Phantom Gold for 60s/70s rock music?

[psychedelia]

Hi guys,

Devialet Expert Pro 200 owner here. Currently linked up to a pair of Adyton speakers, and good old Thorens turntable feeding the sound. Got a good offer For a pair of Phantom 108dbs with tree stand, and have heard good things. However, all the reviews praise the incredible bass, but no one talks about critical listening to sixties and seventies recordings and the outcome here.

So question is, does anyone own a pair and mainly use a turntable as a source playing 60's and 70's psych/prog rock, and if so, what do you think? Is it a match? Do you get a good detailed mid range, even when tracks are busy with B3s duelling fuzz guitars, etc?

Thanks!
Stan

[scotthar]

I don't have the exact same frame of reference you mention but have a lot of music from those decades and some critical listening experience a professional perspective fwiw.

To me, my pair of golds mounted on the wall in the right spot for my room sounds AS GOOD IF NOT better than my Senn HD600 headphones
Comparing running from the same source to my old ears. DAC->Balanced cabling->Senn vs DAC->SPDIF->Arch->Phantom

'Speaker placement' with the Phantoms made the imaging and perceived (not measured) frequency response go from WOW that's really good to WHOA that's SOOOO AMAZING.
Geckos only way to go IMO.
Trees are better than sitting the speakers on a flat surface (like a table, counter, buffet).
but just NEVER got the same dynamics IN ANY ROOM with them sitting on the floor as when they are mounted to the wall with the Geckos.
(~8ft from the floor vs ~3)
The trees were always slightly BELOW ear level and angled flat.
The geckos are about 3 ft above ear level and angled down and either way about 10 feet apart.

regards
scott-

[psychedelia]

Thanks a lot Scott! I just saw this, my email notification has not been working.

[seb]

I can highly recommend Arch for the turntable if you are looking for a sonically convincing solution. I had a different setup before (Musical Fidelity Phone Preamp / ADC with Optical Output) which was good, but Arch is definitely better and it can handle high voltage cartridges more granularly. I also recently upgraded my turntable to a GoldNote Valore with a Vasari Gold and I have never been happier. I am blown away about how good some of my old records sound (I listen to a wide range of music incl. 60/70'ies R&B, Funk, Soul & Rock). Well, seems I will be collecting vinyl again

[psychedelia]

I can highly recommend Arch for the turntable if you are looking for a sonically convincing solution. I had a different setup before (Musical Fidelity Phone Preamp / ADC with Optical Output) which was good, but Arch is definitely better and it can handle high voltage cartridges more granularly. I also recently upgraded my turntable to a GoldNote Valore with a Vasari Gold and I have never been happier. I am blown away about how good some of my old records sound (I listen to a wide range of music incl. 60/70'ies R&B, Funk, Soul & Rock). Well, seems I will be collecting vinyl again

That sounds great! Do you get a lot out of the mids too with this combo? Do you have your Phantoms connected to any other sources too by the way?

[seb]

I do not have any issues with sound quality / reproduction. I mostly use Qobuz HiRes Streaming via an Innuos Zen Mini MK3 (via UPnP/Optical - the latter for gapless and even more fidelity). I have ripped all my CD’s lossless on the server and I have a vinyl collection from my youth (some of it audiophile stuff and Japanese pressings). At this point of my journey, I would say it definitely comes down to the quality of mastering and pressing. There are definitely audible differences when listening to vinyl, but not necessarily bad ones, quite the opposite. Some of them sound better than Hires streams, others not. But this is due to the attention paid in mastering and pressing, not a shortcoming of the audio system.

I may add though (IMHO), compared to audiophile listening setups the Phantoms usually produce a wider soundstage with a little less precise allocation of the individual instruments/singers. On the other hand, they are incredibly dynamic and engaging. The Golds produce more balanced and truthful midrange and trebles compared to the Silvers I owned before.

P.S. I also used a Dialog before, but I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it. It was necessary in the early days, but it runs very hot and as a pure optical converter just another device in the chain. You have to be careful with the optical cables though. There is very little space in the chassis of the Phantoms (small connectors preferred) and the longer the cable gets, the more careful you have to be regarding the quality. Although designed to be wireless my Phantoms are now connected with quality Ethernet Cat7 cables to the server/hub/router and are reliably stable ever since..

