Again , i am thinking of upgrading the speakers and some of the brands sort-listed are Neats , Harbeth , Spendor Classic Lines/D7 .( Pls add more in this price bracket )
With my family not in the town , i wanted to cover some of them in the list . I called Jochen from Listening room on Sunday afternoon and got the appointment on the same day later at around 3 . It was not very difficult to locate his house on the Huskur road.
We Spent around 3 hours, more of listening and 'less talk between the tracks' . I carried some jazz/rock tracks and songs from the movies
The setup was blumenhofer genuin bookshelf speaker connected to the Einstein hybrid Amplifier and source was the digital music server , and also switched to Trigon integrated for some of the tracks .
When we played the Jazz , the B-H sounded very similar to my Spendors S5E in the tonal characteristics and a very smooth integration of the mid/top driver. Like in the BBC monitors , the human voice is beautifully rendered . This is a very coherent speakers like my spenders. The instruments got a lush and full body to it with just enough details without overwhelming with too much of information which usually spoils the musicality , atleast for me . The Voice is very clean , emotional connect was there without any shrill or sibilance which is the first most important criteria for me.
I was talking to another friend of mine who gives more emphasis on the details , separation / imaging . Some of the very popular, Audiophile grade speakers does these tricks , but in most of the cases it loses its tonal balance and or tend to sound lean , on the brighter side and lacks the musical warmth in it. May be more suited for HT applications or may be my musical taste is not audiophile enough !.
So on the similarities side , I liked the B-H for its tonality , coherent nature , presentation of the treble, which is neither laid back nor harsh . It is just like the way i wanted to have it . but I have these in spendors also.
Now to the improvement part , the sound stage is much bigger , more open compared to S5Es . I think these B-H BS may need more space to perform , which is a limitation in my current house . It is more dynamic and faster in the low-end compared to my speakers , but not artificially punchy enough to create fatigue .
The real improvement is in the timing. Some of the energetic tracks from Illayaraja ( not electronic type ) played really really well . it is common with the audiophiles that folks look for a specific quality during the audition and look for the improvement in it . I do it , constantly monitor what is important to me , But this time , i stopped tracking it ( in fact it all fall into place when the music started ) and started enjoying the music and allowed the whole track to complete it and played two more tracks in full . There is lot of musicality in illayaraja songs and I think only the speakers with the good tonal balance and good timing can bring out the magic in it . I really enjoyed it with B-H , wanted to have some of his tracks recreated in vinyl, and that will not happen anyway
. I am not nostalgic about this kind of music , I have grown up listening to more of ARs , the period overwhelmed with ARs music , but now I tend to like Illayarajas more , however it is unfortunate that these are not recorded well . To my surprise , the compressed mp3 sounded so good that I did not care about the flaws in it . I think it was the timing that did that magic , which made me to ignore other flaws in the recording .
Finally Jochen played a rock/jazz tracks from the TT . This was in a different league compared to the digital audio , Compared the same track in TT and CD . With CD its is leaner , cleaner and musical warmth is lost a bit, hmmm i think to a greater extent .
Here is the exact information of the associated equipments , which i just got if from Jochen .
Speakers: Blumenhofer Acoustics 'Genuin FS5'
Digital:
Set-up 1: Trigon 'Recall II' CD-Player >>> Trigon 'Energy' Integrated Amp; WSS 'SilverLine' Interconnect and Speaker Cables, WSS 'PowerCube' with 'SilverLine' Power Cords
Set-up 2: Trigon 'Chronolog' Music Server >>> Einstein 'The Absolute Tune' Integrated Hybrid Amp; Einstein 'Electron' interconnect cables, Einstein 'Vivace Superiore' speaker cables, Einstein 'The Shield' power cords
Analog:
Scheu Analog 'Premier Mk III' turntable, Scheu 'Cantus' 12" tonearm, Scheu 'MC' cartridge >>> Einstein 'The Turntable's Choice' phono amp >>> Einstein 'The Absolute Tune' Integrated Hybrid Amp; Einstein 'Neutron' interconnect cables, Einstein 'Vivace Superiore' speaker cables, Einstein 'The Shield' power cords
With my family not in the town , i wanted to cover some of them in the list . I called Jochen from Listening room on Sunday afternoon and got the appointment on the same day later at around 3 . It was not very difficult to locate his house on the Huskur road.
