Had a dem of another great system tonight

Mr_Sukebe

Mr_Sukebe

Mr_Sukebe

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Man of Honour
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This evening I picked up a set of "stillpoints" from a nice chap in north London.

Whilst there, had a good blather and a listen to his system.
It's primarily aimed at av, but CAN do stereo also.
Before getting to the music, he dem'd some HD via his completely huge ceiling mounted CRT projector. All I could say was "wow". Less motion blur than my AE500, MUCH more realistic colours and depth to the image that mine LCD doesn't get close to. Stunning really.

As for the rest, he's using:
- Philips 963 (I think) with Trichord mod
- A video scaler unit (not cheap, but he raved about it)
- Proceed AV2 processor. He's apparently tried several and found this one of the most musical
- x2 enourmous subs, no idea what they were, but they were setup very well to be subtle in their presentation
- A Bel Canto Evo6 power amp and a Bel Canto Evo2 power amp
- A Dax Decade processor stereo DAC/pre amp
- A Dax Transcend CD transport (seriously cool top loading unit based on a Sony mechanism)
- Smallish PMCs for the centre and rear speakers
- NOT small PMCs for the front stereo speakers. I think that they were AMCs or something like that. HUGE 3 way units

As for the sound. With classical music was sublime. VERY realistic, pin point location of instruments in the mix, massive scale. Probably the best home system I've heard for classical music, even at low volumes. Probably capable of making your ears bleed if he wanted to.
Unfortunately, nothing is ever perfect, and it had a slight digital "sheen" to it, along with some fairly laid back dynamics. So it suited classical, but didn't fair so well with say jazz or rock, where I've come across several systems that would show it a clean pair of heels. My guess is that he's got a lot of opportunity with upgrades to his front end.

What it does show is that it clearly is possible to get an AV oriented system to sound good. However, also shows the compromises. More to the point, if he'd not spent the money on the Proceed, the subs, centre, rear speakers and power amps, how much better would it have sounded with an even better front end/pre amp?
 
Hey your clocking up some systems of late ;) ..... as said before, AV does not automatically mean a bad musical system, just means you have to be more selective in your choice, and spend more money !!!!.......
As you say the set up is biased still to AV, equally as I've done, you can bias towards 2 channel, but add on the AV for a much smaller outlay. Getting from 2 to 5.1 was a very small percentage of my system cost.... OK I may "loose" a little in films.....will I ever notice !!!
I shall be on the look out soon for some new fronts, the Keltiks are currently up on auction site...... there dam good, but I can do better ;)
 
I like listening to other high end systems, helps me understand what mine could do better.
I've never denied that an AV system can't do the biz, my only concern is the cost/benefits of one. Strikes me that the same amount of money spent on a pure stereo system will always have the edge, at least on music.
 
Which projector was he running? Going by the rest of it i'd imagine something pretty high end? Goes without saying that it more than showed up an AE500 to be honest :)
 
Not sure what it was, but it was MASSIVE.
Must have been 1m long. God help the chap if it ever falls down as it's mounted above the chaps primary listening seat. I'm sure it'll kill him.
It replaced a Sony LCD that he used to use. All I could say was wow regarding picture quality, simply astounding.
I wouldn't have chosen his sound system over mine, but that's more down to personal preferences.
 
Yep, that's the room in question, though the pics don't do it justice. It's a good deal darker in there than it suggests. Henry is a nice chap, must have spent a good hour plus blathering about music, films and kit.
 
Yeah i went there when i bought his DD15 and it was impressive then, let alone now (I think he's changed everything except the projector!)

Top bloke, and the room is to die for - i was really surprised when i walked into it.. was expecting it to be in a room way off the side of the apartment or something but it's actually connected to his kitchen!
 
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