Lil Caesar

Thanks Luc. I had head rushed with a great deal of gear back in 2012/13 and now consider myself to have settled down into a considerably more pragmatic and less object-orientated audio appreciation lifestyle 😌

I’ve left the bungs out and at the minimum recommended distance - 9 inches / 225 mm they do not seem to be intereacting with the room in an adverse fashion. I suspect that the combination of high damping factor courtesy of the class d mono’s and the enormity of the reflex port as you can see on the picture above, ensures there is little to no reverb from the front wall. Bear in mind I’m yet to really push the SPL levels with bass heavy material.

...also consider the kef r3. Considerably better than the ls50 :).

Hmmmm what have we here... ....And how did this get here.... Having spent some time with active monitors I decided I had not completed my transducer journey. This meant a return to amplification. I managed to get the B&O IcePower 300asc module-based Emotiva PA-1's for AUD$842 delivered to my door. Probably the cheapest monoblocks available anywhere in the world. Are they gonna compete with Ncore or Devialet - no. BUT they are a considerable improvement on earlier IcePower efforts. The Emotiva packaging is especially impressive given the unit price.... Fully balanced, stable to 2.5 Ohms is the claim. 135 Watts into 8 Ohms / 270 into 4 @ 0.1% THD. 500 damping factor. The ideal basic power source for testing less than efficient speakers without outlaying small fortune for an amp. Not audiophile, no - but a great test bench at a budget price. And yes I'm quite happy living with class D The speaker cable, for those interested - is courtesy of a gent residing in Ivanhoe. He operates a website called Chrome Audio. This is his Silver cable. For less than AUD$100 I believe it is impossible to beat for real-world performance. I regret having sold same cable when I went active. Now the main event... I have chosen to rejoin the Journey of Transducers with Kef, having owned Sonus Faber, Monitor Audio, Lenehan and Dynaudio. I was drawn to the notion of the co-axial Uni-Q driver which allows for a monitor to deliver a 3-way speaker in a small footprint. My concern was a loss of immediacy and resolution, having lived with active ribbons tweeters (behringer in the lounge and adam audio in the HT room). I need not have been so concerned. The R3 are superior to LS50's in almost every respect. Presence, power handling and of course bass response lead one to assume floor-standing speakers are present, when listening with eyes closed. The Emo PA-1's have a firm grip over the drivers and deliver effortless performance without the etched grain and harsh treble associated with older IcePower devices. My trusty NAD C510 (son of M51 - another device which I should never have sold) acts as DAC and pre-amp in perfect unison. The sound is quite similar to that of a true Monitor - relatively flat within the operating frequency range and of neutral tonality with good resolving capability. They do not achieve the level of insight associated with a ribbon or AMT tweeter, based on my experience - however the soundstage depth and width is far superior, creating a true 3-d sound-field at normal listening levels. The seperate mid-driver and associated benefits of point-source signal delivery from the co-axial driver live up to their reputation. I would imagine the floor standing R-series models would be difficult to beat in terms of real-world performance in a home environment. I've owned other MTMs in the past. I regretted selling those. Now older and wiser I am happy with this system for the time being. On the horizon is the NAD C 658 to replace the C510. Dirac room correction would be the final piece of the puzzle. The Journey Continues....

...and SOLD.

Item: Behringer Truth B3031A 2-Way Active Ribbon Studio Monitor Location: Melbourne Western Suburbs Price: $499 Item Condition: Excellent Reason for selling: No Longer Required, upgraded Payment Method: Pickup - Cash, Paypal, COD Only Extra Info: For Sale are my 5-year-old Behringer 2-Way Monitors. These feature a 2 inch ribbon tweeter paired to an 8 and 3/4 inch kevlar mid-woofer, powered by 150 and 75 watt class a/b amplifiers. They are large, heavy monitors best suited to placement on a decent lowline entertainment unit as pictured below, or dedicated stands. In terms of performance they have functioned as my secondary stereo mated to a NAD C510 (son of M51) delivering astonishing value for money as a midfield setup. The ribbon tweeter delivers high resolution smoothly and without harshness, but this will depend on the quality of the recording to a certain extent. The mid-woofer provides clear and neutral mid-range with a surprising amount of distinct bass, particularly in the presence range ensuring you get a bit of thump in the chest. For the money you're unlikely to find a better performing stereo system, simply add a dac/pre and away you go. Input requires XLR or 1/4 inch TRS plugs - no RCA, however TRS to RCA convertor plugs can be purchased from studio/muso suppliers. Any questions please PM me. I'd prefer local pickup as the package weighs 30+kgs but am happy to ship interstate at buyers' expense. Cheers ! Pictures:

The commercial standard seems to be 48k nowadays, it started with DVD players and then dtv broadcast - unlikely the mu7000 is doing anything strange in that regard. Sorry but I’m out of ideas. I run my 2015 Series 7 Sammy via optical into my nad c510 from its brilliant little break-out box and it’s been flawless, even when passing audio from my Sony bd player and apple tv4 conncted via hdmi.

