Parasound Zpre2 and NAD D1050 DAC review (It?s more like the story of my sound system):
Background - initial setup and problem statement:
Denon X4000 - powering all surround and front height speakers (Q-Acoustics) plus centre speaker Paradigm Studio CC570 v3 (receiver provided sufficient juice for all small surround speakers plus the large/giant centre speaker, movies played well with great clarity - with Audyssey MultEQ XT32 active & both Dynamic volume and Dynamic EQ active).
Revel B15 subwoofer was connected to one of the 2 subwoofer pre-outs with its internal crossover defeated for the Denon to take care of that part through bass management.
Denon front channels pre-outs connected to Rotel RB1080 which powered a pair of Paradigm Studio 60 v3 (this is where the problem was when playing music, even worse with the subwoofer active ? the rotel provided enough juice with no sweat though, but something else was preventing the speakers to shine).
Listening room setup ? my living room
It?s a 6x4x2.8 (Length x Width x Height) with tiled floor and a concrete roof (all odds against me) ? front speakers were initially against the 4m wall which is actually 3m wide and open on one side as a passage pathway, bass performance was so bad as I sat almost in the middle of the 6m stretch, until I decided to unmounts the TV and relocate the AV system to the 6m wall (between 2 windows with aluminium blinds ? I suppose these might also contribute to my acoustics problems), now I currently sit on against a wall instead of the middle, bass response improved considerably and less frequency dips became less obvious.
Denon Critical Settings:
Subwoofer LFE LPF set to the default 120Hz (this one is not a problem as LFE is applicable to source material with LFE channel)
Front speakers were normally set to small and HPF at 80Hz but I preferred 90Hz the most (at this range, the bass reponce was as though I?m using smaller speakers with relatively poor bass and no midrange, pretty bad. I?ve tried different positions on the HPF all the way down to the lowest 40Hz on Denon, including setting to Large since Audyssey detects them as Large, now this is where it got tricky, at 40Hz small fronts, the bass diminished almost completely, unless I increased the subwoofer volume but this yielded a muddy bass. However, once I switched the subwoofer off, the front speakers played like there?s a subwoofer active but still sounded as muddy as when LPF is set to 80Hz with subwoofer active. I?ve tried different means of sorting out the problem from implementing some of the Get Better sound recommended free techniques to using REW with the Audyssey mic connected to my HTPC to try and adjust subwoofer phase manually to get a better frequency response (flattest possible), but with no luck. In simple terms, my music experience was far from acceptable.
The problem was music lacked engagement (poor stereo imaging, poor soundstage depth and my major problem ? slow bass attack that I could only explain as a muddy or delayed bass response without impact no matter what kind of music you play).
This problem did not start with the Paradigm Studio 60 v3, but was the same behaviour with my initial Quad 21L, same with 12L bookshelves as well as Mordaunt Short Mezzo 1, and not to mention the subwoofers I?ve changed hoping to improve bass impact (from Velodyne to Sunfire to multi-subwoofer setup with B&W sub added) ? on top of that, my first receiver (Onkyo SR705) behaved exactly the same but slightly softer to the Denon, probably more so due to Audyssey differences.
The turning point:
After selling my Quad 12L and ad a listen at a friend?s (forum member, a very great guy) setup, it made me realise that maybe my problems are due to my receiver that?s doing all the processing, then I looked for a preamp and a CD player to test my stereo playback without using the receiver. A friend (also a forum member, a very great guy as well) saw my agony and borrowed me his unused Parasound Zpre2 for a try, then I got hold of a Harman Kardon DVD27 for CD playback. I tried my first CD (God?s Son), damn I was blown away, bare in mind that the subwoofer was not connected at this stage. The bass was rich and very detailed, mids were restored as if they were not the same speakers though the highs were not as high as with Audyssey?s MultEQ XT32, but they sounded just fine. Clarity was extremely improved and I could even turn up the volume to much higher levels than the Denon while maintaining pure sound quality, it felt like I?ve just added a ?music cleaning stage? that removed all distortion that was audible from the Denon when taken a little high yet (not ear piercing levels). I later got hold of additional interconnects and connected subwoofer straight to the preamp output, and the Rotel amp interconnects for front speakers were connected to the HPF output of the Revel sub. The best integration was found when the Revel LPF was set to 80Hz at 24db/octave slope and the speakers HPF set to the lowest 30Hz at 24db/octave. The phase angle sounded best at 180 degrees (was confirmed to have the least amount of frequency response dips through REW between 20Hz and 100Hz). Again, integration that I?ve never heard before, the subwoofer sounded so musical and the response was so great, the difference between different bass instruments became audible instead of the original muddy bass that encapsulated different bass sounds into one type of muddy bass.
