Hi Joachim, I still am very enthusiastic about my K1000 headphones, but having adjusted the response of the Orelo speakers to my room, I have to say that I suspect the K1000s will get used quite a lot less

Mani.

I finally got around to measuring the response of the Orelos in my room and... oh boy!

Pic 1

This shows the response from 30Hz to 70Hz with the mic placed just in front of the speaker vs. at the listening position. There's simply a MASSIVE dip between 65-35Hz at the listening position. Each vertical is 5dB, so the dip is up to -25dB! It's no wonder that I've had an issue with the low end since the day I set the Orelos up. Increasing the overall bass gain seemed to help, but is was obviously totally screwing up the overall LF/MF/HF balance.

Interestingly, with the mic placed close to the speaker, the response is  very flat - a testament to how well the speakers have been set up by Peter in the first place.

Pic 2

Peter and I worked together over the weekend to achieve this response... at the listening position!!! I set up a measurement system in the room and sent Peter the first pic via email. He created a new filter for me that I could load into the speaker's bass DSP and sent it back to me via email. We iterated quite a few times until we achieved this response.

Sound Quality

Well let's just say that this is the best low end I've ever heard. Period. Nothing that I've heard to date comes close to this. Sorry Paul, the low end from your Orelinos is good, but not this good

[I haven't been to Peter's place since he's had his Orelos, but can only assume that his low end is on par with mine, if he's taken measurements and tuned his speakers' LF to the room.]

[A very happy] Mani.

Hey Brian, I think you need a new NOS1a driver for use with W8. I'm sure Peter will oblige once he sees this.

Mani.

It had better not be about an ATX linear power supply because I just ordered one, which should be here sometime next week.

So, if not an ATX PSU, maybe... hmm... a new PCIe USB card perhaps??? Anyway, something USB-interface related.

Anyone else want to hazard a guess?

Mani.

No way forget me... I'm here!

Peter, I'd like two please:

1. 3.5m (for my NOS1a B75)
2. 0.5m (for my NOS1a standard)

OK?

Mani.

Count me in... whatever it is...

Edit: If it's your new USB cable, I'll tell you right now that I want one - preferably 3.5m, but 1m otherwise. (I may not be near a computer in four and a half hours' time and would be very upset if I missed out.)

Mani.

Peter, Joachim, which hotel will you be staying at? Might be nice to have a few drinks in the evening and breakfast in the morning together.

Nick, let me know once you'e decided for sure.

Mani.

I'm thinking of attending Munich High End this year (14th-17th May). Not because I'm looking to change my system, but because I'm keen to know what else is out there, and especially how it sounds. Also, there are a couple of German designers/manufacturers that I'd like to say hello to in person.

Is anybody else thinking of going? Maybe we could meet up at some point?

Mani.

Hey Joachim, there must be something in the air. I too connected my turntable to my main system over the weekend (see pic), mainly to enjoy my 50s and 60s original pressings that, for whatever reason, seem to sound so good. And just like you Joachim, I too really, really like the sound of my TT. I wouldn't go as far as saying that it is on par with the NOS1a, but I agree that there is a certain something about the sound that is very nice. Also, I really enjoyed engaging with the vinyl format again - you know, the whole rigmarole of choosing an album, placing it, giving it a clean beforehand and... then just relaxing until the whole side has finished.

My vinyl rig is far from optimally set up right now, so I've decided that I'm going to invest a bit of time and money to improve this. The first step will be to buy a SOTA phono preamp. I've opted for a Thöress Phono Enhancer, which I will place an order for later this week. I'm then hoping the designer, Reinhard Thöress, will help me get the rest of my vinyl rig optimally set up.

But one thing I am not going to do is take the NOS1a through the preamp. Instead, I will physically switch the cables to the Orelo speakers, between the NOS1a and the phono preamp, whenever I want to switch sources. It sounds a PITA, but I suspect that I won't be doing it too often, as I'll only be listening to vinyl once a week or so.