[psychedelia]

I do not have any issues with sound quality / reproduction. I mostly use Qobuz HiRes Streaming via an Innuos Zen Mini MK3 (via UPnP/Optical - the latter for gapless and even more fidelity). I have ripped all my CD’s lossless on the server and I have a vinyl collection from my youth (some of it audiophile stuff and Japanese pressings). At this point of my journey, I would say it definitely comes down to the quality of mastering and pressing. There are definitely audible differences when listening to vinyl, but not necessarily bad ones, quite the opposite. Some of them sound better than Hires streams, others not. But this is due to the attention paid in mastering and pressing, not a shortcoming of the audio system.

I may add though (IMHO), compared to audiophile listening setups the Phantoms usually produce a wider soundstage with a little less precise allocation of the individual instruments/singers. On the other hand, they are incredibly dynamic and engaging. The Golds produce more balanced and truthful midrange and trebles compared to the Silvers I owned before.

P.S. I also used a Dialog before, but I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it. It was necessary in the early days, but it runs very hot and as a pure optical converter just another device in the chain. You have to be careful with the optical cables though. There is very little space in the chassis of the Phantoms (small connectors preferred) and the longer the cable gets, the more careful you have to be regarding the quality. Although designed to be wireless my Phantoms are now connected with quality Ethernet Cat7 cables to the server/hub/router and are reliably stable ever since..

Hey Seb, thanks this is great info! Are you connecting the Golds together with an ethernet cable or do you wire both Phantoms to your router? I understand the Arch is completely wireless though?

Do you use your Phantoms for TV/movies also? if so, how is your experience in this regard?

[seb]

My router is too far away, so I use a high quality passive GigaBit Ethernet switching hub. Arch, the Phantoms, and the Innuos server/streamer are all connected to the hub with good quality CAT7 cables, and the hub is connected to the router (in my case even over a mesh WiFi). All of the devices are connected to the same power strip (no fancy filtering here, as that would interfere with the PLC communication between the Devialet products, just a solid pro-grade power strip). Neither the cables nor the hub are audiophile products, but rather high quality office equipment. With this setup, all data packets between the audio devices can be routed locally and quickly (this is why the hub needs to have switching capabilities, otherwise each packet has to go to the router first, which consumes a lot of bandwidth). I had a mesh WiFi setup before, but there were always problems. In my experience, this wired setup is reliable and stable. I do have an Apple TV, but I do not use the Phantoms as my main speakers as they are in a different part of the room. The sound is earth-shattering, be warned ... Not a surround system, but you can create such with the Phantoms (see some other threads here in the forum). I only connected it once, so I cannot comment on the lip-syncing. But I think it is a unique feature of the Apple TV, as most TVs can only delay audio, not video.

[psychedelia]

I have two Asus routers connected via mesh, so my thought would be to connect the Phantoms and the Arch to the second router, as I have the same issue where the main ethernet line is on another floor. 

I have an Apple TV in another room, but i find the interface quite bad, so this is why i have a media center PC in the living room. What i find interesting is that I have my Devialet Expert 200 connected via ethernet right now, but I don't really experience any form of lip syncing issue here. I guess the Phantoms do not have the feature where you can use ethernet connection on the PC in the same matter? (e.g. de Phantom / Expert as a sound card)

Stan

[seb]

I have Two Asus routers connected via mesh, so my thought would be to connect the Phantoms and the Arch to the second router, as I have the same issue where the main ethernet line is on another floor. 

I have an Apple TV in another room, but i find the interface quite bad, so this is why i have a media center PC in the living room. What i find interesting is that I have my Devialet Expert 200 connected via ethernet right now, but I don't really experience any form of lip syncing issue here. I guess the Phantoms do not have the feature where you can use ethernet connection on the PC in the same matter? (e.g. de Phantom / Expert as a sound card)

Stian

The Phantoms are a fully digital product. They have a lot of processing power but they still produce a lag. This is why it becomes so difficult in DJ & Home Theater scenarios. There are ways to overcome this, some of them quite costly. There is a couple of means to connect a PC/Mac to the Phantoms: Analog (via Arch), Digital Coax (via Arch; BTW, it seems you can use more than one Arch in a setup), Digital via Toslink (Optical), Digital via UPnP (bit of a nightmare to be honest, very rocky implementation of UPnP by Devialet), Airplay (very reliable and stable), Roon (also very reliable and stable), Spotify Connect (no personal experience) and Bluetooth. That's it.