System edited: The Vivid Audio B1's speakers are true to the source and very dynamic. Although they don't play as loud as the horns, they are a little easier to integrate with my 3 pairs of tact W210 woofers. With 6 10" drivers per side, the mid bass on down is phenomenal. The only weakness with them is the low bass which is why i added a pair of JL F113's to supplement 30hz and below. I use the Tact 2.2XP to time delay and crossover and room correct the W210's. Nothing really to complain about but maybe a bigger room?
System edited: Over the past year I've been doing a lot of experimenting with speaker placement and the effects of room correction. I have gotten really comfortable with the tact equipment and learn to use a great percentage of the functions. I found in my room that the widest spread my speakers can go is about 7.5 feet apart. Any farther, the soundstage collapses and the images and center voice gets really big. Maybe because i sit nearfield to my speakers (about 7 feet). Now with everything calibrated, the center voice is exactly where my turntable is and about that size. I am very happy with the sound right now and finally starting to enjoy music than to keep fiddling around. Maybe eventually i will incorporate the tact crossovers in the avantgarde horns and do my own digital crossover. One day......
System edited: It's been a while since my last post. I've added another Tact S2150 amplifier to power my second set of Tact woofers. I now have one amp powering each set of drivers. Inserted a PS Audio AC12 power cord powering the Premier regenerator. And last but not least, rid of the W4S Dac2 and replacing it with the Emm Labs Dac2 to match up with my Emm Labs TSD1 transport. The new dac is head to toe better than the W4S. The music just flows out without being forced like my previous dac. I wouldn't have noticed if i hadn't heard it side by side. Everything is much smoother with excellent detail especially on vocals.
Thanks for the compliments! I've had big tube buffers with my solid state pre and amp. I was running kt88's, kt66's and 845's. While i found them great sounding, i couldn't live with the heat they were giving off, the start up times and noise issues. With the tact system, it's super flexible. You can almost make any sound u want as long as u have a lot of patience. Room correction with corrected time delay on all drivers are a must on the avantgardes.
System edited: System overhaul: Got rid of the pass labs equipment and went all digital with the Avantgardes. The tact equipment has a steep learning curve but i have plenty of time for that instead of swapping cables. With the tact, i can make my own crossovers between the midrange, tweeter, and the woofers. At the moment, i am just using the crossover between highs and lows. When i feel more adventurous, i will definitely do my own crossovers with all the drivers. The addition of a second pair of W210's made a significant improvement. The output of 2 pairs matches better with the horns than with one pair. I love the detail, transparency, and aliveness that i would not trade anything for.
Thank you for your comments. You're right about the 1.5k dac but since then i picked up a Tact 2.2xp and i'm feeding the transport directly to the xp (pure digital). As for my system, i did a big overhaul after getting the horn speakers. I have yet to update. I'm waiting for a friend of mine to get a good photo of it before i post it. Let's just say everything is gone on that table except for 2 pieces.
Hello Runmeshaw. Sorry for the late reply. As for the polarity, I just reversed it for the subwoofer to tweeter. You will know when the bass is right. I set my crossover at 1 click to the right of 12 o'clock and the volume at around the same. I actually disconnected my 225's and use tact w210 subs. I use the tact preamp and amplifiers to integrate the subs to the horns. It's very seamless and fast enough to integrate the horns. Let me know how you make out.
System edited: With my newly acquired avantgarde speakers, the change in sound is top to bottom better than my previous nautilus 802's. The fast music comes out much livelier, slow songs have better transparency in the voices without losing the excellent midrange. The bass goes lower and more powerful without losing the texture. Avantgarde speakers need a lot of time to set up correctly. I'm still in the process of "perfecting" it, but at the moment very happy with the sound. If anyone owns any avantgarde speakers, set up and positioning advice would be greatly appreciated.
Samhar: after listening to vinyl, i'm hooked! The music is so much more engaging and more like live performance. Mgmmgm: my room is about 18' long x 15' wide x 9' high. It's not a huge room but it's my own (man cave) that's why i can put up the room treatment and pulling the speakers out 6 feet! I would love to AB the 0.2 and the xp20 but unfortunately i cannot.
System edited: Hello everyone. It's been a while since i last posted and i did a pretty change up to my system. Changed my amp from Mcintosh MC402 to the Pass Labs X350.5. I love that class A sound!! Replaced the Cambridge Azur dacmagic with the new Wyred 4 Sound dac2. Much smoother, more detail and better bass. Added a PS Audio Powerplant premier for pure, clean regenerated power. I had see hear the hype of vinyl lovers and picked up a Music Hall 5.1 turntable with the Cambridge 640P phono preamp. Also added, the most important part, the room treatment panels.
Hello Everyone! Happy New Year! Thanks for the compliments!
BIF, i don't know too much about room acoustic panels. All i know is that my wall without those panels, echo a lot. After i put them in, it deaden the sound a bit but i think it still needs a little bit of work. If you have bass problems, i think you need bass traps. Try looking into those. As for my WAF factor on those panels...she hates them! ;-)
Mhedges, the tubes make a huge difference. Can't live without them. It sounds really good already without the tubes, but if you can compare a to b, it sounds much better. There is more depth,air and especially separation. There's this one track where there is a violin coming from the left side. Without the tubes, you can barely hear it. With it in, it brings out the violin and sounds like it is beside you.
Hi joeweiss84! Thanks for the compliments. I didn't go for the c500t because it's double the price of the x0.2. Performance wise, i don't hear much a difference that's why i opted for the pass. Which B&W's do you have? Are you running all mac as well. If you're debating between c500t and X0.2, i would totally without a doubt go for the pass. Unless you're a mac fan and want to keep everything mac. I'm a mac fan as well, but due to the size of my budget, i have to get the 'best bang for the buck'.
No, i haven't ssayeed. I've only heard the c500t with an mc402 and wilson sasha's. It sounded excellent but for 12000 msrp, it better sound good. I just didn't know if the c2300 was up to par with the c500. When i buy, i like to buy top of the line and not think of 'what if'.
Thanks for the comment. i'm in Vancouver, B.C. and bought the cabinet from a store called Home Quarters. I think they have a website: homequarters.ca. They sell some pretty cool stuff. I'm trying to get a more 3-dimensional, better imaging effect (here we go again with the terminology) from my music. I'm just wondering if i upgrade my preamp that i can get close to acheiving it. I was looking into the passlabs x10 but i've never seen anyone pairing passlabs with mcintosh. I wonder if the synergy is there?
