March 2015 SAC Meeting
For our March meeting we featured a return visit from audio enthusiast and repair specialist, Christian Feillafe. Christian has extensive experience with audio equipment designs, circuits and parts. He works for Coda Audio (http://www.coda-audio.com.au/index.html) and services everything from amplifiers to Yamaha recording desks. Accompanying Christian on the day was his good friend Jonathan Page. Jonathan was instrumental in helping to setup the equipment.
Christian had previously presented to the club back in October 2013. Since then he’d made further extensive modifications to his 6 foot high (per side) stack of Quad electrostatic panels. His panels were configured in a D’Appolito style with a bass panel on top and bottom, and a midrange/tweeter panel in between. The midrange/tweeter panels had an incredibly thin 1 micron Mylar membrane/diaphragm. The bass panels had a 3 micron Mylar membrane. All panels were fully rewired and had their transformers rebuilt yet again by Christian (ask Christian on the day for all the mods). The frames of the panels were made of polycarbonate. The speakers measured very flat throughout the lows to highs giving a considerably smoother sound than standard vintage Quad panels. Christian is very familiar with Quad panels – over the years he has rebuilt many for himself and for his friends.
Driving the bass panels was a rebuilt NAD 3155 power amp delivering 65 wpc. The midrange/tweeter panels were driven by a NAD 317 delivering 80 wpc. Among the many changes were better CAPs which opened up the sound appreciably.
For Christian’s demonstration he used a music server as the front-end. He had a Mac Mini running Audirvana, running through a SOTM USB convertor and then into a stock Benchmark DAC2 (connected via a QED PMMA Graphite optical cable).
Christian’s cables were mostly his own design and build. They were made of solid core pure silver and had thick shields. The result was an open and fast sounding cable.
The digital player for our BYO session was a Marantz Universal player (model UD7007) that had been heavily modified by club member Bill Louey.
Tom opened the meeting and promptly warned about the high voltages in the panels and the potential to trip over the cables strewn across the floor. Tom then introduced Keith Morris – Keith is a good friend of Christian’s and wished to say a few words about the system. Keith runs Quad panels at home that have been rebuilt by Christian, and is one of many people that has benefited from Christian’s knowledge and assistance over the years. Tom then introduced Christian and Jonathan.
Christian was brief in his description of his system. He then played an entertaining cross-section of tracks across many genres. Afterwards, Bill Louey presented some great music in our member’s music segment.
The system was smooth sounding with very good timbre and micro detail. It also had great midrange presence. However, it also had a light bass balance – the system may have sounded better with a good subwoofer but it would be tricky at best to balance such fast sounding panels with a subwoofer unless that sub was also very fast. And really fast subs tend to be scarce and fairly expensive. However, I think that in a normal sized room the bass would sound more balanced with the mids and highs without a subwoofer. Christian said on the day that he was a bit surprized the bass sounded somewhat light.
Electrostatic panels also often exhibit an inability to be played loudly. When pushed too hard they can arc and start to snap crackle and pop. Because of our large room we did have to turn the volume up, sometimes past the point where the panels were comfortable. So Jonathan and Christian had to monitor and juggle the volume up and down appropriately to get the best from the system and whatever track we were playing at the time.
The system was also somewhat lacking in dynamic range and hence the jump factor that suggests that what you are listening to is live. By definition, dynamic range in music is a measure of the softest to the loudest volume present in the music. If a system is unable to play loudly then we tend to hear that as a restriction in the dynamics. And our brain translates that and tells us that we are not listening to something that is live. Still, that is no ‘slight’ on Christian’s system. I can say with honesty that I haven’t heard any HiFi system that allowed me to believe I was listening to real live music. To quote Wikipedia, “In practice, it is difficult to achieve the full dynamic range experienced by humans using electronic equipment.”. That’s quite an understatement.
All in all, I very much enjoyed the system and sound. Christian has obviously spent many hours trialling various ideas, and adopting the best along the way. Lastly, I might mention that I thought the system sounded much more ‘of a whole’ from the back of the room. The frequencies were even better balanced, and instrumentation and voices painted more of an integrated picture.
We had our normal half-time break around 3:15. However, just prior to our break we had a Q&A session which lasted about 10 minutes. It was great to see so much interested generated in the system and Christian’s approach to audio.
After our break, Bill Louey said to me that he’d had a few people ask if he would be prepared to modify their UD7007 universal player for them. At first he was hesitant because modifying other people’s gear is not something he usually does. But he decided he might give it a try and asked for a moment to address the club and pass his message on. If you’d like Bill to make similar modifications to your UD7007 player then speak with Bill directly, or let me know and I will put you in touch.
In closing, I’d like to thank Christian and Jonathan for presenting the system and being so considerate in answering all the questions. It was a most enjoyable day, in fact, a couple of people said they thought it was the best sound we’ve ever had! And of course, my thanks to Bill Louey for bringing in his universal player and presenting some of the music he loves. Thanks all.
