This time around a little mega meet with maximum turn-ups till date and at a venue that is exquisite in itself on the other side of the Ganges river. Amidst the concrete jungle of the ever densely populated Howrah district in an unnoticed corner is a age old mansion built in the late 19th century. And inside is the modern place of worship, the complete DIY acoustically treated audio room which is where we have come all the way to pay our homage.
Meet 3 / Last Meet of 2019
Date: 20th October 2019
Host: @Sandip Das (Sandip)
Attendees and Additional equipment carried
The gears being unloaded
The Base Setup
Objective: To listen to the improvements brought through room treatment and to make some experiments
The Setup
The Luxman L114A is a pre worshipped piece of equipment and has not been serviced ever but owing to how these equipment used to be made to stand the test of time, it still works very well. The speakers were purchased by him not long back as new ones from showroom and for 50K INR we have heard some great mid-range on them, of course they are renowned speakers anyday. His music source is his huge collection of Music CDs (2000+ and still counting) that he plays using his regular Toshiba DVD player and uses its in-built DAC, something he switched to only recently after his previous vintage Technics SL-PG450 CD Player gave up. After the upgrade the complete room was renovated and because there was too much echo he could not tolerate he ventured into room correction techniques and eventually discovered that it enhanced the listening experience and took to all new heights.
The meet was planned for over a month in our local HFV Whatsapp group and each of us were required to select two songs of our choice which he could keep handy to save time in selecting tracks which could be put to use of experimenting with other things.
The Wows of Room Treatment
Bass and positioning
Switching to better Source and DAC
Switching Amps
TIDAL once again a put down
Before we concluded for the day, in the wrap up discussion most of us advised Sandip of not changing the present setup which has beautifully settled in the whole setup. He was still keen for amp upgrade in light of the lesser power output from the Luxman.
It would be unjustified if I do not call put the mega hospitality arrangement Sandip had made for all of us. I fell asleep in the listening chair post lunch, sorry for not posting that pic here
A great audio afternoon finally came to an end and leading many of us to actually think on working our room acoustics out before any further upgrade.
Some additional pics
Nothing special, but checking if lightning ambience has any further improvement to the experience, it was so dim we scrapped the idea eventually
.... and finally the mandatory group photo, from left @haisaikat , @subhashis_1980 , @udayan, @rpugalia , @Sandip Das and at the front bottom its @pratimbayal and finally @Maxprocrj
Meet 3 / Last Meet of 2019
Date: 20th October 2019
Host: @Sandip Das (Sandip)
Attendees and Additional equipment carried
- @Maxprocrj (Pradipta) – his newly acquired Audiolab 6000A amplifier with inbuilt DAC
- @rpugalia (Rajneesh) – Emotiva DC1 DAC
- @haisaikat (Saikat, myself) – Cambridge Audio 851C CD Player cum DAC; Allo DigiOne
- @pratimbayal (Pratim)
- @subhashis_1980 (Subhashis)
- @udayan (Udayan)
The gears being unloaded
The Base Setup
- Luxman L114A Integrated Amplifier
- Quad 11L Classic Bookshelves
- Regular Toshiba DVD Player
- Chord Clearway Speaker Cables
- Custom Bookshelf Stands he got locally made
- Custom Audio Rack made by him and udayan
- Interconnects Van del Hul Hybrid Mk II
- The room treatments
- QRD diffuser made of wood on both the side walls locally made through a carpenter
- Skyline diffuser made of Epson on the centre wall just behind the speakers and hand assembled by himself
- Corner trap absorber panels made of sponge and foam and again hand assembled by himself
- Carpet on the floor
Objective: To listen to the improvements brought through room treatment and to make some experiments
The Setup
The Luxman L114A is a pre worshipped piece of equipment and has not been serviced ever but owing to how these equipment used to be made to stand the test of time, it still works very well. The speakers were purchased by him not long back as new ones from showroom and for 50K INR we have heard some great mid-range on them, of course they are renowned speakers anyday. His music source is his huge collection of Music CDs (2000+ and still counting) that he plays using his regular Toshiba DVD player and uses its in-built DAC, something he switched to only recently after his previous vintage Technics SL-PG450 CD Player gave up. After the upgrade the complete room was renovated and because there was too much echo he could not tolerate he ventured into room correction techniques and eventually discovered that it enhanced the listening experience and took to all new heights.
The meet was planned for over a month in our local HFV Whatsapp group and each of us were required to select two songs of our choice which he could keep handy to save time in selecting tracks which could be put to use of experimenting with other things.
The Wows of Room Treatment
- The moment the first track Saiyaan of the compiled album Teri Deewani was started it was surprise, Kailash Kher prolonging the tone and the effect is enough to set us back. There is so much magical ambience being created with the exact amount of echo as if the chores are directly coming to the ears. We had to ask him to play that song again to reconfirm. May not be an exact reproduction on phone microphone but check out T=0:20 onwards in the video below
- The similar phenomenon was exactly observed in the Afreen Afreen track. Listen from T=0:38 onwards
- Rajneesh was sitting initially in one corner and he first pointed out that he is hearing head phone effect and indeed we later on realized that some sound does feel like coming from the back of our heads, evident in the track Jiya Jale from Dil Se where the sound of the Mridangam playing (clapping like sound, favourite instrument of A.R Rahman, he has used this in Hum Se Hai Muquabla / Kadhalan, Jeans, etc) at the pause of the vocals felt coming from behind us.
