Playing Speaker Poker with mpws NAD356

[jaudere]

What is KLPD?

 

[avidyarthy]

^ eeeeeekk .........
check pm.

 

[spirovious]

So how was it?Listening impression?

 

[corElement]

You are the one who needs to send us chocolates, what with 1) getting your 'deadly' Jamo's for a song & 2) Enjoying them so much that you forgot to do a 'moo meetha' of us FM's with 'Chom Chom', 'Sondesh', 'Misthi Doi' & their ilk.... well you get the drift (Bengali Sweets) :licklips::licklips::licklips:

LOL CHOM CHOM!!! I almost forgot about it's existence haha.
Too bad we're not all in the same city, I would have if we were

I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's impressions!! MPW and Hari should both give their views along with Denom, come on guys!

 

[denom]

@denom-lol kala kutta....how come the older(12yrs) kaala kutta got unlucky?!...

Because there was buy 2 get 1 free offer for the 8 yrs doggy :lol:

What is KLPD?

Bhau, are you from Maharashtra or not????

^ eeeeeekk .........
check pm.

Thanks for being the 'Translator'

So how was it?Listening impression?

Thoda shanti(no not that FM of our forum who used that alias in his earlier avatar hyeah Doc saab, am still writing about it.

LOL CHOM CHOM!!! I almost forgot about it's existence haha.
Too bad we're not all in the same city, I would have if we were

I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's impressions!! MPW and Hari should both give their views along with Denom, come on guys!

When you are in mumbai, I will take you to the shops selling 'em, in exchange you get me some special Bengali Sweets from your part of the world, Deal???

 

[corElement]

When you are in mumbai, I will take you to the shops selling 'em, in exchange you get me some special Bengali Sweets from your part of the world, Deal???

Lol deal! Then again I have no clue when im going to mumbai next haha.

 

[jaudere]

@Denom, Avidyarthi told me whats KLPD. I Had never heard it in past. It does not seem to be 'assal marathi' slang. I hope your full form and his is same! . BTW, I am Puneri Marathi to be specific

 

[avidyarthy]

Puneri Marathi .... no wonder! Thats the softest, sweetest form of the language in that State. A language devoid of the usual, classical 'shivi' which forms a part and parcel of the colloquials @ Kolhapur, Sangli, Solapur, Nagpur belt.

 

[denom]

My brief encounter with the Epos M12i/NAD356/Marantz SA7001 combo which I heard at FM mpws place last evening.

1 word keeps popping in my head & that is LUCK! Yes, when you have taken a gamble of buying a set of speakers without even hearing them ever, which has happened in the case of mpw, you sure need lots of it (Good Luck) by your side.

Second thought that comes to my mind is that mpw cant wipe that silly grin of I told You So off his face :lol: Yea, I am being a little hard on him but then one should understand that over the past 1 odd month, I have been part of the demo madness that he has undertaken to ensure he gets the synergy right with his NAD356 & then all of a sudden he just goes & makes a blind buy which has a lot of FMs including me shouting out aloud W T F!!!

Third Thought is that he managed to buy it for less than half of what he was willing to spend. So, he has majorly scored on 3 counts in 1 go!

Since it was a brief listen, what with lots of chat going on in the background, with mpw & bimalved, followed by Haris arrival & us plugging his TLs now & then, my views will be quite brief.

I will follow it up with a detailed one, when mpw gets his custom made stands from khuzzeeemaaa bai in the near future.

Points to note:

*The thing that hit me immediately is that the M12is are balanced in their sound reproduction, with equal due given to the highs/mids/lows.

* They are capable of creating huge sound stage & that was apparent with us sitting in mpws huge (in terms of Mumbai flats) hall & with the volume dial on the NAD356 being at 10 oclock, it was more than sufficient to fill the hall.

* Tight Bass which was a pleasant surprise & NOT AT ALL BRIGHT Highs as some armchair counts(minus the o) kept shouting about.

