Jan 2013 Delhi/Gurgaon NCR Audiophile Meet

guys

I missed the show, but I was really was looking forward to listening to Viren's latest creations, Panditji's Harbeth's and Manav's Clearaudio Ambient and vinyls. So could we have a detailed review about those?
 
Malvai didn't make it to the meet, but I can give you an apt description of the Horn Grande.

The Horn Grande has a GIGANTIC soundstage, the 700 sq feet room with low ceiling did not do it justice AT ALL. It needs a LOT of room. The throw of the imaging itself forms about 10 feet away.

In my opinion the sound of the Horne grande is not suitable for majority of genres. However it is PERFECT.....PERFECT FOR INDIAN VINTAGE SONGS AND CLASSICS. Old songs like rafi and kishore kumar which sound lean and thin on all the high end "accurate" speakers sound "FULL" on the horn grande.

Any vintage recorded track will have a perfect home within a horn grande based system where instead of sounding like "bad recording" they sound normal again.

It needs ATLEAST 15 feet ceiling height and a WIDE open Space with seating far away and you'll be able to enjoy a lush romantic atmospheric sound.

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Pardon my bluntness .. the PMC model selection (for this event) was a disaster .. had to split by 4.30 PM with a 'splitting' headache! :sad:. Maybe, I have grown too old, without realizing it!

I agree,

I mean, I can understand what they were trying to demonstrate but I feel it's too much for just a 1 hour slot which turned into almost 2 hours from just setting up and dismantling and it was just a bit nerve wrecking in a room that size (It needs a much bigger space)

Not to mention the PMC wasn't exactly gentle on the ears either. I attempted to listen to it from multiple areas and no matter how much I tried, the sound of the PMC is just...hard....I could not connect to it on any level, not like how I connected to the harbeth the instant it started playing (And the harbeth and exposure combo was much cheaper than the said PMC and belcano combo) I just could not justify the entire combo's price.

The PMC IB1S is the ULTIMATE example how the "bigger" or "more expensive" model of a series, is not better than their smaller models.

I truly appreciate the effort the Mumbai gang put in to set it all up and all, but I feel it was a lost cause :( It would have been SO much better if they had just brought the 2 way medium sized bookshelf speaker and an integrated instead of the overly complicated and difficult route, and saved themselves a lot of effort in the process as well allowing others to also use the extra time used up.

Their vision ideally needs 1 entire day in itself to expand upon. Not 1 hour.

Pranar Kumar's DIY transmission line on the other hand, was a "sparkly success"... very sweet sounding transmission line speaker Pranav, superb job. The sound was very cute :) That's the only word I can think of to describe it!

The harbeth compact and jamo concert I feel are like siblings, the harbeth on the warmer side of neutral and a true example of "NATURAL" sound while the Jamo concert was on the brighter side of neutral and a perfect example of "Revealing & Resolving" speaker. On the harbeth the vocals had a slight mid-range bump, which is not a bad thing at all, it's really a pleasure to listen to. But it is a bump nevertheless. The jamos on the other hand, ruler flat but not "Wall of sound" flat like the PMC's, the flat dynamically performs as needed. It can sound a little bright but it's more because of the components they're connected to and simply revealing their brightness.

The jamo's perfect combo would have been the NAD M2 but because of the 45 minutes time consumed for just setting/unsetting up of the PMC + bel Canto stuff, we never got to hear that combo.

The Quad 11L2 was the cheapest speaker at the meet I think, it was pitted against the Jamo in speaker A B comparison (which is unfair considering the price difference) but the quads even for the asking price, I feel are a bit high, for the boxy sound it delivered. It can definitely take advantage of a brighter amp than Marantz IMO.
 
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Had an awesome time!

Great show... Thanks to cor for running around.

The tube and horn setup of lyrita audio was fantastic. So was the pmc and bel Canto setup from Mumbai. The tube like acoustic portrait transport and dac was very good too.

