Just purchased New Vantage Speakers!! Have one Question...

Hello,

I just replaced me ML SL3 Speakers with a New pair of Vantages. Now, the Bass is incredible and the sound is more refined than the SL3. I have a Krell 400xi amp and Yamaha cd player with coax outputs. I am using audioquest cables.

When I play classical and string cds the clearity is phenomenal, but when I listen to easy listening and rock n roll I would like to make the highs a little crisper. If I had a DAC and use my coax from the cd player would that help???
(I was thinking about purchasing the new Sony cd player w/ balanced outs, but I need a 5 disc changer)

:music:
Thanks,
Matt

Hi Matt,

A 5 disc changer is more of a convience item. You really need to get a better cd player than that to be in the same league as your vantages. Personally, I would skip the 5 disc and buy a really good cd player.

Your Vantages deserve better, you will never hear what they have to offer until you get a good source.

Are the Vantages new? If so you may want to wait 100 hours of playing time so the panes break in. The sound will get better after break in. Then you can think about new equipment to tune your sound.

Rock & pop-like music muddy but not classical?
You've got room nodes. First try reducing the setting on the 35Hz control on the speaker. But to really be effective, measure the room to find the low end resonances, and beg borrow or steal an equalizer and cut those frequencies relative to those resonances.
Even if you abhor the idea of EQ's in your system, you can at least use it to give you an idea of what you need to work on using alternate room treatments.

Yes, the speakers are new....

I have about 42 hours of play time on them so far. The manual states 72 hours. Is it really 72hrs or more like 100hrs?:music:

Matt

One other thing to try would be to isolate your CD player. When you play rock or other than classical, you could be inducing vibration in to your player.

Check vibrapods, grand prix audio, walker, Herbies audio lab, etc. and get your cd player, amp, pre-amp isolated. it doesn't cost that much and needs to be done especially if you want clean, clear sound with all genres of music.


You may have to do the room treatment as well, but it doesn't cost as much to isolate a few components.

MOON said:

Hi Matt,

A 5 disc changer is more of a convience item. You really need to get a better cd player than that to be in the same league as your vantages. Personally, I would skip the 5 disc and buy a really good cd player.

Your Vantages deserve better, you will never hear what they have to offer until you get a good source.

Click to expand...

It's your experience that the late model Sony changers aren't good CD players? How long did you listen and with what material?

Irishtom said:

It's your experience that the late model Sony changers aren't good CD players? How long did you listen and with what material?

Click to expand...

Point being, for the same dollars, you get a higher quality machine
buying a single disc versus a multi-disc unit. With a high quality
speaker why not have the highest quality CD you can afford? Why
cut corners for convenience? And no, i haven't heard the Sony
changers....they may be decent units, but i'd still rather spend
my $ on a single changer.

multi disc players are not known to be really any good. if you are into ease of use I would look for some type of media server.

Irishtom said:

It's your experience that the late model Sony changers aren't good CD players? How long did you listen and with what material?

Click to expand...

Unless you go with the ES series, the Sony CD players are pretty cheap and can't hold a candle to a higher quality player. Tellingly, the ES series players don't come with a multi-disc changer. I have used both Yamaha and Sony multi-disc players, and they simply don't compare to a higher-end single disc unit with a quality transport, like my Marantz SA11-S1.

To answer his question, though, a separate DAC for his changer would indeed make a huge difference.

there ARE a couple of good changers out there... I'm sure his Sony is not one of them.. I have a cheap-o Sony too.. It's next on the hit-list....

As Tom says, a DAC like the PS Audio Digital Link III or one of the others recently discussed on this forum and more recently purchased by a few members on this forum would give Matt an acousitcal epiphany.

Unfortunately Matt, acousitcal epiphanies are fatal for your wallet.

MOON said:

Hi Matt,

A 5 disc changer is more of a convience item. You really need to get a better cd player than that to be in the same league as your vantages. Personally, I would skip the 5 disc and buy a really good cd player.

Your Vantages deserve better, you will never hear what they have to offer until you get a good source.

Click to expand...

I could not agree more! Multi disc players are junk compare to the level of the Vantages.

Jeepers Wally, my Sony ES-whatever five disc carousel changer has the same innards as the the single disk edition (except the carousel), but at hundreds less.
Holy Smoke blowers.

Beakman said:

Jeepers Wally, my Sony ES-whatever five disc carousel changer has the same innards as the the single disk edition (except the carousel), but at hundreds less.
Holy Smoke blowers.

Click to expand...

Gee, I wonder why that is? Perhaps because Sony also understands that a single higher quality transport is worth more money than a poorer quality carousel transport.