Now I was left with one problem, I hardly play CDs due to the up and down trips when changing CDs as I?m an undecided man when playing music, I usually play a song or two per CD, I?m used to HTPC music playback which is more convenient for that, but it forced me to use the receiver as I was passing audio via HDMI, then I took the same front speaker pre-outs to the pre-amp?s send input then played my PC music. What an improvement from the original sound I used to get, bass was great but a little more exaggerated even with Audyssey Bypass on front speakers. I then realised that the major problem lies with the Receiver?s preamp and the receiver?s built in DAC is not as good as the Harman Kardon?s DVD player, well then I got hold of the NAD D1050 DAC hoping for the best, wow, my MP3s now sound as though I?m playing CD quality music using the CD player. Now i was left amazed trying to listen to every son I haven?t played in a while just to hear what I?ve been missing all along, and well even as I type this, my old MP3s are creating an amazing soundstage and great stereo imaging I?ve ever heard in my system and all demo roms I?ve sat and tested different speakers such as the B&W804 with a Digital Drive velodyne sub and a pair of Classe amps fed by a Marantz surround processor, my sound may not provide the level of clarity of the 804 but the bass response is with no doubt much better.
Then the sad part came out yesterday, I kept my receiver connected to channel 2 then I did an A/B test between the external DAC (NAD) and the Denon?s built-in DAC in Pure-Direct mode, wow, If I were to blind fold 10 people, I bet almost no one would tell the difference, Pure-direct or direct mode (instead of stereo mode) is on another level, it?s sound quality is almost equally good to my ears. So now I?m left with 2 DAC (Denon in Pure-direct mode and the NAD D1050), I?ve decided to sacrifice the 9.1 surround for 2 channel playback, so soon you?ll see my receiver online with the centre and surround speakers (though I?m still reluctant at that due to the amazing vocal clarity of the Paradigm CC570v3, I haven?t heard a centre speaker that clear and powerful at the same time ? Audyssey also treats it as a large speaker though I used it as small on my setup)
Background - initial setup and problem statement:
Denon X4000 - powering all surround and front height speakers (Q-Acoustics) plus centre speaker Paradigm Studio CC570 v3 (receiver provided sufficient juice for all small surround speakers plus the large/giant centre speaker, movies played well with great clarity - with Audyssey MultEQ XT32 active & both Dynamic volume and Dynamic EQ active).
Revel B15 subwoofer was connected to one of the 2 subwoofer pre-outs with its internal crossover defeated for the Denon to take care of that part through bass management.
Denon front channels pre-outs connected to Rotel RB1080 which powered a pair of Paradigm Studio 60 v3 (this is where the problem was when playing music, even worse with the subwoofer active ? the rotel provided enough juice with no sweat though, but something else was preventing the speakers to shine).
Listening room setup ? my living room
It?s a 6x4x2.8 (Length x Width x Height) with tiled floor and a concrete roof (all odds against me) ? front speakers were initially against the 4m wall which is actually 3m wide and open on one side as a passage pathway, bass performance was so bad as I sat almost in the middle of the 6m stretch, until I decided to unmounts the TV and relocate the AV system to the 6m wall (between 2 windows with aluminium blinds ? I suppose these might also contribute to my acoustics problems), now I currently sit on against a wall instead of the middle, bass response improved considerably and less frequency dips became less obvious.
Denon Critical Settings:
Subwoofer LFE LPF set to the default 120Hz (this one is not a problem as LFE is applicable to source material with LFE channel)
Front speakers were normally set to small and HPF at 80Hz but I preferred 90Hz the most (at this range, the bass reponce was as though I?m using smaller speakers with relatively poor bass and no midrange, pretty bad. I?ve tried different positions on the HPF all the way down to the lowest 40Hz on Denon, including setting to Large since Audyssey detects them as Large, now this is where it got tricky, at 40Hz small fronts, the bass diminished almost completely, unless I increased the subwoofer volume but this yielded a muddy bass. However, once I switched the subwoofer off, the front speakers played like there?s a subwoofer active but still sounded as muddy as when LPF is set to 80Hz with subwoofer active. I?ve tried different means of sorting out the problem from implementing some of the Get Better sound recommended free techniques to using REW with the Audyssey mic connected to my HTPC to try and adjust subwoofer phase manually to get a better frequency response (flattest possible), but with no luck. In simple terms, my music experience was far from acceptable.
