The CDApS meeting was called to order around noon yesterday and went till about 5:30. As projected, we had record attendance for this meeting.
We started out with listening to my digital rig with Rachael to give Tom a feel for the room and give us a baseline. We then put Tom's vinyl rig in place:
- Parks Audio Budgie
- Modded Empire 208 table with a Jelco 750D arm and AT150Mlx MM cartridge
Some tweaks were in order because of the TT coming out of the cold but even without the tweaks, I could tell this was going to be good.
We started with the Super Pensils. First of all Tom did a great job on the woodwork. As somebody who messes with trying to build boxes, I was impressed. They are the biggest speaker I have had in my room, but weigh less than most. Hardwood oak baffle, plywood sides, bottom slot ported, these are more like a finely tuned guitar or viola than the heavy MDF monkey coffins I have slapped together.
The Pensils have a very refined, detailed sound with mids to die for. No "in your face" single driver sound here. Nora Jones was on of the first albums we put on and the breathiness of her vocals and details in the rest of the recording were all there and the best I have heard those cuts. As I said in the earlier post, I had a small sub hooked up but there was no need. What I liked best about the bass was not the amount or the depth, but the
tone of the bass itself. Again, as simple as these boxes are, and the fact that they are built out of relatively light weight materials, I expected some boominess. It simply wasn't there. Again, the bass was tuned like it was coming from a fine wood instrument.
In terms of volume off the Rachael, I am sorry to report, running just off Tom's turntable and Budgie phono pre, the Pensils needed some more power. We did switch back to my digital rig which puts out 3volts from the DAC and it was very acceptable and full. Tom thought with a preamp and a little resulting gain, Rachael could work in his room.
As I write this, Nora Jones "Come Away With Me" just came up in the rotation. Sounds good but I just don't feel her caressing me with the lyrics the way it did on Tom's Pensils/vinyl rig.
So we tossed in the Torii to hear what a little power would do for the Pensils. They loved it. Big sound.
Sidebar on vinyl. What Tom brought was a stack of MUSIC. It felt like real music. It was more involving both physically and emotionally. Imprecise and sometimes imperfect as it was, it is always a nice vacation for me when I hear my TT and Tom has a nice setup and picked out some great tracks. Cannonball Adderly, Phil Woods, Bob James and David Sanborn, Blood Sweat and Tears (stole the show for me) and even some early Hall and Oats (which I could not guess in a blind listening test). So will I go out and invest a ton in vinyl? Probably not, but this definitely motivated me to listen to my very basic system more which is a lot easier with the two input Torii.
At some point, we switched back to digital in order to hear some more recently produced and somewhat speaker punishing tracks including some of Raven and I's "bass busters." The sound was big and the Pensils handled it. While the Pensils did not go as low, they did not distort. Seems they know what they can do and stop there rather than trying to go too far and produce bad sound.
Soooo, I looked at Eric and said "do we put the El Caminos in?" It was a bit chancy given the Pensil performance. These are our adopted babies from poppa Zygi after all. He said sure and we were glad we did as the El Caminos did quite well.
While the Pensils do really well on the high end for a single driver, Eric and I felt that things like the shimmer of the cymbals were better on the El Caminos. (Note: Tom did feel that the highs would improve as these speakers continue to break in). In the low end, the El Caminos went lower and had more punch (but I would say I like the "tunefulness" of the Pensil bass a little better). We didn't discuss this, but I liked the openness and detail in the mids better on the Pensils. I think this may come down to personal taste. I like that lighter open sound and the precision of the detail. Others may prefer the punch of the El Caminos.
So from simply my perspective, the elevator speech would be that the Pensils are more refined in the mids, the El Caminos are more extended on either end and thus more dynamic. If you listen to a lot of jazz, vocals, singer songwriter and maybe classical (we didn't listen to much), the Pensils might be a very good fit. They are remarkable speakers. El Caminos might be a better all rounder. I say might because I think I could easily live with either speaker. I am living with the El Caminos now as Eric left them while he breaks in the Zu Blue Meanies.
Eric then hooked up his mobile Direct Stream rig. He literally sets up a wireless network and runs a mini-PC connected to the Direct Stream and controls it remotely with a laptop. I thought the DS sounded quite good on both speaker sets and all our typical demo tracks sounded good in my room. As mentioned in an earlier post, Eric did not think the DS sounded its best. We were running off RCA's, not XLR so that could be the difference. With RCA's, I did not feel that my little Chord QuteHD was shamed in any way. But I have heard more detail at Eric's house.
Eric liked the way my room sounded. He is right in the earlier post about the positioning of the diffusers. I have them back where they were at the first reflection points and they will probably stay there. Tom has a purpose built room at his house and felt there was more you can get from a room. He offered to host the next meeting so we'll make the trek. I'd love to hear his room.
I sent the Rachael home with Tom for an audition, so if you have contacted me concerning buying the Rachael, he is going to have it until we can get to his place. I have been hemming an hawing about selling it, but since he just sold his other amp, I couldn't send him home amp-less. I also think its on the edge in terms of whether it will work for him with the Pensils in his size room, so an audition is warranted.
Anyway, kind of a long post. I'm sure Eric and Tom may offer some other thoughts. This is just what I heard.
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CDApS Meeting This Weekend (Read 16133 times)