Tom Waters
Summary of member feedback:
Christian had previously presented to the club back in October 2013. Since then he’d made further extensive modifications to his 6 foot high (per side) stack of Quad electrostatic panels. His panels were configured in a D’Appolito style with a bass panel on top and bottom, and a midrange/tweeter panel in between. The midrange/tweeter panels had an incredibly thin 1 micron Mylar membrane/diaphragm. The bass panels had a 3 micron Mylar membrane. All panels were fully rewired and had their transformers rebuilt yet again by Christian (ask Christian on the day for all the mods). The frames of the panels were made of polycarbonate. The speakers measured very flat throughout the lows to highs giving a considerably smoother sound than standard vintage Quad panels. Christian is very familiar with Quad panels – over the years he has rebuilt many for himself and for his friends.
Driving the bass panels was a rebuilt NAD 3155 power amp delivering 65 wpc. The midrange/tweeter panels were driven by a NAD 317 delivering 80 wpc. Among the many changes were better CAPs which opened up the sound appreciably.
For Christian’s demonstration he used a music server as the front-end. He had a Mac Mini running Audirvana, running through a SOTM USB convertor and then into a stock Benchmark DAC2 (connected via a QED PMMA Graphite optical cable).
Christian’s cables were mostly his own design and build. They were made of solid core pure silver and had thick shields. The result was an open and fast sounding cable.
The digital player for our BYO session was a Marantz Universal player (model UD7007) that had been heavily modified by club member Bill Louey.
Tom opened the meeting and promptly warned about the high voltages in the panels and the potential to trip over the cables strewn across the floor. Tom then introduced Keith Morris – Keith is a good friend of Christian’s and wished to say a few words about the system. Keith runs Quad panels at home that have been rebuilt by Christian, and is one of many people that has benefited from Christian’s knowledge and assistance over the years. Tom then introduced Christian and Jonathan.
Christian was brief in his description of his system. He then played an entertaining cross-section of tracks across many genres. Afterwards, Bill Louey presented some great music in our member’s music segment.
The system was smooth sounding with very good timbre and micro detail. It also had great midrange presence. However, it also had a light bass balance – the system may have sounded better with a good subwoofer but it would be tricky at best to balance such fast sounding panels with a subwoofer unless that sub was also very fast. And really fast subs tend to be scarce and fairly expensive. However, I think that in a normal sized room the bass would sound more balanced with the mids and highs without a subwoofer. Christian said on the day that he was a bit surprized the bass sounded somewhat light.
Electrostatic panels also often exhibit an inability to be played loudly. When pushed too hard they can arc and start to snap crackle and pop. Because of our large room we did have to turn the volume up, sometimes past the point where the panels were comfortable. So Jonathan and Christian had to monitor and juggle the volume up and down appropriately to get the best from the system and whatever track we were playing at the time.
The system was also somewhat lacking in dynamic range and hence the jump factor that suggests that what you are listening to is live. By definition, dynamic range in music is a measure of the softest to the loudest volume present in the music. If a system is unable to play loudly then we tend to hear that as a restriction in the dynamics. And our brain translates that and tells us that we are not listening to something that is live. Still, that is no ‘slight’ on Christian’s system. I can say with honesty that I haven’t heard any HiFi system that allowed me to believe I was listening to real live music. To quote Wikipedia, “In practice, it is difficult to achieve the full dynamic range experienced by humans using electronic equipment.”. That’s quite an understatement.
All in all, I very much enjoyed the system and sound. Christian has obviously spent many hours trialling various ideas, and adopting the best along the way. Lastly, I might mention that I thought the system sounded much more ‘of a whole’ from the back of the room. The frequencies were even better balanced, and instrumentation and voices painted more of an integrated picture.
We had our normal half-time break around 3:15. However, just prior to our break we had a Q&A session which lasted about 10 minutes. It was great to see so much interested generated in the system and Christian’s approach to audio.
After our break, Bill Louey said to me that he’d had a few people ask if he would be prepared to modify their UD7007 universal player for them. At first he was hesitant because modifying other people’s gear is not something he usually does. But he decided he might give it a try and asked for a moment to address the club and pass his message on. If you’d like Bill to make similar modifications to your UD7007 player then speak with Bill directly, or let me know and I will put you in touch.
In closing, I’d like to thank Christian and Jonathan for presenting the system and being so considerate in answering all the questions. It was a most enjoyable day, in fact, a couple of people said they thought it was the best sound we’ve ever had! And of course, my thanks to Bill Louey for bringing in his universal player and presenting some of the music he loves. Thanks all.
Tom Waters
Summary of member feedback:
- Enjoyment of the Meeting: 4.2
- Enjoyment of the Equipment: 4.1
- Enjoyment of the Music: 3.8
- Speakers were excellent
- Good fun meeting. Very good mid-range
- Nice and smooth, good voice tone, good integration, soundstaging OK
- Needs a really good subwoofer, otherwise superb
- One of the very best sound we have had for a long time!
- Chopin
- Stravinski
- Missy Higgins