Will end my views here as I need to hear these more( hint to mpw )

Am really glad for mpw about the way things ended as far as his speaker hunt process went. Thanks to him, got the chance to hear a lot of the speakers available in the market & in the process got to know mpw better as a person & our friendship has grown due to this.



As for Haris BS TLs, another thread will be made about them, when I will hear them more which will probably happen next week.

1 more thread also will be created which will be on the Wharfedale Dentons (The Hidden Gems) which I also heard last night, at another friends place.

mpw, now that I have penned my views, pls take that double barrel gun off my forehead hyeah:

 

[corElement]

Thanks for the write up. Any photos? =)

I've been wanting to hear about dentons for a while now. They have an unusual configuration. A 5" woofer crossover at 2300hz if I recall correctly. Most bookshelves are crossed over between 1700-2100 in order to avoid cone breakup but I think designers of 2-way bookshelves which are crossed over 2300-2500 have something else in mind. Looking forward to hearing your review on them Denom.

 

[mpw]

here is a photo of my setup with Bimalveds stands.

I could reduce the stand height today to 27 inches ( with allen keys ). I think this will further enhance the presence and sound as well. Will try at night and see..

Bimal - i will have the stand back up to original level when i return these to you.

Hoping to get my Soundfoundations NEMESIS stands this weekend.

enjoy..

mpw

 

[tirthankar]

Looking good. Glad you are liking them.

 

[mpw]

hi,

thanks denom for your post.

The many auditions we did and the mental analysis i used to do and co-relate with stereophile reviews gave me a fair hint of what to expect from Epos M12i.

I was aware it was a gamble but the risk ( in terms of sound ) was minimal as the amp and the speaker complement each other. The NAD is slightly laid back while the Epos is sprightly and active.

So in that sense i was lucky but i managed to get the combo going by selecting well i think.

:lol:

Also- my home is a beehive of activity ( always something happening.. u know what i mean ).. so no point spending 1 lac and keeping the speakers without using them.

Actually.. the dealer in bangalore is SWISH ( Home Theater and Automation Speakers, Amplifiers and Projectors ) ( Mr Mukesh ). They were very nice and had packed and sent the speakers very well. Fortunately there was no transit damage.

I hope this will explain why i did what i did. I always recommend auditions as this will help in getting a right match and more importantly develop a sense for sound.

By no means is any combination perfect but looking at the money spent.. i think this one rocks.

denom - you are most welcome for a leisurely audition. I will be in touch once the stands come. I valued your company and the time you spent.

The new Epos dealer - reference Point - bangalore - is also quite nice. had an opportunity to speak to Mr venkat on the phone for sometime. he too guided me well.. but they did not have demo pieces and SWISH had one laaast pice and just the color i liked... ( did not want black any more.. tired of no choice but Black mantra )

Over the next few months.. i plan to biwire these and see.. get a nice tube DAC, a nice media souce and importantly play the speakers upside down to see what difference it makes. Just experiments..

I love tweaking thinks once i a while and dont like things static so this should keep me going for sometime..

regards,
mpw

 

[venk61176]

Venkat(ref point) is actually a distributor and not dealer. In fact decibels and swish india(mukesh) are dealers of Venkat.

Its good to know you are enjoying the combo, I think you need to target Audiolab M-DAC (which is in mind as well).



Cheers
Venkat

 

[avidyarthy]

@ mpw ... all's well that ends well ... good, you are satisfied!

But, no credit to me, eh? :sad:

Date: 24/08/12 .... Time: 11.20 PM .... had received an SMS from you ... R u awake? Talk?? Then ...... :indifferent14:

 

[mpw]

Dear atish,

Ofcourse.. Lots of credit to you too and to ruenigma to spiro to magma to many FM's whose brain I picked.

I take this opportunity to thank everyone deeply and that incl you, Prem, Coaltrain and Hari Iyer too and also to Vaibhav of Nibbana Audio.

To FM Sumanta and to TNT Audio Editor Lucio Cadeddu - thanks are due.

