Impulse Buy
About two or so months ago, one of my favorite HiFi shops moved to a new location and had a grand opening. They were to show off/feature the Electro Motions in the late afternoon but we had other things planned. I dropped in anyway. Who can say no to free wine and food at a place that carries Martin Logan and McIntosh.
They were demonstrating this little orange tube pre/headphone plus 15wpc amp with a cambridge CD and a $7000 pair of speakers. Not too shabby. The sales person then mentioned that when they first received the Carot One, they set it up with a pair of Vista's. Right, I thought. Of course, after the demo, he was trying to sell them. No bites and I made an offer of 25% below retail. 'No.. we can't do that.'.
No problem, not sure I wanted it anyway. A couple of glasses of wine, a few wings and some severe drooling over some great McIntosh stuff, he came by, said that he had spoken to his manager and that we had a deal. Holy crap, I really didn't want this thing that badly.
Anyway, took it home and burned it in for a few days. The headphone amp is rated at 3wpc into 33 ohms (right!), put my Senn HD650's on and though, wow, pretty nice. Better than my current cheap SS amps. It's not my end game (the Schiit Lyr hybrid tube/class A amp is) but I thought that it might be a keeper. Gotta try it with the Vista's (right) and Motion 4's some day.
I got around to that today and was really pleasantly surprised (given what it is). The setup was MacBook Air > PS Audio DLIII > Carot One > Vista's. Wow!, at low /mid listening levels the bass was richer and the mids sweeter than my Rotel.. no sub, huh.. not bad. The bass could have been tighter but it was really listenable. Thought I'd listen for 5 minutes for so, say meh, and relegate it back to the desktop. Started out with Dire Straits, went to Eva Cassidy and Norah Jones and then to Dead Can Dance. Spent an hour or so listening. Pretty sweet. I see some tubes in my future. Went to some 80's dance music.. fail.. got this puppy to clip pretty easily.
Hooked it up to the Motion 4's.. not bad at all. Had to turn it down. It can make the Motions sing pretty loud and sweet. Can definitely see getting another pair of Motion 4's or even Motion 10's for the office or basement and have a great casual listening setup.
The older I get, the more I really hate impulse buys. The Carot One is really an amazing piece of kit for what it is. I'll find a permanent home for it (basement system or add Motions to my office) and probably enjoy it for years to come.
Here's a picture of it beside a Vista during the test and one now that it's back home in the office:
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Originally Posted by kach22i
