Post by boomzilla on Sept 19, 2013 22:23:08 GMT -5
Well I fired up my new Sherbourn 7020a this afternoon for some initial listening. The setup is as follows:
AIFF uncompressed files feeding the Sherbourn via TOSLINK
Sherbourn set with NO auto-room correction - just straight stereo audio
Sherbourn 7020a with subwoofer enabled on R/L front @ 80 Hz. & 24 dB / octave slope
B&W ASW-675 10" subwoofer driven via Sherbourn
Crown PS-400 stereo amps (2) driving Definitive Technology SM65 speakers in vertical bi-amplified configuration
Paradigm Studio 20 v3 loudspeakers driven by half of a Crown PS-400 stereo amp with the crossover jumpers installed
Short Emotiva (mostly) interconnects with about 10 foot "battery jumper cable" home-made 8-gauge speaker wires
A wide variety of music was used including:
The Commitments soundtrack - Mustang Sally & In the Midnight Hour
Madonna - Like a Prayer, & other selections from "The Immaculate Collection" CD (recorded in Q-sound)
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me & other selections
Jennifer Warnes - The Hunter CD
Lou Bega - Ice Cream & Mambo #5
Dead Can Dance - Yulunga
Don Dorsey - Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor
Dave Brubeck Quartet - Blue Rondo ala Turk
The Atlantic Brass Quintet - Hungarian Rahpsody #2
and more
The Sherbourn was initially set to let the DefTechs play full range with no sub. After letting them rip, a cold chill settled over me. The speakers sounded like they'd had a wet blanket thrown over them. Slow, dull, no imaging, etc. After 10 minutes of equipment warm up (from dead cold) things began opening up and continued to do so throughout the remainder of the session.
Once the DefTechs started sounding good, and being one to never leave well enough alone, I switched to the Paradigms and turned on the subwoofer. WHOA - It's EASY to set this sub way too loudly in comparison to the satellites. The bass still didn't sound right with the sub in the system, so (remembering that a 24 dB per octave crossover is still a second order crossover) I switched the subwoofer to 180 degrees out of phase with the satellites, and instantly the bass snapped into focus. One problem down!
Once the sub was dialed back enough to match the Paradigm levels, I moved the speakers farther apart and got down to some serious listening. The Paradigms do truly disappear in my room as sound sources leaving just a wide (but not so deep) soundstage. On the Madonna Q-sound material, particularly, the sound moved far, far beyond the outer edges of the speakers with some sounds seeming to come from directly to my right and left sides.
The Sherbourn may be just a slight tad brighter than my Jolida tube DAC, but not enough to be bothersome. In fact, the slight brightness may have been a synergistic match to my particular pair of Paradigms (that sound just the slightest bit dull -particularly with their grilles on which is how I listened). I could say the normal stuff about the midrange being right, the bass being tight, and the treble being airy, but that is assumed for any decent system. So what did this do really well? It's more about what it didn't do poorly. I was expecting serious "transistoritis" from a solid state AV preamp (which is exactly what I've heard from all my other previous AV preamps including models from Rotel, Classé, and the UMC-1) but, surprisingly, the little Sherbourn sounded sweet and dainty. No shrill treble, no hard edginess, and very warm and inviting midrange on voices (female voices in particular). With the sub taking over the deep bass duties, the Paradigms sounded significantly less stressed even when I pushed them a bit.
I'm not ready to pronounce any personal verdict about the Sherbourn until I've listened to it more extensively with speakers that I'm more familiar with (the DefTechs), but that'll have to wait until tomorrow.
Cheers - Boomzilla
AIFF uncompressed files feeding the Sherbourn via TOSLINK
Sherbourn set with NO auto-room correction - just straight stereo audio
Sherbourn 7020a with subwoofer enabled on R/L front @ 80 Hz. & 24 dB / octave slope
B&W ASW-675 10" subwoofer driven via Sherbourn
Crown PS-400 stereo amps (2) driving Definitive Technology SM65 speakers in vertical bi-amplified configuration
Paradigm Studio 20 v3 loudspeakers driven by half of a Crown PS-400 stereo amp with the crossover jumpers installed
Short Emotiva (mostly) interconnects with about 10 foot "battery jumper cable" home-made 8-gauge speaker wires
A wide variety of music was used including:
The Commitments soundtrack - Mustang Sally & In the Midnight Hour
Madonna - Like a Prayer, & other selections from "The Immaculate Collection" CD (recorded in Q-sound)
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me & other selections
Jennifer Warnes - The Hunter CD
Lou Bega - Ice Cream & Mambo #5
Dead Can Dance - Yulunga
Don Dorsey - Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor
Dave Brubeck Quartet - Blue Rondo ala Turk
The Atlantic Brass Quintet - Hungarian Rahpsody #2
and more
The Sherbourn was initially set to let the DefTechs play full range with no sub. After letting them rip, a cold chill settled over me. The speakers sounded like they'd had a wet blanket thrown over them. Slow, dull, no imaging, etc. After 10 minutes of equipment warm up (from dead cold) things began opening up and continued to do so throughout the remainder of the session.
Once the DefTechs started sounding good, and being one to never leave well enough alone, I switched to the Paradigms and turned on the subwoofer. WHOA - It's EASY to set this sub way too loudly in comparison to the satellites. The bass still didn't sound right with the sub in the system, so (remembering that a 24 dB per octave crossover is still a second order crossover) I switched the subwoofer to 180 degrees out of phase with the satellites, and instantly the bass snapped into focus. One problem down!
Once the sub was dialed back enough to match the Paradigm levels, I moved the speakers farther apart and got down to some serious listening. The Paradigms do truly disappear in my room as sound sources leaving just a wide (but not so deep) soundstage. On the Madonna Q-sound material, particularly, the sound moved far, far beyond the outer edges of the speakers with some sounds seeming to come from directly to my right and left sides.
The Sherbourn may be just a slight tad brighter than my Jolida tube DAC, but not enough to be bothersome. In fact, the slight brightness may have been a synergistic match to my particular pair of Paradigms (that sound just the slightest bit dull -particularly with their grilles on which is how I listened). I could say the normal stuff about the midrange being right, the bass being tight, and the treble being airy, but that is assumed for any decent system. So what did this do really well? It's more about what it didn't do poorly. I was expecting serious "transistoritis" from a solid state AV preamp (which is exactly what I've heard from all my other previous AV preamps including models from Rotel, Classé, and the UMC-1) but, surprisingly, the little Sherbourn sounded sweet and dainty. No shrill treble, no hard edginess, and very warm and inviting midrange on voices (female voices in particular). With the sub taking over the deep bass duties, the Paradigms sounded significantly less stressed even when I pushed them a bit.
I'm not ready to pronounce any personal verdict about the Sherbourn until I've listened to it more extensively with speakers that I'm more familiar with (the DefTechs), but that'll have to wait until tomorrow.
Cheers - Boomzilla