Thanks to a thread by Suri
, and Bala and Rajiv extending their invitations( among many others, but time and transport didnt allow me to take up all of it) I had great stuff lined up my weekend in Chennai.
Sunday morning and I was ready for enlightenment:licklips:. No, not at the church, but at the residences of two Lyrita owners, about tube amps and single drivers.
Rajiv was kind enough to pick me up and take me in his car to Balas place. By good fortune, most of the Chennai HFV members seem to inhabit the Adyar, Velachery areas! It was drizzling on the way( Yes, you heard right, I had brought rain to Chennai!:yahoo
We reached Balas (thevortex) new residence and were welcomed into his dedicated listening room, about 12*13.
The sight that greeted us was a 42 Pana Plasma flanked by a pair of tall, gorgeous floor standers, the Lyrita Harmony Ones, on both sides. On the rack below were his Lyrita SET amp (3W), I am not sure of the model number. To the side on another rack, sat the HTPC(with Xonar D2x sound card) and below it the new Douma Doege TDA1543 based (Did I spell it right?) DAC modded by Viren of Lyrita with a Tube output stage.
So thevortex uses USB to input to the DAC from his HTPC on which he plays music using Foobar and cPlay with ASIO drivers. The display is the above mentioned Plasma.
So we got down to listening to music, along with sipping hot coffee and snacks served by Balas better half, who turns out to be quite a music lover herself. (Thank you for bearing with us for the better part of a day,Lalita!)
As Bala didnt have a CD player, we ripped my CDs to play on the HTPC.
First we listened to Saraswati from Into the Light with U.Rajesh on the Mandolin. The tone was very good, with the mandolin notes having very good body. I have to mention that the setup has a narrow sweet spot and as I was the Guest of Honor the other members always offered me the seat in the sweet spot. Towards the latter part of this particular song, there is a very fast piece, where the Mandolin notes are very high and fast. The tone was still there, but I felt the Fostex didnt keep up with the speed and it seemed slightly bunched together( Please note I am comparing with Suris lightning fast Scanspeaks, not my run of mill set up).
Then we played Ennavale from Kadhalan(tamil movie, music by ARR, vocal Unnikrishnan, he got a National Award for this). The track was pure bliss on the Lyritas. Unnikrishnans vocals as well as the background bell sounds , all came alive. And the final googly
- when Bala revealed it was a 128kbps mp3. Holy mother of God, was I surprised.
Then we played Dire Straits-Sultans of Swing, this is again one of my favourites, esp the last 40sec, where they just spellbind you with the strings! On this track, the bass wasnt as tight as I would like it to be(Drum beats texture was lacking) and there was not much high frequency detail. But I suspect that was also due to the fact that the file played was an mp3 from Balas collection rather than the Audio CD that I had brought along.
In the midst of all this, Capt. Rajesh and then Vinay a.k.a psychotropic had also arrived.
Then Bala played Stimela(Coaltrain) by Hugh Masekela. I want to thank Bala for introducing me to this beautiful song. The intro where the singer relates the plight of the bonded labor was very moving. The voice sounded so live, up close. The song as Bala rightly pointed out later has a lot of transients, which the Lyrita handled very well.This again was an mp3 file! I later played the track on my system at home and I dont even wanna talk about it!
I played my Dianna Krall_ Girl In the Other room CD, Temptation and the resolution and clarity was not impressive. This is a beautifully recorded track and needs a more open airy, top end.
We played Vinays Donald Fagen disc, the track Morph was the cat IIRC. Again the control over the lows was not the way I liked it, but even on a track were lots of stuff was happening together Balas rig did bring out everything. And boy did the Sax sound lovely or what!
Vinay had brought along David a.k.a Topping tp20 and we swapped the lyrita set amp for the Topping. For anybody in doubt about its capabilities, I say hell with those doubts! This is the steal of an amp, it filled the room at 10 o clock level. Ofcourse the speakers wre sensitive at 91db. But even otherwise, this guy enough power I reckon to drive any moderately sensitive speaker in 200-300sq ft room.
Played Morph the cat again with tp20, and it showed excellent control over the low end and good detail levels. However it gave away on the vocals and sax side compared to the Lyrita SET amp. Similarly when we played Stimela, the hoots and shouts as well as mellow pieces didnt have the same level of oomph on the Topping.
After that we played Musafir by Kishore da, the sound was very 2D( why didnt these guys record these beautiful songs well?) but very natural and listenable.
I listened to Balas set up for about 5 hours and believe me there was no fatigue whatsoever:clapping:. I wanted more,more and would have stayed on if not for Rajivs persistent reminders that Capt.Rajesh and Sasi would already be waiting for us at Rajivs place. Lalita too introduced me to some good songs by Unnikrishnan(Priye Charusheele) and I played some Carnatic based music from Mallu films. I told Bala I would be back again. It seems we share common tastes when it comes to music and I really had a ball listening to such good music.
Thats Bala, me and Rajjiv.
Then I and Rajiv headed back to his place where Capt.Rajesh would be waiting, with his Marantz CD6003 and Sasi with his Caiyin amp.
??!!must have been wonderful to say the least.i still remember the first chance i had to listen to a fostex driver(fostex spa11-a twin driver P.A speaker) and thats when u realise the meaning of "immediacy" in rendition of vocals.mesmerising indeed.also,the topping does seem to deserve much more than just a second glance!!!seems like a great performer,in its constraints.