Your player is based on a DVD player design and is pretty well known to have poor audio quality, although there are a lot of mods available for it. I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but if you guys think a $400 Sony made CD player is going to give you sound quality to match a pair of $5,000 ML speakers, I think you are completely fooling yourselves.

Beakman said:

Jeepers Wally, my Sony ES-whatever five disc carousel changer has the same innards as the the single disk edition (except the carousel), but at hundreds less.
Holy Smoke blowers.

Click to expand...

Ah, but that's where the logic breaks down. How can it be the same electronically, but offer more features (5 disc capability), yet cost "hundreds less"? Well, it can't. As a person who has spent an entire carreer designing and producing products I can tell you that there are compromises. Either the innards are different, or there are differences in the transport section or both. Now, for a manufacturer like Sony to offer different D/A circuits the economies of scale don't support drastically different circuits or components, so I suspect that you are correct, the interior circuits are likely very similar to their single disc bretheren. So then - how does one manufacture a transport that offers increased capability, but still offer the overall unit at a lower cost? The answer is obviously that they cut costs in the manufacture of the transport. There was a thread here recently debating the relative contribution and merit of standalone transports, and the same logic applies here. The bottom line is that the transport is the source for the rest of the chain. If you are not getting everything possible off the disc to begin with, you are missing some of the music.

I used to have a multi-disc player (Anthem CD-1). It was a very capable player, but it wasn't until after I got my Esoteric that I realized how much better the Esoteric sounded when I ran both through my outboard DAC. I'm a firm believer in the contribution a good transport can make. I'm also a recent convert to the notion of no transport at all ever since I got my Sonos setup; but that's a whole 'nother enchilada.

Audioseduction said:

I could not agree more! Multi disc players are junk compare to the level of the Vantages.

Click to expand...

I'm not so sure. I use Vistas (possibly a better speaker than the Vantage as I'm not tied into the ML's SS amp for the lower mids-upper bass) and as CD source use or used a Sony 5 disc DVD player, a Sony 400 disc DVD player, a Pioneer CLD-D704 laser player and that Toshiba DVD player that was a hot item a few years ago. Sonically I wouldn't call any of them junk, I'm getting very good sound---extreme clarity, good tone and a huge soundfield.

Irishtom said:

Sonically I wouldn't call any of them junk, I'm getting very good sound---extreme clarity, good tone and a huge soundfield.

Click to expand...

You may be happy with what you are getting simply because you don't know what your speakers are capable of. Until you put a high end source in your system you don't have a lot to compare to. As Tim said above, it was after he put the Esoteric in his system that he could hear how much better it was than his former CD player.

My Marantz is not on par with the high-end Esoterics, Wadia's, etc., but it was a huge leap up from the Sony and Yamaha multi-disc changers I had been using before. Just like my high-end amps and preamps were a huge step up from the Yamaha receiver I started with. Ultimately, you are going to get back in sound quality what you are willing to put into your system in dollars, and it all starts with the source. If you have a quality preamp, amp, and highly revealing speakers like ML's, you are going to notice a huge difference between a cheap CD player and a quality unit.

It really just depends on how high your standards are and how deep your pocketbook is.

Rich said:

You may be happy with what you are getting simply because you don't know what your speakers are capable of. Until you put a high end source in your system you don't have a lot to compare to.

Click to expand...

I'm disagree. I've been in this hobby over 35 years and come to some conclusions of my own, one being that differences in CD players are FAR less important than differences in speakers. Indeed few of the best systems I've heard were based on "high end" CD players nor were they based on amps from that marketing niche either. But on the other hand some were.

Now it could be that a different player might get me a little better sound but it's hard to imagine how since the system performs very well in clarity, tone and imaging. The weakness of the Vistas is the dynamics and that's a mechanical limitation no CD player is gonna fix.

Irishtom said:

I'm disagree. I've been in this hobby over 35 years and come to some conclusions of my own, one being that differences in CD players are FAR less important than differences in speakers. Indeed few of the best systems I've heard were based on "high end" CD players nor were they based on amps from that marketing niche either.

Now it could be that a different player might get me a little better sound but it's hard to imagine how since the system performs very well in clarity, tone and imaging. The weakness of the Vistas is the dynamics and that's a mechanical limitation no CD player is gonna fix.

Click to expand...

I have to agree with your above comment about differences in CD players
being far less important than speakers. I have a 18 year old Onkyo Integra
DX7500 which was a great CD player in it's day. I replaced it with a
Musical Fidelity A5 after auditioning a few including a Marantz SA11.
I was disappointed in the Marantz (too polite) but overall was
shocked at the small improvement in CD players after 18 years.
The Onkyo had 8X oversampling, but always sounded clear and
lively. It holds up well to my MF A5. Still, when shopping for a
new machine, i never considered a CD changer.