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All new from Niam - klipsch and sugden


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Hi,

 

Thought i would introduce myself, as i'm new here and from England so a little different im guessing from average! A little history. I come from an all Naim setup (very english) with revel m106 speakers, long story short i had a few reliability issues which i wont go into as i dont want to bad mouth the brand as they did everything possible to help me out and wouldn't put anyone off owning the brand as it does sound stellar when all working correctly.

 

Anyhow the experience left a somewhat bad taste in my mouth. So i was able to sell my gear and return the parts that weren't working for a full refund. Firstly i just swapped out the amp and dac with a class A Sugden a21 signature and Chord Qutest dac (again about as english as you can get) with the hope of keeping the wonderful revel m106's. Alas, Even though the 106's sounded great through the Sugden, chord combo it wasn't able to take command of the revels in the same way the Naim could! SO the hunt began for some new speakers!  Luckily my dealer had just started stocking the heritage line so i went about demoing the Heresy 3 and Forte 3's and eventually settled on the Heresy's.

 

The bass, is more than deep enough for my room. Really don't know what some of you gents and girls are talking about in regards to bass, in my system there full, fat and fast with no bloat what so ever! Yes you don't get that last octave but if your coming from standmounts and/or small floor standers then thats the bass your going to get again more important things as far as im concerned. And no i wont take them off the floor, tried it, sounded awful! They need all the boundaries and are clearly designed for it. 

 

As for the sound with the Sugden and chord in tow, the Heresy sound is clean and airy, not bright though! with none of the wall of sound people keep referring too yes its big and room filling but they're far more precise than that. They actually image incredibly well and up there with the Revels in the at regard (no mean feet). Detail isn't as strong as the Revels but i can still clearly follow everything in and around the track. With the amps 23 watts giving more than enough head room to make them sing, really sing. The amp delivers a fatigue free sound that one can listen to for hours. Bad and good recording sound great but you do know your listening to lesser recording when played. and perfectly mirrors the Heresy's sound while giving them bass heft needed. though the Sugden like the volume up a touch more than normal to get the sound come alive a little more.

 

For those who wish to know what the dac sounds like! It's basically a chord hugo2 with none of the portability functions, amp, battery, cross feed and so on. And because of it, it sounds far better. The sound is light footed with an easy flowing nature, nothing "digital" about it. Its very organic, again its not bright but has plenty of detail on tap makes "death from above 1979" sound less compressed and easier follow than my naim dac. The bass hummmm, its the best ive heard at this price delivered with ease and starts and stops on a penny. Its simple honest hifi.

I guess thats the word for this dac, Honest nothing, hidden if its there it played but never fatiguing it very finely judged. If you don't think dac's can make a difference then fine im not hear to say other wise, but if you want to listen to one, IMO its one of the best sounding dac's on the market, don't hesitate to demo one. Yes its expensive but i believe you get what you pay for. For those that may be wondering with this combo the dac needs to be set to its 1V setting, one! too allow for greater control of the volume control and two, the amps full power is reached far to early on the volume at around 9 o'cloc when set to 2V. 

 

As for Cables, im not a "believer", they either make a difference or not it's not a faith. I know for a fact they do, BUT! its tuning and thats all . Its not a drastic change and also its not always the most expensive cables that make a difference, sometimes its the £2 per meter 79 strand somtimes its the £30 a meter stuff they all make a difference good or bad some amps and compoents are completely indifferent. In my case for this system, Atlas hyper cables made massive difference over my linn k20 ( cheap as chips over here and was perfect for the naim) and QED interconnects . But im not hear to start a cable debate, as with all things in hi fi go and listen for yourself and make your own damn mind up. Don't hear a difference, great save your money and move on. Just don't be a sheep/lemming, same for dac's and amps. 

 

But the biggest thing i love about this system is the fact everything in this system is assembled by hand by great machinists and craftsmen and woman some very local some not so local (klipsch) and i love that! 

 

Attached a few picture below forgive the room its about to be re-modelled (decorated) and hope to show you that in the future. 

 

sorry for my bad grammar and spelling in advance, im a designer by trade and don't write much at all

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1 hour ago, billybob said:

So glad you're digging on your system with the Klipsch... some find the Heresy III bass adequate for their taste. Your Revel had to sound good, would like to think.

 

The Revels and the klipsch are very different animals and i really enjoy/enjoyed both but they do sound somewhat similar and don't at the same time, neither or are better than one another they just do different things. As far as mini monitors go those Revels are in a league of the own and is really as good as its gets having to step up 2-3k more to get any substantial difference/or what one would call an upgrade and the differences are not 2 times the prices!. The Revels just required more good quality power and not just watts (and thats getting to be a very expensive game these days) to get them singing, and its more than the Sugden could provide and really wouldn't expect it too but in use it gave it really good shot. BUT the Heresy's really do something a lot different to Revels they render things somewhat different to one another,  both bold and dynamic though.

 

The Revels compress a lot more at high volume, the Heresy's just dont let up even with the single ended class A. But the bass on this mini montior was very impressive,  to the  point with some tracks you would ask where's the sub is, but they had there limits and really went no lower the Heresy do but being ported they pressurised the room far more . But as i said, i enjoyed both but i just wanted to come away from naim and the only other amplification that sounded good with the Revels (IMO) was mark levison (seeing as they where developed with that brand in mind, both harmon house brands) and thats money i just didn't want/couldn't spend. The klipsch and Sugden really is the best my money could buy and the sugden being the very valve like without the downsides valves gettings me 90% of the way there and thats a comprise i was willing to make. But im glad i did it taken nearly three months for the heresy to really open up and amp (considering how hot it gets) is still burning in. Hope you guys get to expericance sugden with the heritage line at some point it really is match made for each other.

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