Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 2 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
SF Aida and Devialet
#1
First of all, greetings everyone! (aka @Hello, world!@) Smile

Straight to business with some background:

I have three systems across two homes in more or less permanent use, two of them with SF speakers (Amati Anniversario and Aida) and one a horn one (Cessaro). Amati and Cessaro are in the countryhouse, Aida is in my city apartments.

I spend most of my time listening to the horns and LP system but lately while it is undergoing an upgrade (bigger horns!) I had time to tweak the SF Amati system a bit which ultimately resulted in a truly astonishing and suprising in-room bass response which I have not ever heard before in all my life from a subwoofer-less system.

For reference, the Amatis are driven by Mcintosh 452 (8 ohm taps) with Jeff Rowland Capri pre-amp and Esoteric K-01 as a source via XLR outputs (setting +6db), Isotek Syncro DC cable for power filtering and a mix of DH Labs signal and Shunyata power cables.

The biggest tweak in Amati system came from switching  from 4 to 8 ohm taps at Mcintosh end (despite recommended 4 ohm notice at Amati speaker terminals), and insertion of Isotek Syncro power cable for the power distributor and Shunyata Anaconda for the amp.

The room is irregular (non-parallel walls) form, roughly 25-30 sq.m., 2.6m ceiling, listening distance around 4m, no acoustic treatment, stone walls and floor, some leakage via large windows to the garden.

Test disks were Rammstein Reise, Reise ("Los" track) and DCD Into the Labyrinth ("Bird" track).

I like to listen loud - at concert loudness level - and the result was the most gut-wrenching "kick you in the balls" result from a relatively (all is relative of course) small speaker pair. Clearly not only bass was good, but everything else opened up with a fundamentally strong bass foundation. It was really eye (ear!)-opening.

Then I got back to my city apartments. Put the same tracks on Aidas. With the Amati experience being very recent and still fresh in my mind I was immediately extremely disappointed with the very weak and muddy bass foundation which I now heard from Aidas despite them clearly theoretically being at another (higher) level from Amatis.

For the reference, the Aidas are currently being driven by Jeff Rowland 625 stereo amp/Corus pre-amp with Mcintosh MCD500 and Berkeley Alpha DAC as sources and Shunyata signal and power cables.

The room is not big, c.25m, listening distance is pretty close. They are positioned fairly well in the room for the stereo imaging and vocalist vocing/timbre/tonal response (much better than Amati's in that respect) so it's not a question of them being incorrectly set up. 

I was very much puzzled and as an experiment disconnected the mid-high section jumpers back at the speaker terminals to see how Jeff drives just the sub and bass units of Aida. Disaster. No difference at all to being connected to all channels, very weak and very unconvincing. Even with Jeff at 100% volume pumping all of its 550w AB class power just into the bass units. So no bi-amping with another Jeff will help.  

So either I have an immense room node which gets me a -10dB trough in low bass or the Jeff 625 and the Aida's bass driver impedances are not made for each other. Or the Aida's are so power hungry that 500 watts into the bass are still not enough. Or, what would be the worst scenario, a combination of room node and bass impedance mismatch/power hunger.

Which finally brings me to the Devialet question.

I could try to bring some other traditional amps to try to see how they match with Aidas (I have Burmeister 911 Mk.3 in reserve, plus could try the same Mcintosh 452 for a change), but as Jeffs are supposedly close to best of breed have some doubts as to whether that would work and worth the physical hassle.

I very much do not like to go the 1kW+ route with larger Boulders or Macs as I just do not have the space for these monsters and I found them lacking at low volume listening modes in some other installations.

Devialet 400 or 800 appear to be an interesting option which would be very space-efficient but cleary quite non-traditional.

And the problem is that I cannot demo them - need to pre-order and pay full price irrespective of whether they match or not.

With that in mind, 800 on the face of their published specs appear to a safer option, with 1.2kW being available into 4 ohm load, but on the other hand I could buy 2 sets of 400 for about the same price which could allow me to go into 4 monoblocks bi-amping route with Aidas, with one set of 400 driving the bass units and one set - the mid-HF section.

So the questions to the forum:

Shall I buy a Devialet? 
400 or 800? 
Anyone with personal experience with Aidas or other large multi-way power hungry speakers?
Will 2 sets of 400s work in the bi-amp configuration?
Will it be better than one set of 800s?

Oh, and one more - SAM appears to be an interesting concept but do I have any chance to get it for Aidas as clearly they are not that widespread to get even close to the top of the update list any time soon, if ever?

Cheers,
Vladimir
Reply
#2
(18-Jun-2015, 16:32)Vladimir Wrote: First of all, greetings everyone! (aka @Hello, world!@) Smile

Straight to business with some background:

I have three systems across two homes in more or less permanent use, two of them with SF speakers (Amati Anniversario and Aida) and one a horn one (Cessaro). Amati and Cessaro are in the countryhouse, Aida is in my city apartments.

