Full version - More on the visit
So after I got settled in, and we chatted, I went in and Steve played some streaming radio...same stuff they usually have going all day long. I heard a bit of digital edge that was borderline grating. He had the ZenCD to ZTPRE to ZBIT converting XLR to RCA to the Prototype monoblocks that he's been listening to on and off for a little while...to the new Omega Speakers of course. If I understand the monoblocks correctly, they are basically a scaled up Zen Monoblock using the Russian vacuum tube used in cold war fighterjets - the 6C33C
It sounded good overall, but unforgiving. I downloaded a few tracks off my NAS from home, dumped them on flash drive and loaded them into the ZenCD front USB port - Steve handed me his phone since he had the remote control app for the CD/DAC and I started the few tracks I grabbed.
Fanfare for the Common Man - that tympany hit at the beginning - it didn't have bass impact, nor did it have the HUGE scale that the Imperial SO did during Decfest - but that's what we expect from a pair of 4" speakers...what it did have though...timbre, accuracy, and speed. The second that big drum hit, I saw a tympany in front of me...I don't mean like holographic imaging, where the sound takes up space in the room, no, it was like it was so very accurate of a representation of that drum, that I instantly pictured it in my head. I could hear the skin, the metal, and even the wobble of the head after the impact. It did take up some space in the room, it felt dead center and accurately sized, but it wasn't holographic...it was just very accurate. Steve and I felt that with some tweaking and room treatment, we could also get that holographic imaging on top of timbre accuracy. Then the horns rolled in and they sounded rich, and you could hear the individual horns. But then I started to hear a little bit of a wobble in the sound (more on this later)
Dup Dup - Project Trio - Beatboxing Flute, Cello, and Double Bass. Well recorded and very dynamic. You could hear the wood, the strings, the bow. And with the Decware setup it was timbre and timing perfect, so much so that the reverb seemed to be an instrument on it's own. But I noticed a little distortion on a couple bass notes (more on this later)
Summertime - Wailin Jennys - I could clearly hear each voice as separate entities, and spaced apart...normally they are kind of on top of each other and kind of a harmony blur. This recording is pretty hot, and their is a hint of distortion and some microphone sibilance
in the recording...I'm completely aware of this as I've heard this tune literally hundreds of times at this point. On a detailed system those "esssses" can be a bit sharp, and on a bad system it's grating...a warm /rounded system this kinda gets glazed over to the point it disappears (IMHO a bad thing since if it's glazing over that...what else am I missing?). When Palomino had his streaming software setup all wonky, this was unlistenable to me; when it was right, I get really drawn in and goosebumps. On typical single driver full range speakers, the sibilance jumps out, even on my Betsy speakers which roll off the top end. With the Omegas, I could hear the sibilance in the recording, but it made me realize there was a different, driver specific sibilance way up higher in the frequency range. I also felt the Omegas seemed to throw the sound into the room in a big way like my Betsys do, but with much more high frequency information and spacial cues!
Alt-J - Intro - Interlude - Tesselate
These are the tracks that sold me on the ZMA - we've got vocal harmonies, haunting piano, weird distortion cymbal sounding thing, heavy drumbeats, and a giant bass sax. I love this album. It can get intense with all the layering and I've heard some systems start to trip over themselves trying to reproduce everything at once. I heard great vocal and instrument separation, spacial cues, and then it all started going to shit...I thought it was my imagination, but it sounded like the speakers were being overwhelmed by how much was going on. I dialed the sound down and moved on to the last track.
Money (cover) by Secret machines -
This is a simple track with great dynamics, right up to the limit of the recording. slow, rock style drums, keyboard, and vocals with guitar with lots of reverb.
The left channel was blatting with each bass note. I paused the system, backed up a couple songs, lowered the volume, and went through again...sure enough, I heard warble, ,speakers tripping over themselves, and now left channel was making a blatting sound. It sounded like a
blown speaker, and getting worse with each bass hit. Steve comes in and I'm like...Oh Crap, I blew up another piece of Steve's gear (remember my late night OTL experience a couple years ago). I'm thinking this is literally my last visit to Decware. LOL
We swapped speaker cables left to right, and the problem followed the speaker cable and the blaty sound moved to the right speaker. Whew...this wasn't my fault! YES!
Long story short, after futzing with each piece of equipment, cable, even swapping left and right channels at the amp, which somehow improved the sound(!?) we kept hearing varying degress of suck. I finally asked Steve to bring in a ZMA, and just go straight out of the ZenCD via balanced to the ZMA, to the Omega speakers...which is how I would have done it, but Steve has his thing going so I didn't ask him to change it till we had problems. We never really found the source, but our guestamate is that it was a failing tube on the ZTPRE, and it got worse by the second near the end.
So, Omega speakers with ZMA direct from the ZenCD.
Yeah, the sound was more "honest" - it was clear that being more direct (fewer cables and hardware in the path) gets me closer to the recording...but it was flat. It lost some of the life and liquidity that had me all excited with the first few tracks till failing tube flushed it all down the toilet. I was disheartened and really tired at this point. I wanted to explore this setup a bit more, crank the volume, push the Omegas with the ZMA...but I basically bliped each track for about 5 seconds till I got to the end (some tracks were missing from my USB for some reason) and shrugged. I was just too tired and the sound while more honest just lost something great that we had before. It felt like I had discovered the meaning of life in a dream, but woke up and couldn't remember what it was. I was just too exhausted to continue.
Got some cuddle time with the new Decware kitteh. :)
So - again, I have mixed feelings about these speakers - I think I heard what they were capable of, and it was pretty amazing, though precarious. That speed and detail come at a price. I think that some people who aren't going to take the time to break these in, or will use an edgy source or strident amplifier will pan these speakers because they just won't really hear what they are capable of. I think with a good amp (thinking Zen or Rachel) and a smoother source (like my DirectStream), and maybe the ZTPre to ride the gain to get that presence I heard....plus some very specific placement and room treatments....I think these could be near holy grail speakers with the timbre and speed and hopefully holographic imaging. Oh yeah, and a subwoofer, because the bass seems to drop like a rock below 55hz. But we expected that, didn't we.
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A Visit To Decware - Jan 2017 - New Omega Speaker (Read 5133 times)
