First of all, greetings everyone! (aka @Hello, world!@) 
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
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
