05-Dec-2014, 23:17
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
Over the last few months I’ve felt a niggling sense of unease, which I’ve been reluctant to face up to squarely. Something was wrong with my main system (ML Montis and D200). There was too much HF energy flying around, and there was a bit of a hole in the lower midrange. I’d become aware of an imbalance in the upper octaves of the human voice and violins in particular; the effect was a bit screechy. Many classical recordings still sounded excellent, but brighter recordings (you know who you are, Naxos!) required the application of the treble controls in the Dev, which, excellent though they are, didn’t really solve the problem.
I was convinced that the individual components must be blameless. They must be. I’d heard the Dev with so many speakers. Audiovector, Dali, Vivid, Harbeth, Sonus faber, PMC, B&W: you name it, I’d heard it driven beautifully by a Dev. As for the MLs, the first time I heard them in a proper demo (as opposed to drive-by hearings at a show) the sound had blown me away: driven by a D200. And once the Montis joined the Dev in my system back in June, I loved the pairing for some time after.
But something had gone wrong; something needed to be fixed.
I tried to persuade myself that some room treatment would solve the problem: some soft furnishings to tame the HF reflections perhaps. Everything was, in any case, on hold until the house move (in mid-October), and even then it would be a couple of months until the living room had the right furniture in it. Keep calm and carry on.
But then there was the spectre of the John Atkinson Stereophile review of the D-Premier, often referenced in discussions of Dev on the interwebs. According to JA, the D-Premier might well have problems dealing with the exceptionally low impedance of ESLs at high frequencies. Even if the Dev didn’t overheat and shut down (there were some reports of this, though the new Dev models’ upgraded PSU solved the shutdown problem), there was still the prospect of the Dev's clipping protection circuits switching in, resulting in a nasty hardness at the top end.
Life is complicated. I have two pairs of speakers (both ex-demo models, so not quite as extravagant as it might seem): the ML Montis and the SF Cremona Auditor Ms. In the new house the SFs would be in my study and the MLs would be downstairs in the big living room. That seemed like a great plan. But what about amps? To cut a long story short, it came down to three options:
1. Montis with D200 and Cremonas with a new amp
2. Montis with D400 and Cremonas with a new amp
3. Montis with a new amp and Cremonas with D200
No. 1 was already eliminated (see above). No. 2 might work but would involve significant extra cost (£5K for the D200 “companion” and the cost of a new amp for the SFs). No. 3 was looking good, but could any amp drive the MLs better? A valve amp was out of the question: the family will use this system, and they can’t be relied on to turn things off!
Enter the Sanders Magtech yesterday, after a long and frustrating wait for the UK Sanders dealer to supply a demo model. I also borrowed a 200 “companion” from the ever-helpful Saj at Audio Venue in Ealing.
I was ready for a shoot-out.
Over the last few months I’ve felt a niggling sense of unease, which I’ve been reluctant to face up to squarely. Something was wrong with my main system (ML Montis and D200). There was too much HF energy flying around, and there was a bit of a hole in the lower midrange. I’d become aware of an imbalance in the upper octaves of the human voice and violins in particular; the effect was a bit screechy. Many classical recordings still sounded excellent, but brighter recordings (you know who you are, Naxos!) required the application of the treble controls in the Dev, which, excellent though they are, didn’t really solve the problem.
I was convinced that the individual components must be blameless. They must be. I’d heard the Dev with so many speakers. Audiovector, Dali, Vivid, Harbeth, Sonus faber, PMC, B&W: you name it, I’d heard it driven beautifully by a Dev. As for the MLs, the first time I heard them in a proper demo (as opposed to drive-by hearings at a show) the sound had blown me away: driven by a D200. And once the Montis joined the Dev in my system back in June, I loved the pairing for some time after.
But something had gone wrong; something needed to be fixed.
I tried to persuade myself that some room treatment would solve the problem: some soft furnishings to tame the HF reflections perhaps. Everything was, in any case, on hold until the house move (in mid-October), and even then it would be a couple of months until the living room had the right furniture in it. Keep calm and carry on.
But then there was the spectre of the John Atkinson Stereophile review of the D-Premier, often referenced in discussions of Dev on the interwebs. According to JA, the D-Premier might well have problems dealing with the exceptionally low impedance of ESLs at high frequencies. Even if the Dev didn’t overheat and shut down (there were some reports of this, though the new Dev models’ upgraded PSU solved the shutdown problem), there was still the prospect of the Dev's clipping protection circuits switching in, resulting in a nasty hardness at the top end.
Life is complicated. I have two pairs of speakers (both ex-demo models, so not quite as extravagant as it might seem): the ML Montis and the SF Cremona Auditor Ms. In the new house the SFs would be in my study and the MLs would be downstairs in the big living room. That seemed like a great plan. But what about amps? To cut a long story short, it came down to three options:
1. Montis with D200 and Cremonas with a new amp
2. Montis with D400 and Cremonas with a new amp
3. Montis with a new amp and Cremonas with D200
No. 1 was already eliminated (see above). No. 2 might work but would involve significant extra cost (£5K for the D200 “companion” and the cost of a new amp for the SFs). No. 3 was looking good, but could any amp drive the MLs better? A valve amp was out of the question: the family will use this system, and they can’t be relied on to turn things off!
Enter the Sanders Magtech yesterday, after a long and frustrating wait for the UK Sanders dealer to supply a demo model. I also borrowed a 200 “companion” from the ever-helpful Saj at Audio Venue in Ealing.
I was ready for a shoot-out.
Sonos Connect (W4S) > DSpeaker Antimode 2.0 > Sanders Magtech > Martin Logan Montis
Sonos Connect (W4S) > Devialet 200 > Vivid V1.5
Silver Phantoms (just the two)
London
London
