I was really into audio gear in the 1970s (yes, I'm old) and was able to try many tube components of the era from Marantz, Mac, early ARC and more. My last set-up was a Marantz 8B amp (fantastic highs), Mac C22 pre-amp (good highs, mediocre bass) with 15" JBL woofers, Altec drivers/horns and ElectroVoice tweeters. So you can see where I'm coming from -- mid and high but plenty of bass as well.
Now I'm just getting back into audio and the gear available these days does a far better job all around than I could ever cobble together back then. Besides, my wife won't let me put my old tube stuff and giant speakers and horns in the new house so we're looking at new gear. She is very sensitive to harshness in the highs so anything with a titanium dome tweeter just irritates her. We auditioned ML Summit driven by Mac gear (sorry, I don't know the model #) and while it was really open the sound wasn't the smooth and real sound we were looking for. In another store we were steered towards 802D and it was a revelation. The diamond tweeters are clearly much more than an expensive gimmick, the mids are solid and the bass clean and tight. These were driven by Rotel. But that's the only good electronics brand they had and I also wanted to compare with the 800D. The 802D is fantastic but for my taste (largely full-range classical) it just seemed a little weaker in the bass than mids and highs.
We got a chance to try the 800D and 802D today, along with ML Summit and a couple JM speakers with different electronics at a store that's got several listening rooms packed with all sorts of great goodies. First the 800D on Mac but it's not our kind of sound -- clean and clear but, well, "harsh" would be too harsh a comment but let's say it's a bit bright. Nothing wrong with it but just personal preference. Then the 802D with Krell amp. Our sales guy is really experienced and started catching on to what we're looking for. He put in a VTL 5.5 pre-amp and it improved (again, for us). So we all looked at the big VTL MB450's sitting in front of us at the same time. He put those in and it was just heaven. OK, so now we took the gear to the other room to try with the 800D -- I was still looking for a little more bass response -- and the combination was about as good as we could ever hope for. The price is about double our original budget but once we heard it there's just no turning back. It's way beyond what I could ever get from the best gear I got to tinker with in the "old days." The tubes and diamond tweeter is the sweetest possible sound, extremely easy to listen to, with highs I feel like I'm hearing beyond what my old ears can really do. Mids are solid and not too out front but not lost in the background, either, and there's just no weakness at all transitioning through mid-bass to the lowest of lows. The most balanced system I've ever heard.
So what's the problem? Besides the price (uh, you only live once, and I have less time than I used to!), the thing that started all this off was deciding to get a new TV. While we were at it we wanted to upgrade the HT system and get something suitable for real music. We're using an old Harmon-Karden receiver with some Infinity speakers that's far better than TV speakers but not a serious sound system. The 802D/Rotel system was going to have amps all over the place driving speakers and all the features to make it simple for HT but now we're in a different game.
But now we're thinking of just staying with the 2-channel that's really an audiophile music system (I love it!) and dropping the other channels we would have had for TV. Really, we just want good sound for movies but not the movie theater all-encompassing right in the action experience. In fact, my wife doesn't like rear speakers, even in theaters. She's distracted by sound not associated with what she can see. I'm fine with that.
I've read a few comments on this forum that 2-channel with a phantom center can work well. If that's the case then we're fine with that. Does the fact that movies are coded to use centers make a difference? The 800D can certainly deliver whatever sound the movie has but will the staging be right or will it suffer for lack of the center channel?
An even bigger problem that arose after moving up the ladder and lodging ourselves in the stratosphere of audio. Using this system for HT with a TV. My wife has no problem pushing switches on three VTL components and not having a remote for music listening. She's used to that. But she's not going to be happy doing that just to watch the news or channel surf. She didn't like having multiple remotes before we got a universal that could turn everything on/off with one button (cable box, TV, sound, CD/DVD). And with no remote volume control or mute it's a bit inconvenient. OK, for a movie where you set it and leave it it's OK but not for casual TV use. Besides, it's not worth wearing out the tubes just to listen to a poor transmission of a news anchor's voice exquisitely reproduced.
The sales guy showed us the Yamaha, uh, thing that has a complete surround sound system in one long narrow box. He said we could use that for normal TV. That would work but the sound is crumby -- and harsh -- and we'd be paying a lot for of features we wouldn't use. My wife doesn't want to have two systems, anyway, and I don't disagree. She says, "I don't want the living room to look like a stereo shop." That sounds OK to me but she's been there with me in our younger days (we had people say that when they came in) and doesn't want it in our nicer house now. I agree. I'm beginning to wonder if it might be the only way, though.
Using the HK and Infinity towers isn't going to work -- too big and obvious and ugly and not worth it for the sound we'd get. I thought we might look at the 805 and put them on a shelf by the TV (do they come off the stands?) and get an AV receiver but now we're spending more money for stuff to put next to the good gear. We're not as rich as it sounds (especially after we do this!) but for me the music system is really important. I told my wife I'd give up the Ferrari I want but can't afford anyway. I haven't listened to the 805 but I know they have aluminum tweeters so I assume it's not going to sound as smooth as the D series (what does?) but maybe with a more limited amp just for regular TV it would be OK.
Best would be to find a way to utilize the 800D with the TV. That would mean having a way to add a few simple features like remote with on/off, volume, mute. I can't think of a way to do that but I don't know all the gear.
So after that extremely long message the basic questions are:
1) Will we miss the center channel if we use only the two 800D? Will staging be OK for movies?
2) Any ideas on how to use this music system for HT, too? The quality of the music is more important to us but we don't want to end up with cheap HT speakers when we have the 800Ds sitting there! But running the VLT tube gear for listening to news may not be a good idea, either.