I spend most of my time listening to the horns and LP system but lately while it is undergoing an upgrade (bigger horns!) I had time to tweak the SF Amati system a bit which ultimately resulted in a truly astonishing and suprising in-room bass response which I have not ever heard before in all my life from a subwoofer-less system.

For reference, the Amatis are driven by Mcintosh 452 (8 ohm taps) with Jeff Rowland Capri pre-amp and Esoteric K-01 as a source via XLR outputs (setting +6db), Isotek Syncro DC cable for power filtering and a mix of DH Labs signal and Shunyata power cables.

The biggest tweak in Amati system came from switching  from 4 to 8 ohm taps at Mcintosh end (despite recommended 4 ohm notice at Amati speaker terminals), and insertion of Isotek Syncro power cable for the power distributor and Shunyata Anaconda for the amp.

The room is irregular (non-parallel walls) form, roughly 25-30 sq.m., 2.6m ceiling, listening distance around 4m, no acoustic treatment, stone walls and floor, some leakage via large windows to the garden.

Test disks were Rammstein Reise, Reise ("Los" track) and DCD Into the Labyrinth ("Bird" track).

I like to listen loud - at concert loudness level - and the result was the most gut-wrenching "kick you in the balls" result from a relatively (all is relative of course) small speaker pair. Clearly not only bass was good, but everything else opened up with a fundamentally strong bass foundation. It was really eye (ear!)-opening.

Then I got back to my city apartments. Put the same tracks on Aidas. With the Amati experience being very recent and still fresh in my mind I was immediately extremely disappointed with the very weak and muddy bass foundation which I now heard from Aidas despite them clearly theoretically being at another (higher) level from Amatis.

For the reference, the Aidas are currently being driven by Jeff Rowland 625 stereo amp/Corus pre-amp with Mcintosh MCD500 and Berkeley Alpha DAC as sources and Shunyata signal and power cables.

The room is not big, c.25m, listening distance is pretty close. They are positioned fairly well in the room for the stereo imaging and vocalist vocing/timbre/tonal response (much better than Amati's in that respect) so it's not a question of them being incorrectly set up. 

I was very much puzzled and as an experiment disconnected the mid-high section jumpers back at the speaker terminals to see how Jeff drives just the sub and bass units of Aida. Disaster. No difference at all to being connected to all channels, very weak and very unconvincing. Even with Jeff at 100% volume pumping all of its 550w AB class power just into the bass units. So no bi-amping with another Jeff will help.  

So either I have an immense room node which gets me a -10dB trough in low bass or the Jeff 625 and the Aida's bass driver impedances are not made for each other. Or the Aida's are so power hungry that 500 watts into the bass are still not enough. Or, what would be the worst scenario, a combination of room node and bass impedance mismatch/power hunger.

Which finally brings me to the Devialet question.

I could try to bring some other traditional amps to try to see how they match with Aidas (I have Burmeister 911 Mk.3 in reserve, plus could try the same Mcintosh 452 for a change), but as Jeffs are supposedly close to best of breed have some doubts as to whether that would work and worth the physical hassle.

I very much do not like to go the 1kW+ route with larger Boulders or Macs as I just do not have the space for these monsters and I found them lacking at low volume listening modes in some other installations.

Devialet 400 or 800 appear to be an interesting option which would be very space-efficient but cleary quite non-traditional.

And the problem is that I cannot demo them - need to pre-order and pay full price irrespective of whether they match or not.

With that in mind, 800 on the face of their published specs appear to a safer option, with 1.2kW being available into 4 ohm load, but on the other hand I could buy 2 sets of 400 for about the same price which could allow me to go into 4 monoblocks bi-amping route with Aidas, with one set of 400 driving the bass units and one set - the mid-HF section.

So the questions to the forum:

Shall I buy a Devialet? 
400 or 800? 
Anyone with personal experience with Aidas or other large multi-way power hungry speakers?
Will 2 sets of 400s work in the bi-amp configuration?
Will it be better than one set of 800s?

Oh, and one more - SAM appears to be an interesting concept but do I have any chance to get it for Aidas as clearly they are not that widespread to get even close to the top of the update list any time soon, if ever?

Cheers,
Vladimir
Hi Vladimir and welcome to the forum!

Impressive HiFi CV you've got.

The Devialets will definitely improve your bass area as this is one of their biggest fortes. Mono config will def be better in terms of power output but more so lower noise floor and better resolution in general. Too bad you don't have a chance to demo. I think D800 would be your best choice and for sure will have you avoiding any set-up or coherence problems from using 4 mono amps (2xD400) and fiddling with cross over freq etc. The more power on tap with D800 will probably be the ticket as well.
There is also the Aavik U300 which one I will compare to D800 in one week time.

