Steam Posted August 31, 2013 Posted August 31, 2013 (edited) My Father decided he wanted to upgrade the HiFi. He decided to replace his Linear Design speakers (circa 1971 - in the background) with a pair of Dynaudio C4 Mk2 signatures. Fair to say it was a minor upgrade. Edited August 31, 2013 by Dr Nick 5
Steam Posted August 31, 2013 Author Posted August 31, 2013 The next problem was now the rest of the system was not quite up to the job of testing the limits of the C4's. The old amp was a Rotel RTC 850 reciever with a pioneer PD 6050 and a 25yo technics turntable. So I dragged around my Krell FPB 400Cx and my Meridian MD600/ and MS600. Had a little more drive. So it was decided to go shopping. I love hi Fi shopping with someone elses cash. Even if its my inheritance. Who would not want to inherit this! More to follow. 4
bzr Posted September 1, 2013 Posted September 1, 2013 Good stuff, congrats to you & your dad, especially on the room treatments. 1
gz76 Posted September 1, 2013 Posted September 1, 2013 (edited) Very nice! What's the rest of the system comprised of? Edit: just got around to reading post #2! Edited September 1, 2013 by gz76
Dolphy Posted September 2, 2013 Posted September 2, 2013 C4s....all $25k of them It's good to see that I wasn't the only one that googled their price.
Steam Posted September 2, 2013 Author Posted September 2, 2013 DROOOOOOOOOL C4s....all $25k of them I cant spill the beans on this but we paid waaay less than that. if you want some haggle hard. Think a number ending in "teen"
Lil Caesar Posted September 2, 2013 Posted September 2, 2013 (edited) Hehehe given how much I paid for my focus 380's a few weeks ago I can imagine Bargain of the decade. Though they still deserve quality partnering gear. Good luck to both of you. Edited September 2, 2013 by Lil Caesar
betty boop Posted September 2, 2013 Posted September 2, 2013 beautifull stuff. come together very nicely, and what a beautifull setting
Volunteer sir sanders zingmore Posted September 2, 2013 Volunteer Posted September 2, 2013 nice, very nice
Iano Posted September 2, 2013 Posted September 2, 2013 (edited) Local Dyn dealer here in Brisbane had a pair hanging off their reference setup some months back. Forget what the amps were, top end Cyrus maybe? The sticker price was as I mentioned. Never got to hear them I did hear a pair of Evidence many years ago at Reg Mills Woolloongabba running off McIntosh monoblocks and the whole experience was ten billion degrees beyond astonishing.....a sound that will live with me for life. Case youse hadn't noticed, I have a soft spot for Dynaudio! EDIT: Been meaning to ask, there is a truckload of stone in your listening room, how do they go acoustics wise?? Edited September 2, 2013 by Iano
Steam Posted September 2, 2013 Author Posted September 2, 2013 EDIT: Been meaning to ask, there is a truckload of stone in your listening room, how do they go acoustics wise?? Most of the House is randon sandstone with Angled cathederal ceiling.. That room is quite live but its probably the best acoustic space of any room I have tried. Although I grew up in that house so maybe its what I got used to;) I will post more pictures soon of the next upgrade. I just have to get the pics from the camera 1
Grimmie Posted September 3, 2013 Posted September 3, 2013 So it was decided to go shopping. I love hi Fi shopping with someone elses cash. Even if its my inheritance. Who would not want to inherit this! I swear I could be reading either of my own two sons here. Your dad should go SKI-ing as soon as poss.
Audiobugged Posted September 3, 2013 Posted September 3, 2013 I would recommend pass labs if you want to stay on the minor upgrade theme and don't want to spend too much money... X350.5 or XA100.5 for a slightly sweeter sound. Perhaps X250.5 at a pinch for smallish rooms that are underdamped as yours seems to be... That would save even more funds allowing for a source component upgrade next. AB 1
Steam Posted September 3, 2013 Author Posted September 3, 2013 Part 2 Dyn's in place the new problem was gear to partner it with. So many options. The C4's do need a lot of current so an amp with sufficient grunt behind it was needed. Whatmough audio in clayton had a special on Moon W7 poweramps so we decided to visit. The Moon's were good but..... We then compared them to some bryston amps. Again good but not special. Then finally the sales guy mentioned that he had a Pass INT150 in the other room and we could try that. Yes please! So we hooked it up. immeadiatly it was better. the choice was simple as now it was fantastic. Better in every way. The problem now was that good as the INT150 was we thought a bit more grunt would be $ well spent. So we asked if we could hear an x250.5 with the xp-10 pre. They didn't have any to demo but said that they could get it in if we wanted. YES. On the way home from Whatmough we stopped at Klapp in south Yarra and sampled McIntosh mc600's + 2300 pre + sonus faber (Stradivari? I think). Didn't like it at all. Sounded...slow...no life, boring. Have heard the SF sound much better than this elsewhere. Then tried Carlton audio. There we tried audio research vs115 + ref5se + morel fat lady speakers. Was good but the morel is not my cup of tea. I do want the AR ref5se though for myself. The following week we returned to Whatmough and demoed the pass xp10 and the x250.5. Again brilliant. And sold. Except we had to wait a week and a half for the order to come in. Apparently we couldn't have the demo unit. 2
Steam Posted September 3, 2013 Author Posted September 3, 2013 (edited) Part 3 Next was the source. As you can see from the early photos I already had connected my meridian sooloos music server. Once you play with the meridian sooloos its very difficult to use anything else. My wife and daughter think its the best thing I ever bought. It's only problem is the stupid price. Especially once you add the Australia tax to it. Rather than go with my setup we decided that the base meridian MC200 (with 1TB HDD) would be all that was needed. I would like to say that the local dealer was very helpful etc but unfortunately they were clueless. They were still using the old sooloos iPAD app and were astonished when I pulled out my iPAD in the store and used the up to date software ( apparently the meridian rep was in the day before and didn't notice the problem). So it's expensive and no one -even the distributor- knows how to use it. They can't be selling much. Anyway I decided to grey import from the UK. I got a great price and fabulous service (the first unit had a problem and so they sent me a second MC200 no questions asked. I shipped the first unit back at their expense later on). How many Oz dealers would do this? Lastly when we demoed the pass gear they were also using the audiolab MDAC. This is a fantastic dac with balanced outputs and headphone amp. Connected to the MC200 it makes a killer front end. Lastly a new rack was needed. So a Solid Tech rack was ordered from Krispy Audio. Edited September 3, 2013 by Dr Nick 1
Steam Posted September 3, 2013 Author Posted September 3, 2013 I would recommend pass labs if you want to stay on the minor upgrade theme and don't want to spend too much money... X350.5 or XA100.5 for a slightly sweeter sound. Perhaps X250.5 at a pinch for smallish rooms that are underdamped as yours seems to be... AB Genius! 1
Jones99 Posted September 3, 2013 Posted September 3, 2013 (edited) Heard good things about Pass Labs...but never really bonded with them in the past when auditioning in show rooms with Dyns really must give them another shot one day soon. Impressive setup! Edited September 3, 2013 by Jones99
Nada Posted September 3, 2013 Posted September 3, 2013 The following week we returned to Whatmough and demoed the pass xp10 and the x250.5. Again brilliant. And sold. Except we had to wait a week and a half for the order to come in. Apparently we couldn't have the demo unit. Do the amps need to break in? https://passlabs.com/technology/questions#q253 Yes. Most improvement comes in the first 24-36 hours, after which the amps will continue to improve as long as they are left on.
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