Coherent's blog: It's just not cricket old bean

Just thought I'd share with some thoughts from a life long vinyl lover who has a pretty decent set up that most of you would happily have for yourselves.

"BTW I never thought the day would come when I would be having my vinyl collection valued for a potential sale of my analogue system. Wadia=Vinyl Killer.
Regards, D"

Hello Chris

He came here about a year ago, and couldn't get the sound out of his head, now he mnanaged to snag a 25 for the right money and bear in mind he has a stock unit currently (lol) fed via a Mutec upgraded/ QP2 and upgraded LB clock, he already have a pretty decent front end anyway.

This was from last week.

"Hello Tony,
So all Dacs sound the same!!! Its a keeper, yes it isnt as detailed as the ***** , it doesnt do hi res, no analogue inputs, but what it does do is turn listening sessions into a such musical experience,such a lot of fun. So do put me in your diary for a complete rebuild please.I will drop it down to you whenever its convenient."

I did inform the gent, it could be precieved as dark in the upper registars compared to the current dac in standard form, but it just makes music seriously enjoyable and is grain free and has bass like the troles could only dream about even with 2KW of purfi attached. (joke) however its a very infectious musical performer. But I have the technology Mr. S Austin!

103Be are excellent I'm not surprised he's happy - but they're quite a bit more than five grand I think.

RRP was about seven grand and that's years ago now.

sure you can but we weren't talking used prices. They'd be 10 grand retail now if still made, not five. So a bit unfair to compare them with  a five grand speaker. Although you can buy a rubbish speaker at those sort of prices so maybe not a good idea to compare by price. There's speakers costing five times that I would not take home if I found them on the kerb.

As many on here know, bass is just as much down to the room as the speakers and the system. Oli will definitely attest to this and Chris is another with a very challenging room.

You can have a system with amazing bass that can still sound shocking when poorly integrated in the wrong room.

I have recently changed listening rooms and that is the biggest upgrade in bass I have ever experienced.

I think the room is over half of the system (especially the bass), so getting the *right* system for you room is what matters.

not just the bass but everything really. If someone's really into sound staging the room can be make or break for that even though most of the soundstage cues on the recording are above Schroder frequency.

Ability of the speakers to disappear tends to be focused on the speakers but in reality it's a speaker and room thing. I'd go so far to suggest with any half decent speaker it's entirely the room - provided the speakers and listener are optimally positioned.

Now and again a little light relief is called for Jason, sorry no offence


For the last 20 years I have quite clearly stated room <> interface first, which is why I did spend 6 months building my listening room at home a few years ago, and frankly even a pair of Castle Howards sounds quite decent in there that is no mean feat. Although Neat Mystiques are sadly past any help!

The cost of the amp and speakers were used as I did mention at the start of the post, but that the point here very few chaps will purchase new, and always will look for the best purchase options for the given amount they wish to spend on any given product. Sme chaps are lucky enough to a good room that requires very little work, others really need to build a dedicated room and really don't have an option in the house.

I would also suggest that having a well constructed and thought out listening space will allow you a much greater choice of speakers & equipment, due the majority of the room issues being ironed out, and speakers that may have been considered before room move were dismissed may now now back into the equaiton.

Spending the time and effort on the room first will always imho bring what ever direction you decide to tread next a far easier pathway and much greater choice allow you to fine hone your end results more succinctly and with most cases less costly route.

Well, we are in bloody March already, just where does the time go? I really am at a loss with portion of life. We have been really seriously busy with a wide variety of activities within the audio circles, sales, installation, room design and build, analogue systems (lol yes) plus further expansion of the lab and storage facilities.

Hello Simon,

I would say a few of the audio companies have physically more equipment (box count) but most of it is quality basic instrumenation, DVM, function gennnies up to 50Mhz, LCR meters a basic 200Mhz scope and a couple of dc power supplies on each work station. I know naim purchased a couple of R&S RTP scopes a few years back. Most of these are just assembly stations and not real in depth R&D and many genuinelly outsource this area of manufacture.

Chord electronics have some good gear (test kit lol), a coupe of the pro audio guys, but for RF its the radar/li-dar/mobile communications companies and PCIE 6 with 224Ghz the PAM 4 format of folding the frequency bands for ultra high speed data transfer and and drone detection. Pre CE complience is also far more previlent than ever before so quality RF equipment and probing is very important now.

At the show last year one of the Eastern European chaps who designs for a famous company came into the room and chatted for a bit, he remarked that the scope we had demonsrating the jitter break down he would love to have, but as with everything no matter how good the equipment its only as effective as the person using it. I would suggest that many a great product has been designed on Tek 2465 scope, basic FG and not so clean dc power supplies.

Recently we have been on the beta testing panel for some new software from Teledyne Lecory, specifically it is a new jitter & timing measurment package and its quite special, easily the best one currently available, ths is an app you purchase for specific digital smapling and storage scopes that have large recording memories and high sample rates coupled with 12 bits of resolution.

Jitter & clock measurements