Hutter bliss
Posted by: bob atherton on 30 November 2000
My previous support arrangement was a bit of a mixed bag. The TT & CD were on Mana. The tuner & amps on modified Tripod & Greenline. I had always been fairly satisfied with the old setup, but guessed that latent potential in the hardware was not being realised.
After about a year of listening to different stands & also listening to peoples opinions that I respect my short list was either all Mana or all Hutter. I plumped for Hutter. Had I gone for Mana I doubt if I would be writing this now as plenty of fine words on that subject have graced this forum.
I ended up buying 2 stacks each comprising of hi fi base & 4 extra shelves. I chose to have 50mm spacers inbetween the shelves, giving a distance between shelves of 140mm, ideal for Naim boxes. Assembly was simplicity itself. Level the sub base, make sure the spikes are tight (no tuning here) & add the shelves. I also connected the 2 stacks with lateral 50mm spacers. Total cost of all this including shipping from Longtone Hifi in Vienna was just under 1100 UKP.
At this time my SNAXO & a Hicap were at Naim for service, so the system was in a somewhat smaller scale passive mode, although I was still using both 250's, a bit like a pair of 125's .
My initial reaction was quite favourable, but there was an annoying edge to the sound, a bit like when my Mana was not in tune. My instinct told me that the cause were the lateral joining bars, so I tried the 2 stands without them. Immediately the edge vanished & incredible music filled my sitting room.
I lived with the passive system for 2 weeks before the boxes came back from Salisbury. In that time the stands improved almost daily. I guess because they are made of wood a longer settling in period should be expected. I don't beleive that a quick dem in a shop will give you any idea of the stands ultimate performance.
Over these 2 weeks the bass got tighter & deeper. The top end became more open & natural. At the end of this fortnight the system had never sounded so good & was _FAR_ better than the old active one.
The CD player sounded less like a CD player. Vinyl had less surface noise & on all sources the ability to delve deeply into the mix was easy. This ability is not a virtue unless accompanied with cohesion & musical flow. The system had both these in spades. The more music I played I realised that it was now streets ahead of the old active one. Then the SNAXO & Hicap came back from Naim.....
This lifted things up another gear. To be honest probably no greater an improvement than when I went active with my old racks.
I have now lived with a fully Huttered system for only 3 weeks yet I do not have the slightest doubt that my choice of Hutter was the correct one.
The overriding feeling that I have with Hutter is that you can hear, understand & connect with the performance in front of you in a far easier & less fatiguing way than ever before.
when the Hutter first arrived my initial reaction was that the musical improvement was equal to when I got my LP12 back in '85. I felt this could be a bit of a knee jerk reaction to the new presentation. Yet 3 weeks on I still feel the same way.
If you are looking for a very serious rack I think you would be barmy not to check out Hutter.
Bob
[This message was edited by bob atherton on THURSDAY 30 November 2000 at 14:50.
[This message was edited by bob atherton on THURSDAY 30 November 2000 at 14:51.]
[This message was edited by bob atherton on THURSDAY 30 November 2000 at 14:56.]
quote:
(from Neil)…where the Naim CDS2 and the Mark Levinson integrated CD player were reviewed. Both were reviewed by adherents to each companies products and not surprisingly got rave reviews.
IIRC, both these reviews were written by Chris Thomas. Would have been a bit pointless to swap... 
Best;
Mark
(I still don't like this
software very much)