Quote Originally Posted by blackraven View Post
Very nice set up! I would love to hear it, I bet it sounds great!
It *does* sound great. Paul graciously and patiently showed my brother and I this system (he hadn't added the phono stage yet). It was the most impressive system of the 4 that we listened to. The experience was similar to the first time I heard panels (Maggie 1.7s)

The audio hobby/industry is perpetually choked with hype, glitter, and self-congratulatory chatter. When all the smoke clears and the dust settles, the audio hobbyist at any level can trust only his own ears. That being said (with the usual caveats of personal taste and of getting what you like/liking what you get), here is my take.

The coherence and imaging from this humble setup is phenomenal. I've heard the imaging described as *holographic* and that is a fitting description, especially with vocals, brass, strings, acoustic instruments. I would also add *magical* in the sense that the music we listen to is magical; emotional and experiential, far beyond bits and bytes and frequencies. I should probably add the word *addicting.* Our listening time passed far too quickly.

The only audio hobbyist subgroups that would find this system unsatisfactory would be the rock/metal high decibel screamers and hiphop/rap enthusiasts. Rock/pop fans who listen at reasonable levels, on the other hand, will be rewarded with accurate studio reproduction like they've likely not heard before.

I left Paul's house wondering how long it would take to get over the excitement of rediscovering music that I thought I was familiar with. Hearing textures and nuances previously hidden by coloration and/or poor combinations of high end gear is a really cool experience that I had thought was unattainable to those of us on blue collar budgets. Not so.

I'll leave it to Poultrygeist to divulge the $ he's got in this system, but I can confidently say this. High end audio is now very much available to Average Joe.