This may sound crazy but the output from the tv over optical is almost certainly 48kHz. Is there any reason the Para may not like that sample rate?...

Reached out to them this morning. Banner add on the website indicates now shipping direct to Oz. Practice proved otherwise. Rep said this arvo that there is a bug preventing the order going thru either direct via card or PayPal. Due to be fixed in the next 24 hours. should be able to get a pair landed at under $950 aud assuming current fx rate (0.72 usd cents).

PCM. Your dac won’t handle Dolby digital.

Yes it's not ideal - the "apple elegant" approach to unifying video display but remember under the tvios update to version 11 you can tell the system to use a particular resolution, bit depth / colour palette and refresh rate. this update us available on both the atv 4K and gen 4 models. of course no-one wants to have to change the global system settings every time you wish to view different content but the ability to do so is there. hopefully they see reason and reinstate native resolution, refresh rate and colour palette dependent on source via an update. forcing pseudo HDR bt20.20 colour pallette on sdr material is overly ambitious to saythe least.

... Al well in typical fashion for Apple it's difficult to pick any major changes in appearance or performance vs the older unit, other than 4K and snappier speed thanks to the gruntier chipset. Games will benefit the most I suspect. For a/v purposes Audio remains largely unchanged but the 4K refresh rate, HDR and chroma mapping options are great way to test cable and tv/projector performance and for us- the pre/pro sitting in the middle. apple even refer to the HDR settings as a "cable test" in the app. performance was seamless for me, everything just worked. Apart from tweaking picture settings on my tv for HDR there are no complaints. I have Nbn fibre to the premises and using Aussie broadband after ditching Optus. average 60-70 mbs so no streaming performance issues but I still Change my atv settings to delay playback from instant to ensure smooth delivery. I'd rather wait for a minute in advance than have something happen in a crucial scene ?

FYI the TV iOS update adds finer control over AV settings in the gen 4 and 4K Apple tvs. Go to your video settings. Gen 4 allows colour options between c/m/y and rgb whilst allowing resolution and refresh changes. The 4K box goes further allowing for testing of HDR performance and chroma mapping depth. It's brilliant and long overdue. watched Wonder Woman last night. Now I'm not certain but I believe for rental you are restricted to 1080 resolution but you do get it delivered with hdr using the bt20.20 colourspace. I confirmed this using the info section of my AV pre-pro. You only get the 4K product if you buy outright which is sad, would be good if someone could confirm this. I've only read this in Fairfax press last week and staring closely at the tv suggests it was in fact 1080 upscaled to 4K by the box before being sent over hdmi. only 5.1 sound but it does sound good upsampled to dts:x ?. The picture quality was superb and yes the HDR is spectacular. my 4K Apple TV is set to 4K picture @24hz and 4:2:2 chroma mapping. I also needed to adjust the gamma on my tv as the HDR 10 scheme initially appeared a bit washed out.

Having used nothing other than actives in either my 2 channel setup in the living room or 11.2 channel atmos home theatre for the last 18 months I can happily say that being stuck with the studio monitor designers' choice of amp has been brilliant. I'd go active x-over any day now that I get the same fidelity at low volume as I used to get at that sound-pressure room engaging level required to get most passive speakers to truly "sing".

Yes BUT ONLY if you plan on using a high-end video card that will support 60Hz @3840x2160 The other consideration is that the panel MUST be able to process a 12-bit 4:4:4 chroma signal in order to display true white from your computer. This is because of the manner in which the TV "reads" the 32-bit RGB signal from your video card. The panel itself need only be 10-bit processing capable - no 12-bit panels are yet available BUT it needs to be able to read the 12-bit format. AND HDMI 2.0+ from your video card will go a long way in helping the two devices sync and change colour modes if playing with the drivers is required. Fun and games eh ?