Fun Day Out
Last Saturday was a busy hi-fi related day for me. I travelled down to St. Albans to drop off the Shindo and Border Patrol preamps that I borrowed from TomTom Audio. Then I drove across to Beaconsfield to visit Tony from Coherent Systems. In addition to being an all round top host, expert on all things to do with digital replay and hi-fi dealer; Tony also designs amps, DAC’s, power supplies etc for several different manufacturers.
After a coffee and chat Tony spent 15mins setting up my loudspeakers using a couple of test cd’s full of useful instructions like ‘this voice should be coming from the left speaker’ etc. It has to be said that my room at home is far from optimal in terms of loudspeaker placement, so it was nice to hear my speakers with plenty of space around them.
My pimped SB Touch, Weiss, Adam Audio system was left to warm up for 15mins. Then came what can only be described as an eye opening 90mins spent gradually replacing my own cables with ones designed and built by Coherent Systems. Cable disbelievers please log off now….
….right, well as someone who sits in the ‘deeply skeptical’ camp when it comes to the quality of cables I was surprised to hear obvious improvements with each cable that was changed. First my digital coax cable was replaced, then the power cable to the Weiss, then the XLR speaker cables. Each change was clearly audible and a minor improvement. No night and day differences in isolation, but cumulatively my system was sounding much better without having replaced a single piece of kit.
Tony then suggested that I should hear a different DAC to see if I could spot the difference. So in went a Bel Canto DAC3.5VB. Here is a link if you aren’t familiar with this DAC:
http://www.belcantodesign.com/Belcanto_DAC3_5_Digital_Audio_Converter.html
We started using just the DAC with stock power cable. Then Tony added the cheaper of two PSU upgrades available from Bel Canto. With no fancy PSU I would say the Bel Canto sounded good but perhaps not quite as good as the Weiss. With the basic PSU (called LNS1) in tow the Bel Canto to my ears sounded quite a bit better than the Weiss. The last change was to add Bel Canto’s Virtual Battery Supply (VBS1) PSU. This was another step forward. In fact at this point I was grinning like a Cheshire cat at the sounds flowing from my speakers.
After listening to the Bel Canto and VBS1 for a few tracks we then switched back to the Weiss. It was clear within the first few moments of the first track that the Weiss doesn’t image as well as the Bel Canto. It also doesn’t possess the textural qualities – particularly with bass. As always I struggle to come up with the necessary words to describe the differences, but it was enough for me to put the Weiss up for sale.
So we are now about 2-3 hours in and I’ve still not heard a preamp (my original reason for going). Tony rigged up a Pure Sound L300 valve pre and defeated the Bel Canto’s volume control. This was interesting, especially given my experiences with preamps from Shindo and Border Patrol. The only way I can describe the Pure Sound L300 is to say that it had massive grip and control over the music. My speakers really kicked in a way they never did with either the Border Patrol or Shindo. It didn’t seem to be adding anything tonally, just a huge driving force, almost like the signal was being magnified. Is it worth £5k in my system? Had I not heard the Bel Canto it would have been high on my list of purchases, however now I know how good my speakers can sound with the Bel Canto I’m going to leave buying a pre for a while.
Right that’s enough rambling for now. I’ll update this thread later in the week with details of a different system that I heard later in the day – still based around the Bel Canto DAC, but with some rather magnificent Vivid Audio B1 speakers in tow.
After a coffee and chat Tony spent 15mins setting up my loudspeakers using a couple of test cd’s full of useful instructions like ‘this voice should be coming from the left speaker’ etc. It has to be said that my room at home is far from optimal in terms of loudspeaker placement, so it was nice to hear my speakers with plenty of space around them.
My pimped SB Touch, Weiss, Adam Audio system was left to warm up for 15mins. Then came what can only be described as an eye opening 90mins spent gradually replacing my own cables with ones designed and built by Coherent Systems. Cable disbelievers please log off now….
….right, well as someone who sits in the ‘deeply skeptical’ camp when it comes to the quality of cables I was surprised to hear obvious improvements with each cable that was changed. First my digital coax cable was replaced, then the power cable to the Weiss, then the XLR speaker cables. Each change was clearly audible and a minor improvement. No night and day differences in isolation, but cumulatively my system was sounding much better without having replaced a single piece of kit.
Tony then suggested that I should hear a different DAC to see if I could spot the difference. So in went a Bel Canto DAC3.5VB. Here is a link if you aren’t familiar with this DAC:
http://www.belcantodesign.com/Belcanto_DAC3_5_Digital_Audio_Converter.html
We started using just the DAC with stock power cable. Then Tony added the cheaper of two PSU upgrades available from Bel Canto. With no fancy PSU I would say the Bel Canto sounded good but perhaps not quite as good as the Weiss. With the basic PSU (called LNS1) in tow the Bel Canto to my ears sounded quite a bit better than the Weiss. The last change was to add Bel Canto’s Virtual Battery Supply (VBS1) PSU. This was another step forward. In fact at this point I was grinning like a Cheshire cat at the sounds flowing from my speakers.
After listening to the Bel Canto and VBS1 for a few tracks we then switched back to the Weiss. It was clear within the first few moments of the first track that the Weiss doesn’t image as well as the Bel Canto. It also doesn’t possess the textural qualities – particularly with bass. As always I struggle to come up with the necessary words to describe the differences, but it was enough for me to put the Weiss up for sale.
So we are now about 2-3 hours in and I’ve still not heard a preamp (my original reason for going). Tony rigged up a Pure Sound L300 valve pre and defeated the Bel Canto’s volume control. This was interesting, especially given my experiences with preamps from Shindo and Border Patrol. The only way I can describe the Pure Sound L300 is to say that it had massive grip and control over the music. My speakers really kicked in a way they never did with either the Border Patrol or Shindo. It didn’t seem to be adding anything tonally, just a huge driving force, almost like the signal was being magnified. Is it worth £5k in my system? Had I not heard the Bel Canto it would have been high on my list of purchases, however now I know how good my speakers can sound with the Bel Canto I’m going to leave buying a pre for a while.
Right that’s enough rambling for now. I’ll update this thread later in the week with details of a different system that I heard later in the day – still based around the Bel Canto DAC, but with some rather magnificent Vivid Audio B1 speakers in tow.
Comments
Justin
A bit late to this one...
Pleasing to read that you had 'one of those days', that can shed new light on things and either affirm current directions or reveal new ones.
Nicely worded too.
Cheers,
Ben
My Weiss is out with a potential buyer so Ive been given a Bel Canto DAC1.5 to tide me over. It's running in variable output mode direct to my speakers. Considering this is the baby of the range it sounds rather good. I imagine that like its big brother it would sound better with a separate PSU - it comes with a switching PSU as standard.
Keith.
moment Keith. I've not tried the USB.