Very nice! Interestingly, a few years ago I was in the hunt for an EMT 927. I contacted one of the guys who used to work at EMT and he insisted that I should buy a 950 instead. He said it was technically a better TT and that at today's prices it was a bargain compared to the crazily priced 927. I didn't take his advice though (I didn't buy a 950 or a 927)... perhaps I should have?

Cheers, Mani.

[Highlight mine]

I've always wanted to do this. Is the procedure as simple as getting a crossover ethernet cable and then doing this: http://www.wikihow.com/Connect-Two-Computers-Together-with-an-Ethernet-Cable ?

Mani.

Just a quick comment from my side...

Everything now matters here (again?). Small changes in XX are reflected in the sound. If I change SFS by just 0.2, I hear it. If I change the 'Nervous Rate' in XTweaks, I hear it. I'm using an SSD for the OS and XX at the moment - changing 'copy to XX folder' on/off totally changes the sound. As before, USB cables change the sound. And of course, this is with a NOS1a 'B75'.

There's a lot of tuning to do here now... Argh!

Mani.

I just don't know where to start really...

Well firstly, Nick's system. I'd never heard it before and when he put it on it sounded very good to me. A bit heavy in the upper bass, and not enough top-end sparkle for my liking, but the dynamics were very good. Bass really thumped out, energizing the whole room. Listening position was important, and I ended up standing for most of the time as it sounded better to me. Paul and (obviously) Nick had heard previous iterations of Nick's system and apparently it is now a quantum leap over where it was previously. And most of this down to the NOS1a and Nick's latest mobo mods.

We then proceeded to modify my mobo. We (Nick, actually) replaced two mobo clocks with high-quality clocks (with linear PSUs). Once everything was done, we put the PC back together and hooked it up to Nick's system. And... very, very nice. Even better than Nick's PC, we all thought.

It was very late once I got back to my place, so no real listening done immediately. But I played with things over the weekend and now have a sound that I'm pretty happy with. The main difference that the mobo mods have made is to the 'smoothness' of the sound. It's still incredibly detailed, but right now there is no way anyone would think it's digital. There is an 'organic', 'wooden' (as opposed to metallic) quality to the sound.

I have a record dealer (hopefully) coming to my place on Monday to collect most of my LPs (I bought an Opera collection of about 3500 LPs a few years ago with the aim of getting into it... let's just say it hasn't turned out too well). This dealer ONLY listens to vinyl and hates digital. It'll be interesting to hear what he thinks of my system. I've been toying with the idea of putting a turntable in the room and pretending to play an LP when I'm actually playing a needle drop through the NOS1a... but I think this is a bit too sneaky and underhanded.

Right now I'm so happy with the sound I'm getting that I'd settle for it indefinitely if I had to. There is only one thing that I would change and that is the lack of deep, deep bass. But I'm now pretty convinced that this is due to the room, and nothing else. Who knows, maybe getting rid of 3500 LPs from the back wall with fix this?

Overall, it was a great day with Nick and Paul. My feeling is that Nick is definitely onto something here. But translating it into something feasible for most computer audio users is going to present a LOT of challenges. I mean, there's always the distinct possibility of screwing up the mobo, and even if everything works as planned, shipping mobos around with sensitive clock parts attached to then doesn't seem very practical to me. But I really hope Nick can 'commercialize' this in some way because it definitely works.

I'd like to say is a big thank you to Nick (and Paul) for implementing these mobo mods for me.

Mani.

Well, just playing around with PCIe/PCI USB cards over the weekend (and USB cables over the holidays), it's obvious to me that there's still so much to be done. And you're at the vanguard of it all!


Yep, really looking forward to it.

Cheers, Mani.

Hey Michael, nice build.


Well my PC is now resurrected and I did indeed try my SOtM PCI (not PCIe) card. And oh boy was it a relief going back to the Silverstone PCIe card. The SOtm totally killed the sound. I mean totally. Dull, boring, dead. (But the PCIe version might well be a different animal.)

Mani.

Hey Peter, really interesting - thanks for sharing.


So, should we be aiming for totally vibration-free PCs? ... And then take them into the basement ;-)

Mani.