sonosphere
Well-Known Member
DEMO# 7
Like the Denon TT demo, the next Demo again was a variation on the B&W 804s Demo. Now it was turn of the speaker being exchanged rather than the source. The speaker was lesser known model from Usher, the V-601 bookshelf speaker (35k retail). It was part of my combo (NAD C320 amp being other part). After listnening to B&W 804s demo, I was curious to see how 601 would stack up to B&W. If you leave the low end bass production (sub 35 Hz), I found they were jaw-droppingly close to 804s (considering 95dB SPL @ 2m reference). I say jaw-droppingly because those B&W retail for almost 7 times the cost!
Note in the summary above, we see two distinct groups of observations. Almost half find the demo to be satisfactory, while the other half finds it very good (I am obvisouly in the other half
).
On left, the Usher V-601 on Askii2's FS, on right and little behind, the Beresford Caiman sitting on top of Luxman L-5
My 2nd revealation of this HFV meet was to see how cable can make difference to SQ. Initially the cables were "Kimber", and early on as the demo was in progress, Amit felt that bass-tonality was less than what it could be. He diagnosed the issue to the "kimber" speaker cable that actually played quite well with B&Ws. As a remedy Sachin's Chord Carnival silver (thanks Sachin!) was substituted, and voila! the bass-tonality improved dramatically. I was staunch disbeliever in cable-SQ stories so far, but today with equally wide-eyed disbelief I accepted that they do make difference (for better or worse, depending on your sonic preferences)
The black NAD C320 on top of rack, Marantz 5001 CDP on middle shelf, on right Usher V-601 More on this below...
Subsequent to common songs demo with Luxman amp (I consider its performance similar to a 50k range amp), I tried Ushers with NAD-Marantz CDP combo, just to hear the difference with a 25k range amp like NAD. There wasn't much difference on treble-end of sound whereas there was noticeable reduction in the effortless quality of bass-end with NAD. Don't get me wrong, with NAD the bass was quite good, but with Luxman, the bass of Ushers till 45Hz was close to B&W bass... and that is entirely different league of quality! (This also went to show that Beresford and Marantz 5001 are at par in details, whereas NAD and Luxman are equally good on treble-end).
During the same demo, Amit exchanged the Marantz CDP with Arcam CD7 for one song (Neil Diamond's "Forever in blue jeans". With Arcam the realism of each instrument /vocals took a leap. By the end of demo it became apparent to me that these 601's in some ways are like the Topping amp. Their performance does justice to gear costing multiples of their cost, connected at their back-end. 601s can sound good with entry level amp like NAD C320, and "gasp" even a DVDP... and then you can keep upgrading the amp and source till 50k+ range, without feeling the 601's not good enough for a 1 lac+ combo.
As usual, I request other attending members also to contribute their experience of this demo.
Like the Denon TT demo, the next Demo again was a variation on the B&W 804s Demo. Now it was turn of the speaker being exchanged rather than the source. The speaker was lesser known model from Usher, the V-601 bookshelf speaker (35k retail). It was part of my combo (NAD C320 amp being other part). After listnening to B&W 804s demo, I was curious to see how 601 would stack up to B&W. If you leave the low end bass production (sub 35 Hz), I found they were jaw-droppingly close to 804s (considering 95dB SPL @ 2m reference). I say jaw-droppingly because those B&W retail for almost 7 times the cost!
Note in the summary above, we see two distinct groups of observations. Almost half find the demo to be satisfactory, while the other half finds it very good (I am obvisouly in the other half
).
On left, the Usher V-601 on Askii2's FS, on right and little behind, the Beresford Caiman sitting on top of Luxman L-5
My 2nd revealation of this HFV meet was to see how cable can make difference to SQ. Initially the cables were "Kimber", and early on as the demo was in progress, Amit felt that bass-tonality was less than what it could be. He diagnosed the issue to the "kimber" speaker cable that actually played quite well with B&Ws. As a remedy Sachin's Chord Carnival silver (thanks Sachin!) was substituted, and voila! the bass-tonality improved dramatically. I was staunch disbeliever in cable-SQ stories so far, but today with equally wide-eyed disbelief I accepted that they do make difference (for better or worse, depending on your sonic preferences)
The black NAD C320 on top of rack, Marantz 5001 CDP on middle shelf, on right Usher V-601 More on this below...
Subsequent to common songs demo with Luxman amp (I consider its performance similar to a 50k range amp), I tried Ushers with NAD-Marantz CDP combo, just to hear the difference with a 25k range amp like NAD. There wasn't much difference on treble-end of sound whereas there was noticeable reduction in the effortless quality of bass-end with NAD. Don't get me wrong, with NAD the bass was quite good, but with Luxman, the bass of Ushers till 45Hz was close to B&W bass... and that is entirely different league of quality! (This also went to show that Beresford and Marantz 5001 are at par in details, whereas NAD and Luxman are equally good on treble-end).
During the same demo, Amit exchanged the Marantz CDP with Arcam CD7 for one song (Neil Diamond's "Forever in blue jeans". With Arcam the realism of each instrument /vocals took a leap. By the end of demo it became apparent to me that these 601's in some ways are like the Topping amp. Their performance does justice to gear costing multiples of their cost, connected at their back-end. 601s can sound good with entry level amp like NAD C320, and "gasp" even a DVDP... and then you can keep upgrading the amp and source till 50k+ range, without feeling the 601's not good enough for a 1 lac+ combo.
As usual, I request other attending members also to contribute their experience of this demo.
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