First a disclaimer - I am not an audiophile. I am just a bloke who likes music and just wants to setup a system that allows him to get the best possible experience from his music collection.
I have recently been doing a lot of research and where possible auditions to identify systems to significantly upgrade my setup. I am planning to keep my HT and music setups separate. I have been looking at systems, since I have learned that it's not about how the components fare by themselves but how they work together in a system that makes a difference to sound quality.
Thats how I accidentally stumbled upon the Goldenote Demidoff.
I was initially auditioning a Classe M1000 power amp paired with a ML 38 pre at JnB Sound. They sounded brilliant together, there was a lot of detail, good clarity and the bass behaved itself even at loud volumes. The M1000 are 1000W monoblocks when bridged and 400W+ for 2 channels. Overkill but they sounded really good. The speakers were JnB's own in-house design, and are amazing - I found myself preferring them over the new B&W Nautilus 800.
I would have probably bought the Classe/ML if it hadn't been for the fact that after the audition Jacob hooked up the Demidoff's. This was a 50W integrated amp. Built big and heavy. It comes in standard, signature, silver and diamond versions. Its apparently a single ended design with a hefty power supply.
We started by listening to Santana's Supernatural which I had just auditioned on the Classe/ML combo. The difference between the Demidoff and the Classe/ML was immediately obvious.
The Demidoff was playing through the Nautilus and ensuring the speaker behaved. The reason I had not liked the Nautilus earlier was that (in my opinion) the bass from that huge woofer in the middle ends up overpowering the mids and the highs, so even if the detail is there it gets missed as your ears deal with the bass. With the Demidoff the bass was still a bit too much but it was much better controlled and more importantly no detail was lost in the mids and highs. There was no noise at all from the system and I can't really describe how good the music was except to say that the Demidoff made me just wanna sit back, relax and enjoy listening to music since I had found an amp that made me want to immediately run my whole music collection through it.
The sound was more musical, the rhythm seemed right and oh the glorious detail. The Demidoff immediately highlighted the deficiency of the Classe/ML. When I earlier played Smooth on the combo there was this little niggling sound which ate into the vocals and seemed like an artifact of bad recording/disc. On the Demidoff the sound was separated and presented as part of the music that it was, the vocals were sharper and clearer. I then listened to some jazz, Shirley Bassey and a few other albums I don't recall.
The overall impression I had was that the Demidoff was very musical and very exciting, while also very transparent and clear. It made me want to just sit down and enjoy the music instead of bothering about searching for better & better systems.
Also even though it was an order of magnitude less powerful than the Classe it never felt that way.
I have also tried a Cyrus 6vs and an Accuphase e350, I didn't like the Cyrus and while the Accuphase was nice, it just couldn't compare to the Demidoff.
More indepth descriptions of the Demidoff's design and technical details are on Goldenote's website.
Due to personal and professional reasons I was not in a position to immediately pick up the amp, but hopefully I will be getting my hands on it by the end of the year.
In the meantime I am still auditioning amps, just to experience all that is out there. As I already mentioned I tried Cyrus and Accuphase. But they didn't impress.
Recently I auditioned Lyrita's 845 and 2A3 amps through the Harmony One speakers. That impressed a lot. I intend to audition again with my own music which I listen to a lot and will post a comparison then.
I am also trying to get to audition Goldmund's amps and Pass Labs amps. Will post about them too once I've had the chance.
I have recently been doing a lot of research and where possible auditions to identify systems to significantly upgrade my setup. I am planning to keep my HT and music setups separate. I have been looking at systems, since I have learned that it's not about how the components fare by themselves but how they work together in a system that makes a difference to sound quality.
Thats how I accidentally stumbled upon the Goldenote Demidoff.
I was initially auditioning a Classe M1000 power amp paired with a ML 38 pre at JnB Sound. They sounded brilliant together, there was a lot of detail, good clarity and the bass behaved itself even at loud volumes. The M1000 are 1000W monoblocks when bridged and 400W+ for 2 channels. Overkill but they sounded really good. The speakers were JnB's own in-house design, and are amazing - I found myself preferring them over the new B&W Nautilus 800.
I would have probably bought the Classe/ML if it hadn't been for the fact that after the audition Jacob hooked up the Demidoff's. This was a 50W integrated amp. Built big and heavy. It comes in standard, signature, silver and diamond versions. Its apparently a single ended design with a hefty power supply.
We started by listening to Santana's Supernatural which I had just auditioned on the Classe/ML combo. The difference between the Demidoff and the Classe/ML was immediately obvious.
The Demidoff was playing through the Nautilus and ensuring the speaker behaved. The reason I had not liked the Nautilus earlier was that (in my opinion) the bass from that huge woofer in the middle ends up overpowering the mids and the highs, so even if the detail is there it gets missed as your ears deal with the bass. With the Demidoff the bass was still a bit too much but it was much better controlled and more importantly no detail was lost in the mids and highs. There was no noise at all from the system and I can't really describe how good the music was except to say that the Demidoff made me just wanna sit back, relax and enjoy listening to music since I had found an amp that made me want to immediately run my whole music collection through it.
The sound was more musical, the rhythm seemed right and oh the glorious detail. The Demidoff immediately highlighted the deficiency of the Classe/ML. When I earlier played Smooth on the combo there was this little niggling sound which ate into the vocals and seemed like an artifact of bad recording/disc. On the Demidoff the sound was separated and presented as part of the music that it was, the vocals were sharper and clearer. I then listened to some jazz, Shirley Bassey and a few other albums I don't recall.
The overall impression I had was that the Demidoff was very musical and very exciting, while also very transparent and clear. It made me want to just sit down and enjoy the music instead of bothering about searching for better & better systems.
Also even though it was an order of magnitude less powerful than the Classe it never felt that way.
I have also tried a Cyrus 6vs and an Accuphase e350, I didn't like the Cyrus and while the Accuphase was nice, it just couldn't compare to the Demidoff.
More indepth descriptions of the Demidoff's design and technical details are on Goldenote's website.
Due to personal and professional reasons I was not in a position to immediately pick up the amp, but hopefully I will be getting my hands on it by the end of the year.
In the meantime I am still auditioning amps, just to experience all that is out there. As I already mentioned I tried Cyrus and Accuphase. But they didn't impress.
Recently I auditioned Lyrita's 845 and 2A3 amps through the Harmony One speakers. That impressed a lot. I intend to audition again with my own music which I listen to a lot and will post a comparison then.
I am also trying to get to audition Goldmund's amps and Pass Labs amps. Will post about them too once I've had the chance.
For me too its musicality above all else.
