hi audio_engr, srinisundar, marsilians,stevieboy,georgeO,venkatcr,buswal, reju(welcome back!) and all-
fully recovered now and on to a detailed post -
i will not say much about the witches of sound - because (as tcpip says, in his article about the asawaris - "to others they may appear ugly, but the crow mother will love her babies" (crow babies are REALLY ugly") - but
since this was their swan song (i will be using the drivers for the "witches of ecstasy") - let me say a few words-
they are good speakers and do not do too many things wrong. Comparing them to the many mainstream systems i have heard - they compare well - they are essentially two-way WITH one movable/locatable subwoofer - i have really enjoyed them over the last two years - and if i were to put in fifty bucks for each enjoyable use - i would have a million bucks by now!(audio_engr). they were called "witches" because wife thought they were bone ugly and looked like hunched up witches! and the name has stuck!
we started off with the cd 6002 = pm17 = VDH = W.O.S. - diana krall - and iaudio was in the sweet spot (standing up) - he felt that the presentation was three dimensional and good - continued with iaudio's cds and they were excellent - though i was not in the sweet spot the saraswati track from into the light cd -was amazing
the next experiment - laptop as source without DAC - into the pm17 - was not good at all - very very dull - but the cd in the drive sounded livelier than the the ripped FLAC - but yet - absolutely 2D without depth
the DAC made a huge difference -the depth increased and the difference was night and day - and here , when the dac was used there was not much difference when the cd track was played with the cd in the drive and when the ripped file was used (we used the same single track for the entire process).
but when the cd was played thru the cd player - that was when one realised that the sense of depth from front to back is severely compromised with the laptop/dac system - here - for the sense of 3D and depth and space around the performers and instruments, the CD player is far ahead ( and about the digital system- iaudio will, perhaps, elaborate)
next - we used rallynut's CAT 5E cables - they are DIY and superbly made - look like a million bucks!
compared to the VDH - all of us felt that the CAT 5E made the highs too detailed (and a little harsh?) - and i felt that the bass had become loose and not-controlled - on the other hand the CAT 5E cables seemed to be able to reveal deficiencies in the recording process - i have always felt that the pick-up mics used in the A.R. Rahman signature collection (set of three -SCI )
were not too good (they display "feathering?" when the vocalist gets close to the mic) - and the CAT5E revealed this much better than the VDH. but the VDH are much better for long listening sessions - rallynut has left the cables here - and i will use them for a few days and post further impressions.
that is it - for now - will be posting as i recollect the details
-audio_engr
