Hi Friends,
Some of you may already know I have been in quest for a music system (Amps+ matching speakers) for my room 15* 12 feet in size in the budget 30-35K. I listed mostly to Ghazals, Indian Classical and Bollywood numbers. This is to share my audition experience so that it can help other members who are starting journey in the HiFI world . Also to note that I am beginner in this and hence some of my comments might not be valid technically however I have tried to express as per my listening experience without any bias.
After doing a lot of reserarch and reading useful posts on this wonderful forum, my eyes were fixed on Norge1000+Wharf9.2. I came to know fellow member (Vinks) also is looking for similar setup and therefore we decided to go together for the audition. He has already posted his audition experience.
Finally the D-day arrived. We were unanimous in our choice to visit Danny from Bass&Treble in Dwarka who has been recommended by fellow members and boy it was an absolute memorable experience. Our 1.5 hr travel from home for the audtion was justified. He is an absolute gem of a guy and answered our each question and obliged our endless requests with a smile on his face. For a moment it was hard to believe that we are in a shop.
OK so we went in the audtion room, and I was pretty much excited so see all the equipments in front of my eyes of which I have dreamt over few months now. My heart was beating fast as I was going to witness my maiden hifi audition.
We decided to auditon Wharf 9.2, and the amplifier was some model from 'Audiolabs'. Danny had Pioneer DV 420?? as a source. We requested Danny to play Abhijeet Pohankars Piya bawari track. I felt like the artist was performing live in front of us in an auditoriam. Its simply amazing and eye opener for me regarding what a good amplifier and matching speakers can do to reproduce music. Cant pick out single flaw, sound was very detailed, smooth with perfect balance and it was absolute mesmerising experience.
Ok so next we asked for Norge2060, we played the same track again and the difference was obvious even to my untrained ears. There was no match! I felt the sound was very bright to my liking. At 12'o clock positon, the overall sound was getting very loud and it was difficult to separate the vocals and the instruments. Listening fatigue was creeping in my ears and I was looking desperately to Danny to end this misery.
Next we played the same track in Marantz PM6003, its amazing how musical this is. Very balanced, detailed oriented, We also played Black Friday-Bandeh (Indian Ocean). Dire Straits and some other rock and Jazz numbers and were quite happy with the voice quality. Then Danny played one of the tracks of his choice to show us how a good amp can bring out details in the music and believe me it was absolutely awesome. Each note in the guitar was detailed, reproduced very clearly, and the separation were clearly evident.
We were completely bowled over and made up ourt mind to go for its younger sibling PM5003 which was somewhere near our budget.
To be very sure about the extra $$ we are about to shell out in Marantz compared to Norge, I again requested to play the same track i.e. Dire Straits in Norge 2060. While at low volumes the major part was sounding good (may be 80% of PM6003) however at higher volumes the overall sound was muffled and it was sounding muddy. Perosnally for me this was a no-no and I was not ready to compromise on this aspect. I dont know was it inherent feature of Norge2060 or because the Amps were just out of their packing and would improve after few hours of burn in or its elder sibling Norge1000 can do better justice to the faithful Wharf 9.2.
Next we played AR Rahman's Tu hi Rey. It again was sounding ok, while Norge was doing justice to Hariharan's voice, Kavitha Krishnamoorthy's voice sounded very shril at some points in the song which were hurting my ears and for the first time I wanted her to shut up
.
We both made up our minds for PM5003 and our trusted wharf9.2. However before making purchase decision I wanted to audition Norge1000. Being in Delhi its a problem to find where can we audition this (any delhi members who are proud owners of Norge 1000 can we get audition please!!
)
Next to audition is CA340A SE which has earned 5 * ratings from WhatHifi and I seriously feel given my limited exposure this would be very satisfying to suit my taste of music. Any comments/suggestion are welcome.
Thanks members who have been replying to my queries and guiding me in this process.
... if we can find norge1000
