one). A Conrad Johson amp is far more musical (it doesn't mean that it's less acuurate, it's far more in the highs) than any studio solid sate amp used for monitoring.

The CD player i use is up to what they use for radio broacast (they use Studer integrated CD players most of the time, while we use separate drive/converter far better).

PS: Sorry Mike to forget the "IMO", that was not kind of me.

High end cables:



This studio engineer uses Transparent cables



Bob Ludwig, an absolute reference in rock mastering (this guy manages to make digital musical) uses Transparent cables for its own needs.





Technical explanations (from Transparent cables website):

"You may not realize how much low-level noise is robbing your system of its potential -- until you hear your components linked with Transparent. If the cables and power conditioning products in your music and film system are not Transparent, then every signal path is like an antenna to unwanted noise. All Transparent cables and power conditioning products reject noise.

Noise at any point in the signal chain inhibits the ability of your music or film system to reveal all the subtle nuances of texture, tone, color, body, dimension, and contrast that are encoded in your favorite music and film program materials. These subtle nuances are the critical elements that help us to suspend our belief that we are only listening to or viewing electronic signals. They are the critical elements that bring our listening and viewing experiences to life.


oused within those distinctive "black boxes" on our audio cable are special passive electrical networks that reject noise. The networks also tune that specific length and type of cable to provide exactly the right balance of electrical properties for the use of the cable within the music or film system.

Transparent video and digital cables also reject noise, but they do so without networks. Because of the ultra-high frequency transmission required by digital and video cables, precision manufacturing and termination techniques can ensure that these types of cables have the correct balance of electrical properties without the use of networks. Transparent video and digital cables reject noise through proprietary materials, shielding, and termination techniques.

Transparent power products reject noise through networks and shielding techniques. The more we study the effects of dirty power on music and pictures, the more we appreciate what clean power can do for every home system.

ransparent designs start in a well equipped test laboratory, where an important 35% of each product's development takes place. The testing allows us to calibrate each cable and length to achieve theoretically ideal characteristics for its application. This calibration improves the performance of our products in a number of ways. The primary aim of our design process is to remove noise from the signal path.

Our commitment to create uniform behavior in our cables means a lot of painstaking work, but the results make it worthwhile. For each model of Transparent Cable that requires a network, we design a specific filter for each length of cable that we offer in that model. If 6 lengths are offered in a given model, then we design 6 individual filters to keep response uniform. Each cable is calibrated to control high frequency roll-off behavior, group delay characteristics, resonance, and impedance behavior into a wide range of its intended audio load conditions.

However, laboratory test equipment can not adequately predict how a cable and its network will really behave on the wide range of audio and video components that are available today. Therefore, the ultimate refinement of all Transparent cable and power conditioning designs takes place in our music and film studio where we can directly experience how our designs work with other components. This unique studio is our most important design tool. The engineering and architectural features of the room allow us to hear the merits of our products in conjunction with other components without the room contributing to the sonic presentation."



    

Edited by oliverstoned - August 09 2006 at 08:16

Ooooh, this is getting good!