Mr Peabody
12-05-2009, 07:19 PM
A guy wanted to audition my CJ PV14ls2 in his system. He has a NAD preamp, 2 NAD power amps vertically bi-amping an older set of Paradigm Studio 100's and a Rotel 1072. So along with the CJ preamp I took my Adcom 5500 and CJ da-3 DAC.
First we listned to his system. It was alright but you can tell the woofers needed more power and the amps ran out of steam when push came to volume. We added the CJ preamp and listened a bit. I think he said the NAD amps were only 50x2, and, they still had the same limits as before. Although the preamp improved the overall sound. I then asked him to horizontally biamp with the 5500 doing bass duty. The system had more grunt but it didn't have the effect I was looking for. Then I remembered the NAD had a gain control. Once the amps balanced out I was pretty impressed. Still getting a slight falling apart in the mids at very high volume. We then had the Adcom on bass and a bridged mono NAD on EACH mid/high. Now, we were talking. That became quite lively. The room wasn't that large so the 5500 was doing some massive bass and the mid/high has ample head room so we were getting some good dynamics and high SPL's :) We then added the DAC. Up to this point things were building progressively better. With the DA-3 it was a bit of a trade off. The CJ DAC was overall better than the Rotel but it sort of made the sound a bit too sweet on Rock.
I haven't had that much experience before playing with biamping but this experience has me believing it has it's merits. I was really impressed with how far that system went with the additions and changes we made. The clarity and snap of snare and other midrange details were very good. Whether this was from having the woofer and mid on separate amps or being able to tailor sound using the NAD's gains I can't be sure. I am sure though I had a blast.
First we listned to his system. It was alright but you can tell the woofers needed more power and the amps ran out of steam when push came to volume. We added the CJ preamp and listened a bit. I think he said the NAD amps were only 50x2, and, they still had the same limits as before. Although the preamp improved the overall sound. I then asked him to horizontally biamp with the 5500 doing bass duty. The system had more grunt but it didn't have the effect I was looking for. Then I remembered the NAD had a gain control. Once the amps balanced out I was pretty impressed. Still getting a slight falling apart in the mids at very high volume. We then had the Adcom on bass and a bridged mono NAD on EACH mid/high. Now, we were talking. That became quite lively. The room wasn't that large so the 5500 was doing some massive bass and the mid/high has ample head room so we were getting some good dynamics and high SPL's :) We then added the DAC. Up to this point things were building progressively better. With the DA-3 it was a bit of a trade off. The CJ DAC was overall better than the Rotel but it sort of made the sound a bit too sweet on Rock.
I haven't had that much experience before playing with biamping but this experience has me believing it has it's merits. I was really impressed with how far that system went with the additions and changes we made. The clarity and snap of snare and other midrange details were very good. Whether this was from having the woofer and mid on separate amps or being able to tailor sound using the NAD's gains I can't be sure. I am sure though I had a blast.