Has anyone heard the Dynavector Superstereo?

Don't be such a non-ferrous weenie boy Alex.

I think it uses similar principles to the late Naim AV-1. Something about delaying the signal to the reaar to add a bit of ambience. I heard the AV1 at Grahams once with DBLs at the front and thought it was quite good at filling a large space.

ps. Can I try I when you have it.

I made some initial enquiries after the positive review in HiFi+. The general idea is certainly appealing, whether it works musically is another thing. Unfortunately the distributor wasn't planning to demo at any shows. Perhaps you can twist his arm - I'd certainly be interested in hearing it.

David

Alex et al. -

There was a thread recently on "Scale" and the different aspects thereof.

What, with some specificity, are you looking for?

A "bigger" sound in an imaging sense?

You want the system to fill the room rather than have the sound at one end?

Play louder?

- GregB

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I read somewhere (probably advert in HIFI+) that the distributor is demonstrating at Heathrow this weekend (Renaissance hotel?), but I haven't seen any other reference to this show.

I had a chat to mister SS last night. He's happy to provide one sale or return when they next have one available. He implied that this could be some time away. The 3 they have left are promised to Heathrow show visitors where they are indeed exhibiting.

Greg,

Good question. I like the fact that I have a relatively clean, room-filling, unboxy sound at quite high volumes. Bit it is a touch thin. This is down to the room, the pods and the poweramp in that order.

I don't want to get rid of the amp and a perverse streak makes me want to keep the pods and turn them into super-pods. Also, I don't want to kill the sound - I need diffusion not absorption; the problem is I may need 3000 quid's worth of diffusion.

So, what is the added scale I want? - Not extra bass in itself but that would help, I want a full orchestral piece to sound, full - all the cellos playing when all the cellos are playing, hopefully fairly full range. I also want the Ozrics and P Tree to really fill the room when they get going. The DV SS may just help to do this. It is also about the cheapest option of the various available. I will tread carefully with add-ons - I don't want to mess with the timing in any way.

Alex

If anyone gets to hear it this weekend, I'd be interested in what they think.

David

Alex

An alternative could be to try to find a second-hand Naim AV1 and 140. Doubt they would set you back more than the SS solution.

I am running an AV1 with a 250 and Kans and believe they will deliver a lot of what you are after; larger scale, fuller more natural sound, loads and fills the room better, doesn't interfere with the main stereo set-up.

Hans

...added two "rear" speakers to my hi-fi. And your amp doesn't even need outputs for the rear speakers!

Instead of buying a fancy surround processor and an extra amp, you just get two speakers and do the "Hafler Hookup".

Wire the speaker wires to the speakers per normal.

On the amp end, wire the rear +'s to the amp's +'s and then twist the two -'s together and do not connect them to the amp.

This will send the "difference signal" - the difference between the two channels, which is often mostly ambience - to the rear speakers.

Free to try if you have extra speakers and wire about.

- GregB

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Greg,

I take it that you were not that impressed with the results.

David

I may play around - did think of another HX1.2 and a row of 4 pods across the front.

Or, following Greg's idea, I could hook up my AE1s as surround speakers - nicely insensitive so shouldn't unbalance things too much; may well blow up the amp though.

Alex

"I take it that you were not that impressed with the results."

Au contrare - it worked a treat Those That Understand These Things write that this hookup is what you get with a surroud processor when you choose a passive Dolby option. David Hafler was one of the pioneers of all of this surround sound business back in the 70's. Remember Quadraphonic sound? It was poo pooed by the hi-fi elite, but now it is reborn - as Home Theater - and may be the death of high end if the companies don't keep up with Sony et al.

There are also other ways to do the hookup, including a trim pot placed between the rear neg wires and the ground connect on the amp. Adding a time delay to the rear speakers gets you most of the way there. If you have one extra speaker floating around, you can put it in the middle and wire it to receive both L and R signals.

BTW, these hookups do strange things to the load on the amp so I cannot guarentee you won't blow something. OTOH, people did it for years with little difficulty. I just don't know how a Naim amp would react.

- GregB

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Dynavector did a Superstereo dem at the Manchester Airport Show in 2001.

It seemed to be a good way to cope with a mullet system - it was fronted by an Arcam Alpha 7 CD player.



Regards,

Steve.

quote:

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It seemed to be a good way to cope with a mullet system

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...it diverts funds from fixing the mullet (getting a better source) and directs those funds to the back end (extra speakers, amps, etc.).

- GregB

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The old AV1 makes a hell of a difference. Unfortunately, different music needs different volume settings on the device and no remote control facility is included, which is a bore.

As I have placed the rear speakers close to me (as seen in the Naim advertising literature of the time, though no positional advice is included in the AV1 manual) could I put variable attenuators in the loudspeaker leads? Anyone know?

My AV1 cost me £350 so this may be a sort of benchmark if anyone is seeking one.

I heard the superstereo at the show over the weekend. Certainly added some "spaciousness" when the processor was turned on. Most noticable with some Ben Harper vocals that were played. To me it also seemed to add some hollowness to the sound.
That said the system sounded attrocious without the processor on. Italian cd player (Synthesis?) and Sugden A21a amp with some terrible (and tiny) Jamo speakers as the main speakers.
So... interesting result but hard to tell if would improve a decent stereo system.
Listened to the same disc on my Arc's when I got home and they still sounded better to me.