Regards
Mpw

 

[jaudere]

Best luck Hari. Don't know when I will come to Mumbai and get a chance to listen to your speakers.
mpw, what was the MRP of the Epos?

 

[mpw]

Best luck Hari. Don't know when I will come to Mumbai and get a chance to listen to your speakers.
mpw, what was the MRP of the Epos?

=====================================================

quoted MRP Epos M12i is 48k + courier + octroi as applicable from bangalore.

mpw

 

[jaudere]

You are welcomed any time at my home for audition of these speakers. Also will ferry you down to mpw for audition of his epos if he is available during your visit. He does not stay too far from my home.

And I don't know when you guys will come to Goa to listen to what I am doing (although non measured and non scientific). Like Hari, I need someone to audition my system and give feedback.

 

[denom]

And I don't know when you guys will come to Goa to listen to what I am doing (although non measured and non scientific). Like Hari, I need someone to audition my system and give feedback.

I for one would love to hear your speakers & those made by FM Sumanta, hope I can manage visits to both places in the near future.

Issues with my internet cable and hence logged in late.

It was a evening well spend auditioning the Epos @ mpw home and was an eye opener for my TL BS speakers too. Compared to the Epos it lacked the low freq and high freq. openess. The mid-range seemed to be laid back and muffled as per Denom and mpw. Kept me wondering why as i took back the impressions of the Epos back home.

At the outset i will like to thank Anil, Spiro, Darshan Joshi, Swapnil, Denom and last not the least mpw to audition my TL BS speakers and allowing me to comapre them along with both the Denton and Epos. After their inputs of muffled, laid back and missing low frequency from the speakers, and me spending close to 2 months designing the speakers kept me wondered why these BS were not able to impress the audience.

Again went back to the basics with simulators, calculators etc. etc and still was not able to find the missing link for the sound signature compared to the Denton and Epos. Yesterday night tried phasing changes with the simulator and found a deep notch from 300Hz till 3KHz by reverse connecting the tweeter.

I always wondered why the Peerless Tweeter was not having a red colour dot for showing the correct phase and thought have i connceted the tweeter reverse by mistake due to the absence of the red colour dot on both tweeters. I followed a couple of time with Varsha Electronics for letting me know but the response was not good (Poor service support in this case i would say which is very risky). Today morning again tried working with a parallel notch ect but with no luck. Then in the afternoon i thought why not change the polarity of the tweeter just in case the phasing would be wrong. And to my surprise and amazement, THAT WAS IT. A new sound stage opened up by just reversing the tweeter polarity and all the muffled sound and laidback low frequency just disappeared. The high freq became more airy and lively.

Had i not carrried my speaker to mpw and played some comparable music on both speakers i would have never come to know about this. Once again thanks to all FMs for giving their critical feedback on the product. Its the passion for clear sound that made this TL BS find its final tweak today evening and the outcome is more than satisfying. I am now dying to get this auditioned once again by Denom on this week Wednesday and let me know what he feels about them now. As mentioned earlier too, i work more on the computers with data sheets and simulations and am not a right person to audition a speaker. When it comes to audition i trust others ears like Denom, Spiro, mpw and others to say something rather than trust my ears. Only after i gathered all the feedback and listed them one by one and by consolidating them all together could i make a inferences. Yes it has been very tough call to reverse the tweeter polarity as i never thought it could be wrong and yet the gamble proved to be fruitful.

I will advise all DIYer to get this aspect correctly w.r.t. the phasing of the woofer and tweeter first before trying any tweaks with the cross-over and damping. The difference is night and day i would say and i am experiencing this for the first time not because of any design issue but with issue with the peerless tweeter not having the phasing red dot.

As mentioned by Denom, he will follow-up with a detail review about this TL BS this week Wednesday. Till then keeping my fingers crossed.

Cheers,

This is a very BIG development, just hope it is the reason why your TL BS were not able to shine right off the line. Am also eagerly waiting to hear them again.