My 5 cents/Mike
Ex D400 Now Aavik U-300/Feickert Woodpecker2-Kuzma 4P-Kondo silver-Benz LPS-Teddy Pardo PSU/Naim Unitiserve-Teddy Pardo PSU/SF Guarneri Homage/Whole system decoupled by Ansuz DTC/Cables from Ansuz, DYI and other commercial/Dedicated mains and spur-Lampizator SILK
Reply
#3
Hello Vlad!

Nice to know Sous Faber fun.

Today I compared SF Amati and Elipsa with devialet 400. 400 is IMO not enough Power for Amati. so I am sure that for Aida it must be 800.

BTW I didn't like sound of Amati and 400. I preffered much more 400 with Elipsa. Much more dynamic sound, great for dance, rock music. Elipsa woofer is much more faster than two woofers in Amati. But maybe Amati with 800 sounds great? With 400 it was not very interesting sound.
Reply
#4
I was looking to upgrade to Amati with my 400, looks like I 'll have to do a demo with 400 before buying Amati.
Reply
#5
For Amati, I have a close friend using D800. Sounds great.

For Aida, I spent considerable time testing different amps at my dealer, just for the fun of it. We tried Soulution, TAD, Mac's, etc. But the best solution was 2 x D800. A total of 4 D250's.

Great speakers but very difficult to properly drive.

Cheers.
Kii Three, dCS Network Bridge, Roon Nucleus, Kuzma (Stabi S, 4Point), Soundsmith StrainGauge, Stromtank, Echole Cables 
Istanbul, Turkey
Reply
#6
i just looked up the sf aidas specs..

they are rated for up to 1000 watts at 4 ohms!

the d800's are 800 watts at 6 ohms..

no wonder they sound best on 2 sets of d800's.

there is no way a d400 could drive these to perfection.
Amp - Devialet 400 Speakers - vivid audio B1 Speaker cable - audioquest oak Power conditioner - furman SPR 16IE Source - audio PC with paul pang audio usb card v3 and paul pang red dual usb cable running through jplay. usb card powered by teddy pardo power supply Source 2 - line in from integra AV receiver (TV)
Reply
#7
(21-Jun-2015, 15:27)Kunter Wrote: For Amati, I have a close friend using D800. Sounds great.

For Aida, I spent considerable time testing different amps at my dealer, just for the fun of it. We tried Soulution, TAD, Mac's, etc. But the best solution was 2 x D800. A total of 4 D250's.

Great speakers but very difficult to properly drive.

Cheers.

Hi Kunter,

could you please share how the 2*800 were connected between each other for that quad-amping? Does one block act as a master for the other three? Were there any delays in processing/other complex settings which need to be accounted for? Or was it just plug-and-play?

It is not entirely clear for me from the web-site that the quad amping feature is officially supported.
Reply
#8
From the configurator, at least last time I played with it (prior to 8.x), you could build any combination of 1,2.3.4 chained unit and select for each if you wanted them to be mono or stereo, full range or high pass filtered or low pass filtered.

This way you should be able to configure a master with 3 slaves.
MacBook Air M2 -> RAAT/Air -> WiFi -> PLC -> Ethernet -> Devialet 220pro with Core Infinity (upgraded from 120) -> AperturA Armonia
France
Reply
#9
(22-Jun-2015, 04:44)completeluxury Wrote: i just looked up the sf aidas specs..

they are rated for up to 1000 watts at 4 ohms!

the d800's are 800 watts at 6 ohms..

no wonder they sound best on 2 sets of d800's.

there is no way a d400 could drive these to perfection.

The D800 is most probably over 1000 W in 4 ohms (400 W in 8 ohm). Aida do 1000W power handling without clipping! Probably they have a tricky load despite being 92 dB/1W sensitivity.

/M
Ex D400 Now Aavik U-300/Feickert Woodpecker2-Kuzma 4P-Kondo silver-Benz LPS-Teddy Pardo PSU/Naim Unitiserve-Teddy Pardo PSU/SF Guarneri Homage/Whole system decoupled by Ansuz DTC/Cables from Ansuz, DYI and other commercial/Dedicated mains and spur-Lampizator SILK
Reply
#10
(22-Jun-2015, 09:09)Mikeeo Wrote:
(22-Jun-2015, 04:44)completeluxury Wrote: i just looked up the sf aidas specs..

they are rated for up to 1000 watts at 4 ohms!

the d800's are 800 watts at 6 ohms..

no wonder they sound best on 2 sets of d800's.

there is no way a d400 could drive these to perfection.

The D800 is most probably over 1000 W in 4 ohms (400 W in 8 ohm). Aida do 1000W power handling without clipping! Probably they have a tricky load despite being 92 dB/1W sensitivity.

/M

Found a picture of Aida's crossover - looks like you need a lot of current to push the signal through Smile

[Image: Sonus+faber+Aida+crossover+xover.jpg]
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)