Hello there, this is my first post so be gentle...
My system had always sounded good but not great. I knew I had good components and enjoyed the music but it only sounded good at high volume levels which the Minister for War and Finance did not approve of. Main sources were a Marantz SA7003 and a 1980's Thorens TD318 with a mid range Audio Technica cartridge.
Here is the system today.
With some time on my hands I thought it would be a good opportunity to upgrade. At the heart of my system was an NAD Masters M3, all 23 kilograms of it. It sits on a home made rack made of Tasmanian Oak and slabs of MDF. I wanted an SACD which immediately whittled down the available options. Eventually I reduced my choices to another Marantz or a Denon. Then I stumbled on this thread. It was better than a Hi-Fi review because all those commenting were owners and users. Also the comments were honest and free of BS. On that basis I bought the Denon DCD 1600NE.
The first thing I noticed was that CD's sounded better, a lot better. And SACD's sprung to life sounding more detailed than I had ever experienced. So a big thank you to Numpty for starting the thread and to all of you who contributed.
But let me introduce the rest of my system. Aside from the Denon and NAD I have a Thorens TD206 with an MC Ortofon Quintet Red. My local Hi-Fi shop is the Lifestyle Store at Northmead in Sydney and one of their sales guys spent a couple of hours demonstrating to the whole range of Ortofon MM and MC cartridges. Of the MM's the Ortofon Black was an absolute stand out, but so too was the price. Then we started on the MC's and so much of the quality of the Black was in the Quintet Red it was at a quality/price point I couldn't resist. Since the NAD didn't have a phono stage I chose a Pro-Ject Phono Box DS which will do for now. My speakers are ELAC FS247's which are transparent but not that easy to drive, so the NAD's 180W came in handy. There is a 1974 Pioneer TX7500 tuner still working perfectly which was my late father's and has been in the family for all of 47 years! The final bit of gear is a Sony CDP CE315 6 CD player which gets used once a year when we stuff it full of Christmas CD's and put it on repeat play. On the very bottom is a 16 kg iron weight which came out of my son's BMW E30 convertible!
The speaker cables are Chord Epic with Chord banana plugs, Chord Clearway interconnects and Isotek Intium power cables. The final addition is a Klipsch R100 SW. How that came to be added to the mix is an interesting and relevant story in itself.
After purchasing the Denon DCD 1600NE and thoroughly enjoying it, I decided to do something I had put off for years, mainly due to my own ignorance. That was, position the speakers and set up the room. A lot of investigation took place and I gave myself a crash course in basic acoustics and speaker placement. Starting with the speakers the one problem I had always had with them was that to get enough bass I had to use a lot of volume which did not achieve domestic harmony. I knew that a lot of this had to do with the size and shape of the room as well as placement of furniture.
The room had some challenges being L shaped and with a floor to ceiling window on on side. Dissatisfied with the sound from the traditional triangular set up, I tried a formula of dividing the length of the room by 3 and using that number as the distance from the side walls which for me was 1.73 meters. To get the distance away from the rear wall I divided the width of the room by 3 and 4 which gave me a range of between 900mm and 1.2 meters. The final step was to move the listening position to close to the speakers then move it half a meter at a time backwards, testing at each step. The sweet spot ended up being closer than the traditional triangle and the sonic improvement was very clear. The sound reflections from the side window were dealt with by thick curtains and the CD shelves broke up any reflections from the rear wall.
A large armchair which normally sits close to the left speaker was given some furniture sliders so a listening session sees it pushed out the way and returned back when finished. All with the approval of she who must be obeyed. For the first time I didn't need high sound levels to get the system to swing and I can now play music at normal or low levels. Domestic bliss at last!
But there was one problem, moving the ELAC's away from the back wall robbed them of their bass so I started playing with the bass settings on the NAD to see if that would help. Dialing up the bass on the amp did help but didn't have a great effect on the overall tonality. Being a typical male I read the manual last and noticed that the amp was set up to take a sub-woofer. Why would you use a sub-woofer I asked myself. So curiosity aroused I then started to search for answers. You all probably know the answer but it was a surprise to me to find out that subs are a legitimate way of improving the sound quality and overcoming room acoustic issues.
In the back room we have a 5.1 surround sound system with a sub-woofer. This was 'transferred' and hooked up. I could not believe the improvement in the quality of sound. It was incredible. The bass was back and the whole sound stage opened up. There was one downside and that was the sub-woofer itself which was designed for movies, not high fidelity sound. Back to the drawing board and I settled on a Klipsch R100 Reference sub-woofer. In a very short time it was tuned to the room and the sound was amazing. From having a good system to having a great system was a revelation.
But there was one final step. In doing my research on rooms and acoustics I was introduced to coupling and decoupling, especially with speakers. Simply put, spikes couple, and an isolation device decouples. The idea is to remove low frequency vibrations from the speakers affecting the components and the room. Some of the devices on the market are not cheap so I decided to try my own. I built 3 plinths for the speakers and the sub-woofer. This room has concrete floors covered with carpet. Made from MDF and wood then filled with builder's sand and painted black so they didn't draw attention, I proceeded to try them out. I was surprised, I did hear a difference. The bass was tighter and cleaner. There was more detail in bass notes. An improvement from spare materials at no cost made it a good deal.
Anyway, without this thread and all your contributions I would never have started on a path that has seen me not only end up with a great sounding SACD but making changes to the room and listening position has made the sound transparent and detailed. Its a sound that shows up poor recordings and absolutely shines with good ones. For that I am very appreciative.