 Switzerland |  | Titian is living in Oberarth - Switzerland. He is married to Rita and he has a son, Lorenzo (8) and two daughters, Chantal (6) and Delila (3). His family lives in a big house with about 3000 m2 land. |
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| Wiring | |
Phono cable: | Fadel Art Coherence Phono Duo |
| Digital cable: | Venture Audio, replacing Fadel Coherence |
| Interconnects: | Fadel Art Coherence IC Cinch WBT, replacing Crypton f/ Ed. Meitner for lows & Fadel 'reference' |
| Speaker cables: | Fadel Coherence SC One Duo for subs; Fadel Art Coherence Goldline Bi-wiring |
| Listening environment - Records | |||
| Surface: | 45 m2, with two extensions on the side with sloping ceiling (50 m2). | L x W x H (m.): | 8.6 x 5.5 x 3. Lowest Room Frequency: 20Hz! |
| Amplifiers on: | Heavy racks | Speakers placement: |
speakers apart: 2.65m. f/back wall: 1.9m. Subs are 0.1m. f/ the wall, firing against the wall. The rear side of the satellites are about 1.9 m. from the wall. The inner side of the subs are aligned to the outer side of the satellites. f/side wall: 1.3m. f/sweet spot: 2.4-3.0m. sweet spot to back wall: 3.5m. |
| Electronics on: | Finite Elemente Pagode Master Reference. Spikes: Racks, subs, satellites stands and turntable on Cerabase (Finite Elemente). Electronics on Valid points including resonance disks (Walker Audio). | Floor/Furniture: | Wooden with a carpet / Modern |
| Speakers on: | spikes / floor | Jazz Lp's/Cd's: | 600/1000 |
| Power cords: | Fadel Coherence | Classical Lp's/Cd's: | 6000/2500 |
| Electr. install.: | Dedicated power line | Other Lp's/Cd's: | 400/1000 |
| Room treatment: | Acoustic treatment from a swiss professional company | ||
| General remarks | ||||||||||||||||||
These ideals started to develop about 40 years ago, as I was ten and were already attending the weekly based classical concerts in the park of Lugano (Switzerland). A few years later, I became the usual visitor of the weekly concerts in the Radio recording studio in Lugano (RDSI). This experience spoilt my ears with the original sound of an orchestra in an optimally acoustic ambience (although the studio was quite small). From the first moment on my fixed idea was to have that kind of sound at home. The lack of money (I was an Indian refugee) didn't allow any kind of investment in Hi-Fi, unless I could buy stuff on sales and could sell it after a year or two making some small profit. Playing football in a semi professional league helped me financially to support my desire for music and especially my studies at the university in Zurich (ETH). Visiting a lot of concerts didn't make it easy for me to be satisfied with any hi-fi. A breakthrough was when I heard for the first time the System 16 of Nestorovic Labs. At that point, I was very frustrated with hi-fi and I had lost quite a lot of incentives to get something better than I had for a reasonable and affordable price. References to the Nestorovic system 16 are difficult to find because there are not many of these loudspeakers around, since Nestorovic Lab is a very small company and it takes a few months to make one speaker system.
Then, I started to have a lot of conversations with Mile Nestorovic, who guided me through the Hi-fi jungle. Mile and I became friends and it was very enjoyable to have conversations with him every week. He helped me finding also a reasonable preamplifier by tuning a SFL-2 Sonic Frontiers. That is what he had also in his system for demos. Another milestone in my hi-fi life was in 1997-1998, when I made a lot of money in investments. I could afford to buy a nice house and to put money into my music project. I sold the system 16 to get the new version of it and I also started getting a turntable and better electronics for it. Now, what can I say about the speakers? There are 2 big subwoofers, about 10 cm from the floor and facing the wall. There are 4 satellites each with 3 speakers. Two satellites are on top of each other and the upper one is up side down.
Another impressive point is the diffusion. It is difficult to believe that there are two columns of loudspeakers. There is this feeling that you are covered in all directions with music. Some violins seem to come from at least 3 meters on the left of the left speaker and the same for the cellos on the right. I won't talk about the orchestral image and cleanness because this depends of course on the phono and preamp section also. Another characteristic of the loudspeakers is the very quick response reaction time. As far as my turntable, I cannot compare the aas gabriel turntable because I never had a turntable (except 30 years back). It sounds great, that's all I can tell. In my record collection, I have about 7000 LP's and 4500 CD's. I hear 97% analogue because there is a big difference and I don't buy CD's anymore. (Only in 4 months in the past, I had bought about 1000 vinyl records!). I will be listing soon some LP's I am using for evaluation purposes, giving reference mainly to the interpretation. (But I still have to listen many of them...). Of course sound quality should also be good...
Interesting questions: Q.: How would you describe your system's sound? A.: Big diffused sound, excellent lows, all frequencies well reproduced and balanced. Q.: Do you think there is room for improvement? A.: There will always be, but you have to spent sometimes listening to music too ! - Don't you think?? (yeees Sir!) Q.: Have you got plans for upgrading? A.: Thinking of upgrading my cartridge from Clearaudio 'accurate' to insider 'reference', (as Mr. Skaloumbakas insists...), and my digital combo to Audiomeca transport / Birdland decoder. Also I am waiting news from Mile Nestorovic about his speakers prototype's changes. In summary, further upgrading will take place as follows, only if I can test the equipment at my place and sound better:
Page Follow-up... (info entered on 02 July 2002) I have made the following updates to my systrem:
Page Follow-up... (info entered on 01 December 2006) Recently, I have made the following changes to my system:
- Substituted the Jan Allaerts mc2 Gold cartridge, with the Clearaudio 'Goldfinger'. - Substituted the Klyne 7 LP phono stage, with the Aesthetix Io Signature. Listening comments coming soon... | ||||||||||||||||||
- Substituted the MSB Technology AD converter, with the Metronome Technologie C2 Reference. - Added the Nestorovic Labs NA-12 (250Hz) Active X/O. Listening comments coming soon... | ||||||||||||||||||
The latest upgrade of the satellites was in 2004 just before Mile got a stroke from which he sadly hasn't recovered yet. I am constantly visiting concerts (60-100/year) and I often compare the sound with what I get at home. Therefore, my system is oriented to classical music but that doesn't mean that people loving other genres don't get an amazing experience when listening to their CD's on this system. The best way to get an idea of its performance is to come here and listen to it, you are all welcome. IMHO, my system's sound is close to what I hear in a Concert Hall, sitting in what I consider the best seats. (Central in rows: 7 – 15). As for my plans for upgrading, I might get the Callysto Signature preamplifier from Aesthetix. Maybe I might also do some small tuning; nothing special... |