The TV is Pioneer Elite Kuro 60" plasma.
Any and all comments welcome, useful or just for fun.
Thanks.
Mike
Now I'm just getting back into audio and the gear available these days does a far better job all around than I could ever cobble together back then. Besides, my wife won't let me put my old tube stuff and giant speakers and horns in the new house so we're looking at new gear. She is very sensitive to harshness in the highs so anything with a titanium dome tweeter just irritates her. We auditioned ML Summit driven by Mac gear (sorry, I don't know the model #) and while it was really open the sound wasn't the smooth and real sound we were looking for. In another store we were steered towards 802D and it was a revelation. The diamond tweeters are clearly much more than an expensive gimmick, the mids are solid and the bass clean and tight. These were driven by Rotel. But that's the only good electronics brand they had and I also wanted to compare with the 800D. The 802D is fantastic but for my taste (largely full-range classical) it just seemed a little weaker in the bass than mids and highs.
We got a chance to try the 800D and 802D today, along with ML Summit and a couple JM speakers with different electronics at a store that's got several listening rooms packed with all sorts of great goodies. First the 800D on Mac but it's not our kind of sound -- clean and clear but, well, "harsh" would be too harsh a comment but let's say it's a bit bright. Nothing wrong with it but just personal preference. Then the 802D with Krell amp. Our sales guy is really experienced and started catching on to what we're looking for. He put in a VTL 5.5 pre-amp and it improved (again, for us). So we all looked at the big VTL MB450's sitting in front of us at the same time. He put those in and it was just heaven. OK, so now we took the gear to the other room to try with the 800D -- I was still looking for a little more bass response -- and the combination was about as good as we could ever hope for. The price is about double our original budget but once we heard it there's just no turning back. It's way beyond what I could ever get from the best gear I got to tinker with in the "old days." The tubes and diamond tweeter is the sweetest possible sound, extremely easy to listen to, with highs I feel like I'm hearing beyond what my old ears can really do. Mids are solid and not too out front but not lost in the background, either, and there's just no weakness at all transitioning through mid-bass to the lowest of lows. The most balanced system I've ever heard.
So what's the problem? Besides the price (uh, you only live once, and I have less time than I used to!), the thing that started all this off was deciding to get a new TV. While we were at it we wanted to upgrade the HT system and get something suitable for real music. We're using an old Harmon-Karden receiver with some Infinity speakers that's far better than TV speakers but not a serious sound system. The 802D/Rotel system was going to have amps all over the place driving speakers and all the features to make it simple for HT but now we're in a different game.
But now we're thinking of just staying with the 2-channel that's really an audiophile music system (I love it!) and dropping the other channels we would have had for TV. Really, we just want good sound for movies but not the movie theater all-encompassing right in the action experience. In fact, my wife doesn't like rear speakers, even in theaters. She's distracted by sound not associated with what she can see. I'm fine with that.
I've read a few comments on this forum that 2-channel with a phantom center can work well. If that's the case then we're fine with that. Does the fact that movies are coded to use centers make a difference? The 800D can certainly deliver whatever sound the movie has but will the staging be right or will it suffer for lack of the center channel?
An even bigger problem that arose after moving up the ladder and lodging ourselves in the stratosphere of audio. Using this system for HT with a TV. My wife has no problem pushing switches on three VTL components and not having a remote for music listening. She's used to that. But she's not going to be happy doing that just to watch the news or channel surf. She didn't like having multiple remotes before we got a universal that could turn everything on/off with one button (cable box, TV, sound, CD/DVD). And with no remote volume control or mute it's a bit inconvenient. OK, for a movie where you set it and leave it it's OK but not for casual TV use. Besides, it's not worth wearing out the tubes just to listen to a poor transmission of a news anchor's voice exquisitely reproduced.
The sales guy showed us the Yamaha, uh, thing that has a complete surround sound system in one long narrow box. He said we could use that for normal TV. That would work but the sound is crumby -- and harsh -- and we'd be paying a lot for of features we wouldn't use. My wife doesn't want to have two systems, anyway, and I don't disagree. She says, "I don't want the living room to look like a stereo shop." That sounds OK to me but she's been there with me in our younger days (we had people say that when they came in) and doesn't want it in our nicer house now. I agree. I'm beginning to wonder if it might be the only way, though.
Using the HK and Infinity towers isn't going to work -- too big and obvious and ugly and not worth it for the sound we'd get. I thought we might look at the 805 and put them on a shelf by the TV (do they come off the stands?) and get an AV receiver but now we're spending more money for stuff to put next to the good gear. We're not as rich as it sounds (especially after we do this!) but for me the music system is really important. I told my wife I'd give up the Ferrari I want but can't afford anyway. I haven't listened to the 805 but I know they have aluminum tweeters so I assume it's not going to sound as smooth as the D series (what does?) but maybe with a more limited amp just for regular TV it would be OK.
Best would be to find a way to utilize the 800D with the TV. That would mean having a way to add a few simple features like remote with on/off, volume, mute. I can't think of a way to do that but I don't know all the gear.
So after that extremely long message the basic questions are:
1) Will we miss the center channel if we use only the two 800D? Will staging be OK for movies?
2) Any ideas on how to use this music system for HT, too? The quality of the music is more important to us but we don't want to end up with cheap HT speakers when we have the 800Ds sitting there! But running the VLT tube gear for listening to news may not be a good idea, either.
The TV is Pioneer Elite Kuro 60" plasma.
Any and all comments welcome, useful or just for fun.
Thanks.
Mike
Comment