The problem was music lacked engagement (poor stereo imaging, poor soundstage depth and my major problem ? slow bass attack that I could only explain as a muddy or delayed bass response without impact no matter what kind of music you play).
This problem did not start with the Paradigm Studio 60 v3, but was the same behaviour with my initial Quad 21L, same with 12L bookshelves as well as Mordaunt Short Mezzo 1, and not to mention the subwoofers I?ve changed hoping to improve bass impact (from Velodyne to Sunfire to multi-subwoofer setup with B&W sub added) ? on top of that, my first receiver (Onkyo SR705) behaved exactly the same but slightly softer to the Denon, probably more so due to Audyssey differences.
The turning point:
After selling my Quad 12L and ad a listen at a friend?s (forum member, a very great guy) setup, it made me realise that maybe my problems are due to my receiver that?s doing all the processing, then I looked for a preamp and a CD player to test my stereo playback without using the receiver. A friend (also a forum member, a very great guy as well) saw my agony and borrowed me his unused Parasound Zpre2 for a try, then I got hold of a Harman Kardon DVD27 for CD playback. I tried my first CD (God?s Son), damn I was blown away, bare in mind that the subwoofer was not connected at this stage. The bass was rich and very detailed, mids were restored as if they were not the same speakers though the highs were not as high as with Audyssey?s MultEQ XT32, but they sounded just fine. Clarity was extremely improved and I could even turn up the volume to much higher levels than the Denon while maintaining pure sound quality, it felt like I?ve just added a ?music cleaning stage? that removed all distortion that was audible from the Denon when taken a little high yet (not ear piercing levels). I later got hold of additional interconnects and connected subwoofer straight to the preamp output, and the Rotel amp interconnects for front speakers were connected to the HPF output of the Revel sub. The best integration was found when the Revel LPF was set to 80Hz at 24db/octave slope and the speakers HPF set to the lowest 30Hz at 24db/octave. The phase angle sounded best at 180 degrees (was confirmed to have the least amount of frequency response dips through REW between 20Hz and 100Hz). Again, integration that I?ve never heard before, the subwoofer sounded so musical and the response was so great, the difference between different bass instruments became audible instead of the original muddy bass that encapsulated different bass sounds into one type of muddy bass.
Now I was left with one problem, I hardly play CDs due to the up and down trips when changing CDs as I?m an undecided man when playing music, I usually play a song or two per CD, I?m used to HTPC music playback which is more convenient for that, but it forced me to use the receiver as I was passing audio via HDMI, then I took the same front speaker pre-outs to the pre-amp?s send input then played my PC music. What an improvement from the original sound I used to get, bass was great but a little more exaggerated even with Audyssey Bypass on front speakers. I then realised that the major problem lies with the Receiver?s preamp and the receiver?s built in DAC is not as good as the Harman Kardon?s DVD player, well then I got hold of the NAD D1050 DAC hoping for the best, wow, my MP3s now sound as though I?m playing CD quality music using the CD player. Now i was left amazed trying to listen to every son I haven?t played in a while just to hear what I?ve been missing all along, and well even as I type this, my old MP3s are creating an amazing soundstage and great stereo imaging I?ve ever heard in my system and all demo roms I?ve sat and tested different speakers such as the B&W804 with a Digital Drive velodyne sub and a pair of Classe amps fed by a Marantz surround processor, my sound may not provide the level of clarity of the 804 but the bass response is with no doubt much better.
Then the sad part came out yesterday, I kept my receiver connected to channel 2 then I did an A/B test between the external DAC (NAD) and the Denon?s built-in DAC in Pure-Direct mode, wow, If I were to blind fold 10 people, I bet almost no one would tell the difference, Pure-direct or direct mode (instead of stereo mode) is on another level, it?s sound quality is almost equally good to my ears. So now I?m left with 2 DAC (Denon in Pure-direct mode and the NAD D1050), I?ve decided to sacrifice the 9.1 surround for 2 channel playback, so soon you?ll see my receiver online with the centre and surround speakers (though I?m still reluctant at that due to the amazing vocal clarity of the Paradigm CC570v3, I haven?t heard a centre speaker that clear and powerful at the same time ? Audyssey also treats it as a large speaker though I used it as small on my setup)
