The sound of jazz

by teajay on Opinions Please

Description

This rig is the cumulation of building my system for over thirty-five years. The Threshold SA-1 monoblocks are true classics and still sound great powering the bass panels of the MG-20s!I love this system's combination of details,natural timbres,and soundstage. I sit about 14 feet off of the MG-20s so I get a great blossoming of the soundstage in a very real and natural way.I named the system "The sound of Jazz" because I'm a serious jazz buff who listens to swing,be-bop,hard-bop and soul-organ styles about 99.99% of the time! Most of my collection was recorded in analog so it has that organic/musical sonic sense to it which sounds great when played on this system. It's a wonderful treat on a daily basis tohear the great players in the history of Jazz play in my house.Nothing is like live music but this system gives a great illusion of the real thing.I can honestly say that my goal was to enjoy the beauty of music I love and this system allows me to do that, without feeling that I'm missing out on some important aspect of the experience of sound that we humans call music.
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Components Toggle details

    • MBL mbl 1621
    Silver and crome reference piece. Weighs over 80 pounds.
    • Concert Fidelity DAC-040
    Non up or over sampling DAC that uses NOS DAC chips and NOS tubes.
    • Concert Fidelity CF-080
    Hand built linestage built on the philosophy of having the shortest signal path possible.
    • Pass Labs XA-60.5 monoblocks
    The latest generation of the XA series amps.
    • Lawrence Audio Cello
    The Cello is a floorstanding five driver 3.5 design using Air Motion Transformer and ribbon drivers with Carbon fiber cones.
    • Martin Logan Depth I
    The Martin Logan Subs are designed to be able to intregate with panel speakers. The Depth uses three 8" drivers and goes down to 20HZ, but is fast and quick enought to blend with the MG-20's. I'm using two of them in my system
    • Stealth Cables Varidig Sextet Digital reference
    Designed to be a mate with the Indra reference. BNC to BNC connections.
    • Stealth Cables Indra
    The cable with the "infamous" amorphous conductor.
    • Stealth Cables Metacarbon
    A carbon with metal flakes cable that is Stealth's answer to the sonics of it's much more expensive Indra cable. Three pairs.
    • Stealth Cables Dream Petite & Ultimate Ribbon
    The Dream Petite is one step down from the reference Dream and the Ultimate Ribbon is used for the bass panel.
    • Running Springs Audio Dmitri
    This companies new reference AC power conditioner, along with their new HZ power cord.
    • Harmonix Studio Masters
    A total of seven Studio Masters power the system.

Comments 104

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Thanks for the invitation to come over, but sadly I stay on the other side of the world in Singapore, otherwise I would be glad to bring my AA Ref Drive2 over.
Actually I should be the one grateful as it was your enthusiastic reviews of Accustic Art equipment over the years that introduced me to this German brand and after using it, I can agree with everything you wrote about it. Now that you have this new fired enthusiasm for another German brand, Audio Valve, it looks like it may be time for me to check it out too, as a replacement for my current Nuforce P9 preamp. Both yours and Mike's reviews have convinced me that this may be what I am looking for ;-)

hotbird

Looks like you are enjoying your new pre-amp greatly. I noticed that AudioValve has a much bigger brethen, called the Conductor that is fully symmetrically balanced, having both balanced inputs and outputs. This should suit the balanced outputs of the AA Tube Ref DAC2 perfectly, so would you be trying that out in the future? ;-)
You can read more about the Conductor in this HK thread.
AudioValve : Conductor preamp finally arrived!!
Fyi, I already bought the AA Ref Drive2 to match the AA Ref Tube DAC2. The Ref Drive2 performance is way ahead of the Drive1 Mk2, so if you get the chance, do try it against your MBL 1521 transport, as it would be enlightening how it fares.

hotbird

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