Transparency of speakers – good or bad?
Posted by: Arye_Gur on 03 August 2003
As I’m downgrading my system, I sold my CDX and took a MICROMEGA STAGE 3 instead.
The guy who bought the CDX owned the MICROMEGA for 8 years. His system based on a CDX (now…) 102/Hi/Napsc and big French speakers, I don’t remember the manufacturer’s name now.
First, I listened to his system with the Micromega and the system sounded well, much more bass than at my home with my IBLs.
Then, he listened to music at my home, he noticed that the CDX is better than the Micromega and he took it to his home for a listening. He decided to buy the cdx and gave me the Micromega.
My surprise was when I listened to the Micromega at my home. It was awful compared to the CDX, and the quality of sound is poor. How does it happen? At his home with his speakers, the micromega sounds better than at my home.
The reasons, of course, are the great IBLs that are showing me very well the faults of the Micromega – and if I wouldn’t have the LP12, I would really think of downgrading the speakers too.
No doubt that the IBLs are giving much more details compared to other large speakers, and this last downgrade made me thinking of the complains I said few times about them being bass shy. Now I see that these speakers are great, and as one of the moderators here told me once – We (Naim) can easily built a speakers that goes low, it is good for business but it is not the right thing to do (a quote from my memory). I can see now that he was right. I think that to go low and to pay by losing many of the details is not the right way.
Great transparency is a bad character when you have to downgrade your source.
Arye
The guy who bought the CDX owned the MICROMEGA for 8 years. His system based on a CDX (now…) 102/Hi/Napsc and big French speakers, I don’t remember the manufacturer’s name now.
First, I listened to his system with the Micromega and the system sounded well, much more bass than at my home with my IBLs.
Then, he listened to music at my home, he noticed that the CDX is better than the Micromega and he took it to his home for a listening. He decided to buy the cdx and gave me the Micromega.
My surprise was when I listened to the Micromega at my home. It was awful compared to the CDX, and the quality of sound is poor. How does it happen? At his home with his speakers, the micromega sounds better than at my home.
The reasons, of course, are the great IBLs that are showing me very well the faults of the Micromega – and if I wouldn’t have the LP12, I would really think of downgrading the speakers too.
No doubt that the IBLs are giving much more details compared to other large speakers, and this last downgrade made me thinking of the complains I said few times about them being bass shy. Now I see that these speakers are great, and as one of the moderators here told me once – We (Naim) can easily built a speakers that goes low, it is good for business but it is not the right thing to do (a quote from my memory). I can see now that he was right. I think that to go low and to pay by losing many of the details is not the right way.
Great transparency is a bad character when you have to downgrade your source.
Arye