We invited my wife's best friend (well, she's my friend too) to come visit us at the LA Audio Show, mostly just to hang out, but also, because she has been talking about setting up a "nice" system now for a few years. Her kids are all lout of the house and she decided it was time. The budget wasn't terribly big by most audiophile standards, but she was looking "around $1000" for a complete system. Her youngest son had recently bought her a turntable (he'a DJ, not sure what it is yet) and she has a small record collection from many years ago, and a couple hundred CDs. She also wanted to be able to plug in her notebook for Spotify and Pandora, and her TV for movies.
At the show we tried all sorts of setups for her and in the end, she said to let her think about and she'd decide in a few weeks.
Today she ordered an all Emotiva system, comprising of:
Amplifier - TA-100 ($399)
CD Player - CD-100 ($299)
Speakers - Airmotiv B1 ($299)
Subwoofer BasX S8 ($199)
And from Pangea Audio (Audio Advisor) a set of their lower cost 32" speaker stands ($119)
Total cost $1315.
I happened to have all those components here at home still from the show, so after six weeks of battling positioning with the big Tekons (they are really starting to sound nice) I decided to take a break, and set this whole system up here and see how it sounded.
Only played a couple of CDs (the CD player used as a transport, connected via toslink to the amp) and mostly used either a notebook running tidal or my Questyle QP1 through the line level input. Well less than a half hour tuning the sub and positioning the speakers, I am really surprised at how good this sounds. The sub and sats blend really nicely crossed over at around 90 Hz, and play solid to low 30s. The AMT tweeter is airy and clear and not at all brittle or fatiguing. Mids are fairly transparent and neutral and much more dynamic than you would expect.
Here the bottom line, I've been listen non-stop for close to four hours. Currently listening to Camera Obscura by Nico on Tidal and loving it. No, it in not as good in any category as what I get out my Burson electronics and either set of Tekton speakers (Lore or DIs), and my iFi stack is better than the built in DAC in every way, but this system simply works and sounds great.
I can't wait for her gear to arrive. We'll be going over to set it up and make it sound its best. I need to get a photo of her expression when we play the first track for her after getting it all tuned up.
My end of the audio world is better than ever these days.
At the show we tried all sorts of setups for her and in the end, she said to let her think about and she'd decide in a few weeks.
Today she ordered an all Emotiva system, comprising of:
Amplifier - TA-100 ($399)
CD Player - CD-100 ($299)
Speakers - Airmotiv B1 ($299)
Subwoofer BasX S8 ($199)
And from Pangea Audio (Audio Advisor) a set of their lower cost 32" speaker stands ($119)
Total cost $1315.
I happened to have all those components here at home still from the show, so after six weeks of battling positioning with the big Tekons (they are really starting to sound nice) I decided to take a break, and set this whole system up here and see how it sounded.
Only played a couple of CDs (the CD player used as a transport, connected via toslink to the amp) and mostly used either a notebook running tidal or my Questyle QP1 through the line level input. Well less than a half hour tuning the sub and positioning the speakers, I am really surprised at how good this sounds. The sub and sats blend really nicely crossed over at around 90 Hz, and play solid to low 30s. The AMT tweeter is airy and clear and not at all brittle or fatiguing. Mids are fairly transparent and neutral and much more dynamic than you would expect.
Here the bottom line, I've been listen non-stop for close to four hours. Currently listening to Camera Obscura by Nico on Tidal and loving it. No, it in not as good in any category as what I get out my Burson electronics and either set of Tekton speakers (Lore or DIs), and my iFi stack is better than the built in DAC in every way, but this system simply works and sounds great.
I can't wait for her gear to arrive. We'll be going over to set it up and make it sound its best. I need to get a photo of her expression when we play the first track for her after getting it all tuned up.
My end of the audio world is better than ever these days.
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