We Spent around 3 hours, more of listening and 'less talk between the tracks' . I carried some jazz/rock tracks and songs from the movies
The setup was blumenhofer genuin bookshelf speaker connected to the Einstein hybrid Amplifier and source was the digital music server , and also switched to Trigon integrated for some of the tracks .
When we played the Jazz , the B-H sounded very similar to my Spendors S5E in the tonal characteristics and a very smooth integration of the mid/top driver. Like in the BBC monitors , the human voice is beautifully rendered . This is a very coherent speakers like my spenders. The instruments got a lush and full body to it with just enough details without overwhelming with too much of information which usually spoils the musicality , atleast for me . The Voice is very clean , emotional connect was there without any shrill or sibilance which is the first most important criteria for me.
I was talking to another friend of mine who gives more emphasis on the details , separation / imaging . Some of the very popular, Audiophile grade speakers does these tricks , but in most of the cases it loses its tonal balance and or tend to sound lean , on the brighter side and lacks the musical warmth in it. May be more suited for HT applications or may be my musical taste is not audiophile enough !.
So on the similarities side , I liked the B-H for its tonality , coherent nature , presentation of the treble, which is neither laid back nor harsh . It is just like the way i wanted to have it . but I have these in spendors also.
Now to the improvement part , the sound stage is much bigger , more open compared to S5Es . I think these B-H BS may need more space to perform , which is a limitation in my current house . It is more dynamic and faster in the low-end compared to my speakers , but not artificially punchy enough to create fatigue .
The real improvement is in the timing. Some of the energetic tracks from Illayaraja ( not electronic type ) played really really well . it is common with the audiophiles that folks look for a specific quality during the audition and look for the improvement in it . I do it , constantly monitor what is important to me , But this time , i stopped tracking it ( in fact it all fall into place when the music started ) and started enjoying the music and allowed the whole track to complete it and played two more tracks in full . There is lot of musicality in illayaraja songs and I think only the speakers with the good tonal balance and good timing can bring out the magic in it . I really enjoyed it with B-H , wanted to have some of his tracks recreated in vinyl, and that will not happen anyway
. I am not nostalgic about this kind of music , I have grown up listening to more of ARs , the period overwhelmed with ARs music , but now I tend to like Illayarajas more , however it is unfortunate that these are not recorded well . To my surprise , the compressed mp3 sounded so good that I did not care about the flaws in it . I think it was the timing that did that magic , which made me to ignore other flaws in the recording . Finally Jochen played a rock/jazz tracks from the TT . This was in a different league compared to the digital audio , Compared the same track in TT and CD . With CD its is leaner , cleaner and musical warmth is lost a bit, hmmm i think to a greater extent .
Here is the exact information of the associated equipments , which i just got if from Jochen .
Speakers: Blumenhofer Acoustics 'Genuin FS5'
Digital:
Set-up 1: Trigon 'Recall II' CD-Player >>> Trigon 'Energy' Integrated Amp; WSS 'SilverLine' Interconnect and Speaker Cables, WSS 'PowerCube' with 'SilverLine' Power Cords
Set-up 2: Trigon 'Chronolog' Music Server >>> Einstein 'The Absolute Tune' Integrated Hybrid Amp; Einstein 'Electron' interconnect cables, Einstein 'Vivace Superiore' speaker cables, Einstein 'The Shield' power cords
Analog:
Scheu Analog 'Premier Mk III' turntable, Scheu 'Cantus' 12" tonearm, Scheu 'MC' cartridge >>> Einstein 'The Turntable's Choice' phono amp >>> Einstein 'The Absolute Tune' Integrated Hybrid Amp; Einstein 'Neutron' interconnect cables, Einstein 'Vivace Superiore' speaker cables, Einstein 'The Shield' power cords
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