Luco

It's a national tragedy down here. Well, maybe not, but he'll get a state funeral for sure.

If anyone wants to listen to the 10 second clip that clipped the Omegas, just PM me with your email and I'll send you the clip as a Wave file or in the Windows Media lossless format.

Silver? No, it has to be artificial diamond, to give the sound that sparkling edge.

The thing is, the sound was breaking up evenly in both the left and the right channels. And I tried about 9 other, non-opera CDs and none of them showed anything resembling a problem. Maybe this is the Omega 2's Achilles Heel? Certainly the "vibrating" sound that broke up is quite unusual.

Spill the beans.

(This is the same thread as the one I started on that other forum. For the record, the Krell Evolution 505 was definitely better than my Esoteric DV-60. The Grand Utopias were not set up properly yet, but sounded nice nonetheless, though the Krell 402 Evo amp probably wasn't good enough for them.) So there I was listening to Cecilia Bartoli?s Opera Proibita, auditioning the Omega 2s with the SRM-007t tube amp at my friendly local high end audio shop. On track 3, Handel?s Un pensiero nemico di pace: Aria della Bellezza, her voice broke up in places, basically whenever her voice was ?vibrating?. Not the most technical term but can?t explain it any better than that. The breaking up is most apparent between 3:05 and 3:20 on the track. Here, Cecilia is vibrating her voice and getting louder and louder at the same time. The Omega 2s just couldn?t cope with this. Now, I never heard this with the 650s, so I thought maybe it was the recording and the Omegas were just being more accurate and revealing. And this happened with both the Esoteric DV-60 and the Krell Evolution 505 as sources. Luckily, there was a pair of Grand Utopia Bes nearby and I tried the same track through them and the Krell Evolution and there was no break up. So clearly, it was not the fault of the recording or the CD players that the Omega 2s were breaking up. Could be the Omegas? or the 007t amp?s inherent flaw or maybe those particular Omegas (or their amp) I listened to were defective. Can anyone with access to an Omega 2 and Opera Proibita replicate this?

Well, the HD700 and the Omega 3 have been rumoured to be not too far off. I'm expecting things to spice up soon, maybe even at that German show they have in August.

I wonder what kind of sonic improvements placing a DAC under a burning stage brings about?

As long as there’s a way to make the HD700s balanced. That’s all that matters. With the unbalanced cables, I thought the Equinox had better bottom end and soundstage width than the Zu. Hopefully the same is true of the balanced versions.

HD700s. Since I can?t travel in time, I?m stuck with the HD650s for the time being. I have the balanced Zu Mobius already, but I suspect the balanced Equinox that I?ll be receiving in a fortnight will do a better job. Wouldn?t it be funny if the HD700s can?t be used with the 600s cables?

Well I finally got my Max Balanced yesterday , though now I have to wait till my balanced cables and my source burn in so I cant provide any comments on the sound yet. I do like crossfeed however. Alas, no pics either as my digital camera is travelling in Europe at the moment, but it will be back in a few weeks. I was wandering if theres any way to check if my system (Esoteric DV-60, then the Max) is in phase.

How did you find the GS-1's bass in comparison to the Raptor's with the 650s?

I predict that when the HD700s come out (within a year from now), they will obliterate all comers. Simple really. Now would someone like to predict if the cable on the HD700s will be compatible with the 580/600/650 cable?

Straight from the horse's mouth: "The Balanced version of the Equinox uses a different wire strand formula which works in unison with the design of a balanced pre-amplifier circuitry. The difference in sonic results (balanced vs. unbalanced) is dependent on the design of the balanced and unbalanced pre-amp. In general a balanced pre-amp.will yield higher sonic results, but there are some unbalanced pre-amps that can match or exceed balanced amps." Ok, Ok, it wasn't a horse. It was James S Serdechny.

He, he. Nice thread. I had no idea Rudistor had this kind of reputation. Thanks everyone!