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paulo m

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Hi all,

Just to say hello to everyone here. I bought a pair of Vantages about a month and a half ago, finally fulfilling a lifelong dream of owning a pair of electrostatic speakers after a revelatory audition some 12 years ago of a pair of Monoliths. And the best part of it all is that making this purchase was not planned at all!

The speakers are still being broken-in, so I can't really say I am at audio nirvana yet ;)... Eagerly waiting, nonetheless, that they truly open up.

In early January I finally took my wife to an audition and have her experience what a high-end system is. Words are really useless to explain it--and I have tried, over the years--so one Saturday morning we got out, bag of reference CDs in hand, and off we go to listen to a pair of Magneplanars (the 3.6). We went there just so that my wife could listen to a proper system for the first time in her life, and she was impressed. I felt happy to witness the whole "I hear stuff I didn't hear before/I didn't know that was there" routine. I am fortunate that my wife is very musical and has a excellent pair of ears, so I didn't have to come with long, detailed explanations as to what was going on in that virtual soundstage.

As we were returning home, we decided to stop by a different dealer, since we already had the bag of CDs in hand, just for a "2nd opinion" kind of thing; another experiment, with different equipment, just to corroborate the whole routine again. Hopefully my wife would see that this high-end audio thing is like any selection of good wines--they're all good, but there actually are several dimensions to this, and some small aspect of one may stand out in appealing to our taste and make the experience amazingly enjoyable. Oh well, that 2nd dealer had Aeons on display, so I would have another chance at listening to Logans.

We spent all the weekends for the rest of the month at the dealer ;), always listening to the Logans with an assortment of electronics. For comparison, he showed us a pair of similarly priced Dynaudios. I was very glad my wife was able to immediately notice the difference in character and say that she preferred the Logans ;). There's just something about the electrostatic sound that drivers cannot achieve...

Anyway, even though we started on the audition circuit with no intent to buy anything--especially given the prices of the systems we were listening to--in mid-February I was pulling out my wallet at that dealer and ordering a complete system based on Vantages (even though the dealer only had that single pair of Aeons in the store, I actually ended up taking a leap of faith and deciding on the Vantages).

As I said above, the system is still being broken-in. I've already had a few pleasurable sessions with it. As it is right now, it plays a certain kind of music quite nicely (concrete and electroacoustic, i.e. Parmegiani, Normandeau and others) but it is not quite there yet for acoustic and classical music: Piano sounds a bit clangy, dense ensemble passages are mushy and vocals are quite recessed and as if under a veil.

Here's hoping that they continue to improve their sound as their mileage grows and that my chosen electronics and cables were not a bad choice ;).

//p
 
paulo m said:
I bought a pair of Vantages
You are starting off with a mighty fine speaker from what I've been reading.

What are your old speakers?

What is the rest of your equipment?

You should take a few photo's and make an entry/posting in the "Member's Systems" section.

Welcome to the club.:)
 
kach22i said:
You are starting off with a mighty fine speaker from what I've been reading.:)

I'll second that and raise you, "that's a mighty fine speaker from what I've heard in my room."

Good choice and let them break in a little. If the Logans are a little mushy with complicated tracks, more than likely, any other conventional (similar priced) speaker would be even more mushy.

Dont worry or fret... you have a super system.
 
Yes, I know they are very good speakers :).

Believe it or not, for someone who loves music very much, I have been without a system for close to six years now; I moved country twice in that span of time, left my old system at my mother's house (an Arcam Delta 60 amp, Sony ES CD player, Infinity RS 5001 speakers, which still plays quite nicely). Despite that, I wasn't entirely without the means to listen to music since then: I do have a fine home studio (my hobby is composing). However, I also knew that when the time came to buy a new system I would get something on the higher end. The rest of my system is a Pathos Logos amp, an Arcam CD36 player and a Shunyata Hydra 4 conditioner. Cables are Audioquest Bedrock (speaker) and King Cobra (interconnects). I always imagined I would go for a Mark Levinson amp and CD player, but I liked what I heard at the dealer from the Logos and the Arcam and honestly I wasn't ready to spend $12k-$15k worth of Levinson gear (my wife would surely divorce me if I did that :D).

As for pics, I actually gave my digital camera to my mother a few months ago as a gift, so I have no means to take a few for all to see. That is why I haven't yet submitted an entry to the member systems forum.

As for the break-in, I am going to let them mature for a few weeks more before I freak out :D. It's reassuring to note that other people say they can take some 4 or 5 months to fully break-in. My concerns are not about the quality of the speakers or the components per se, but rather how they get along together--exacerbated by the fact that I didn't actually hear these speakers with these electronics (heard the Aeons), so I don't really know what awaits me after the next few weeks. It became particularly clear in one of the audition sessions that the synergy between components is crucial. At that particular session I had already settled for the Logos and the CD36 and was choosing cables. All the sessions until then had a pair of old Audioquest Cobalt speaker cables and some cheapo Monster for interconnects, which amazingly made the system sound really well. Out of curiosity, I asked the dealer to set the system up with cables on a price range commensurate with that of the rest of the components. I tried the Synergistic Reference for interconnects, and some speaker cables comparable to the Signature 10 (some earlier generation), also from Synergistic. The result was disappointing... Not because the improvement was not proportional to the price difference between sets of cables, but because they actually sounded worse!

So, to sum up: I don't know whether the speakers (particularly the active woofer) gets along well with the Pathos; I am not sure whether my choice of cabling contributes to the "not gelling" feeling; I am almost positive the room I have them in (25 x 15 x 8 ft, they are along the wider wall) needs a few bass traps to tame some wild peaks at 140 Hz and the whole 220-250 Hz region. In any case, I need to let the system break-in fully before I start contemplating solutions.

Thanks all for the kind words.
//p
 
Welcome !

Welcome paulo - you have a wonderful system, but what is really spectacular is your wife - I wish she could spread her understanding, common sense, patience and enthusiasm to my wife, too :) I just hate what happens when she comes home (dear, I'd like to watch the news, could you turn off the audio system and start up the home thater ?)
 
kach22i said:
Make sure you have the spikes installed. The pad feet are intended as a temporary measure to help in room placement only.

Your speakers are required to be coupled to the floor with spikes or the sound will be mushy.

Related link - gave same advise:
http://www.martinloganowners.com/~tdacquis/forum/showthread.php?t=1941&highlight=spikes

Thanks for the tip. I have had the spikes installed for about a week now and, to be honest, I didn't notice any difference (I didn't have excess bass at all, as before I put the spikes, bass is taut and controlled). Since I have hardwood floors, I've put them on coins (after I created the indent with a hammer and a nail :)) and not on brass discs. Eventually I will get the latter, as they look good and certainly less ad-hoc than coins :).

//p
 
lugano said:
Welcome paulo - you have a wonderful system, but what is really spectacular is your wife - I wish she could spread her understanding, common sense, patience and enthusiasm to my wife, too :) I just hate what happens when she comes home (dear, I'd like to watch the news, could you turn off the audio system and start up the home thater ?)

My solution to that is quite simple: I don't have a home theater ;).

//p
 
paulo m said:
My solution to that is quite simple: I don't have a home theater ;).

//p

It's just a matter of time, believe me :) When you've got all and improving your sound by 3% costs more than a very good HT, common sense will give you another exhaust pipe for your audiophilia with HT investments. Just a matter of time, really ;)
 

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