14-Jun-2015, 02:53
Long listening session last night from 8pm until 4am with four friends. I had listened to 8.1 for about two hours by myself and was ambivalent. It seemed to have better soundstage depth (cf. 7.3 and 8.0) but a slight thin and grainy quality in vocals particularly.
When my friends arrived I told them we were going to try three different sound settings with music they chose as a playlist. I didn't mention what was going to change and I used pink noise and a SPL meter to ensure the volume level was the same. The order turned out to be 1) 8.1 DPM on, 2) 7.3 and 3) 8.1 DPM off.
I didn't vote but I did agree on their opinions. Unanimously 7.3 was the clear winner, and they thought that 1) and 3) were the same.
The differences were commented on as "night and day", 7.3 had "solidity" a "reality to voices" and "I could listen to that all night".
Which is what we did!
Two of the people involved have a very much more revealing system consisting mainly of Burmester electronics/amplification and MBL 101E II speakers and they are normally polite about the sound of my set-up but not very enthusiastic. Last night/this morning I couldn't easily lever them out of their seats.
When my friends arrived I told them we were going to try three different sound settings with music they chose as a playlist. I didn't mention what was going to change and I used pink noise and a SPL meter to ensure the volume level was the same. The order turned out to be 1) 8.1 DPM on, 2) 7.3 and 3) 8.1 DPM off.
I didn't vote but I did agree on their opinions. Unanimously 7.3 was the clear winner, and they thought that 1) and 3) were the same.
The differences were commented on as "night and day", 7.3 had "solidity" a "reality to voices" and "I could listen to that all night".
Which is what we did!
Two of the people involved have a very much more revealing system consisting mainly of Burmester electronics/amplification and MBL 101E II speakers and they are normally polite about the sound of my set-up but not very enthusiastic. Last night/this morning I couldn't easily lever them out of their seats.
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