Nad gear gave its characteristic warm sound. The m51 Dac was a treat to listen to.

Special applause for pranav's diy transmission line speakers.

Last but not the least... the exposure and harbeth combo was just as I imagined - sublime. Harbeth have become top on my wish list.



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guys

I missed the show, but I was really was looking forward to listening to Viren's latest creations, Panditji's Harbeth's and Manav's Clearaudio Ambient and vinyls. So could we have a detailed review about those?

couldn't be there today.... but ou are most welcome to come HOME! anytime...
 
Congratulations from me as well! - look like everyone enjoyed - except the PMC audition.
Cheers,
Sid
 
I wouldn't say pmc audition was not enjoyable. It was very good. The limitation was not in the equipment. They were meant to be in a different room and setting.

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Congratulations Core and all the Guys who made it there and made this event a success...Could'nt be there myself.

would have loved to have listened to Harbeth and Exposure Combo as I am traveling to UK in a weeks time and there are some nice deals on used Exposure Amps.....well some other time maybe

Cheers and Congratulations once again
 
Had an awesome time!

Great show... Thanks to cor for running around.

The tube and horn setup of lyrita audio was fantastic. So was the pmc and bel Canto setup from Mumbai. The tube like acoustic portrait transport and dac was very good too.

Nad gear gave its characteristic warm sound. The m51 Dac was a treat to listen to.

Special applause for pranav's diy transmission line speakers.

Last but not the least... the exposure and harbeth combo was just as I imagined - sublime. Harbeth have become top on my wish list.


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Agree with most of the observations from Ashish above. I too like the Herbath's speakers the most. In my opinion PMC would have sounded better had it been paired with other amp than Bel Canto.I had tried the Bel Canto Amps in my setup and was not too impressed. Sound was harsh and brittle with no imaging and soundstage.

Big thanks to Core for organising this meet. Great effort.

--Vinay Arora
 
Manav

I will make it a point to listen to your present set up soon....before you decide to upgrade again :)

Not going to upgrade bro... just optimize. the speakers, amp and turntables will NOT change for a looooooooong time!
 
Congratulations, corElement and other FMs! It looks like you had a really fun meet. Looking forward to more pictures and HiFi pr0n :)
 
Vinayji

Hows the DAC comparision going on ?

Well to be fair the Bell Canto's paired with the PMC's did open up after around 45 mins or so the last tabla bits and the santoor (jhalak) as well as the classical peice played by Siva through his DAC were quite good in my opinion.
 
I wouldn't say pmc audition was not enjoyable. It was very good. The limitation was not in the equipment. They were meant to be in a different room and setting.

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I agree with you totally as room setups and placement are very important for any speaker to perform to its optimum. As i believe PMC is more suitable for monitoring purpose its more tuned for its near field response than the far field. All TL speakers will suffer from loss of low frequency as they are not boom box like their vented counterpart. Hence it could be evident from what i gather than its just poor speaker placement that ruined the show for PMC. I am not sure about the gears with which they were connected, but typically all TLs usually have a almost flat impedance curve and hence matching should not be a issue with an amplifier.
 
I agree with you totally as room setups and placement are very important for any speaker to perform to its optimum. As i believe PMC is more suitable for monitoring purpose its more tuned for its near field response than the far field. All TL speakers will suffer from loss of low frequency as they are not boom box like their vented counterpart. Hence it could be evident from what i gather than its just poor speaker placement that ruined the show for PMC. I am not sure about the gears with which they were connected, but typically all TLs usually have a almost flat impedance curve and hence matching should not be a issue with an amplifier.

On the contrary, they were not losing low frequency, but were booming a bit.

They had the PMC iB2s if i am not wrong, and they were very very large for the space. Plus the wall on the left was full glass. + i the 500 w / channel monoblocs... :p

The guys did a heroic effort of placement and tried to kill the standing waves with empty cardboard boxes stacked up etc... but it was simply too much speaker for the room.

Otherwise i think it did highlight the capability of the speaker.
 
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