- The vocals came out quite good with a sweetening effect on higher bands being seen and this is because of the Luxman amp’s sound signature. The vocal in Jadu Hai Nasha hai from Jism by Shreya Ghosal played really very well, we use this for checking the brightness.
- The system because of the right kind of corrections sounded so very complete at lower volumes that is one remarkable thing about it. We wanted to crank up the volume of the Luxman from 9 o clock to 12 o clock and replayed some of the tracks and concluded soon that the sound does feels way better in the lower volume and makes it enjoyable to listen for hours and at night without bothering the family or the neighbors. The downside to this is the BASS department, more on this later
Bass and positioning
- We do not expect FS like bass from the BS all the time and then again some BS like the Wharfedale Diamonds generate good amount of bass adequate for many Indian genres. So is here too. If you do not need ground shattering bass, the Quads and Luxman combo is generating bass but some tracks would make you feel as if a bit of more bass could have helped. In another A.R Rahman musical gem Zubeidaa, the track So Gaye Hain from T=0:40 onwards has some very deep bass notes which were almost non-existent here. But then again this is critical listening and unless such a portion of the track is upheld the rest of the track in fact sounds really good.
- Surprisingly when we sat on the floor the bass improved. So we concluded either the speaker placement of the acoustic treatment need some more tuning to get this rectified.
Switching to better Source and DAC
- It was time for some experiments and we first tried comparing the regular Toshiba DVD player digital out to the Cambridge Audio 851C CD Player’s Digital output, in turn both used as transport but using the DAC of CA 851C in both cases.
- When the CA 851C CDP was compared just for the transport against the Toshiba DVD player, immediately there was improvement in the separation and sharpness of the output as if the vocals were sounding way more cleaner and we all agreed the difference. Probably the dedicated CDP benefits from a better power source, more sturdy spin mechanism with lesser errors and of course may be better circuits. For the rest of the afternoon we used the CA 851C CDP as the transport.
- Obviously the DAC was an upgrade in the chain and brought immediate noticeable improvement in the clarity and details of the tracks wherever instruments / background score is in play
- There after the Audiolab A6000 was used which comes with a dedicated ESS Sabre chip based DAC and supported Pre outs too. So the 851C digital outs fed to the 6000A digital input and preouts went to the Luxman. The results were great again with great details and separation. This seems a real class product from Audiolab and they have packaged it very well with just not only a DAC but also the capability to use it as preamp or power amp or integrated all inside amp as desired. Tracks like Yeh Haseen Wadiya sounded great.
- Unfortunately while trying to setup the Emotiva DC 1 DAC I accidentally damaged the coaxial input. Rajneesh is yet to get it repaired and so we could not use it even once in this meet. In the picture collage below on the top left corner, Sandip trying to take out the RCA connector piece that got stuck inside the coaxial input socket.
Switching Amps
- Now it was time for switching the amplifier. So finally the Audiolab 6000A speaker outs were connected to the speakers. A few tracks were played back to back for comparison
- The Luxman and the Audiolab have more or less similar power output but varying sound signature. It would be improper to say Luxman sounds more analogue and Audiolab sounds more digital, rather Audiolab brings more clarity and sharpness to the body of the sound and in order to benefit from it one will have to listen to modern recordings that deal with many instruments and tracks.
- We loved hearing Jalebi – Title track or Pal by KK on the Audiolab. In the picture below the Audiolab 6000A placed on top of the CA 851C CDP.
TIDAL once again a put down
- Before we could wrap up connected the Allo Digione with a sim 4G router and played out a few tracks from TIDAL, the searches were coming late proving the connection has higher latency
- Even when the Allo digione was powered on a battery (power bank), the output compared to dedicated CD based playback was pale. TIDAL dependency on internet connect is to a large extent.
Before we concluded for the day, in the wrap up discussion most of us advised Sandip of not changing the present setup which has beautifully settled in the whole setup. He was still keen for amp upgrade in light of the lesser power output from the Luxman.
It would be unjustified if I do not call put the mega hospitality arrangement Sandip had made for all of us. I fell asleep in the listening chair post lunch, sorry for not posting that pic here
A great audio afternoon finally came to an end and leading many of us to actually think on working our room acoustics out before any further upgrade.
Some additional pics
Nothing special, but checking if lightning ambience has any further improvement to the experience, it was so dim we scrapped the idea eventually
.... and finally the mandatory group photo, from left @haisaikat , @subhashis_1980 , @udayan, @rpugalia , @Sandip Das and at the front bottom its @pratimbayal and finally @Maxprocrj
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