Two in one system

Starting from the living room and moving into the dedicated room, the journey continues. All this while, I am doing the room for home theater purpose. Watching movie have never been the same again once you a have dedicated room. Although I had enjoy much of movies but something else crept up on my mind. What about stereo music ? The B&W speaker is really made for stereo and using it only for home theater is not fully utilizing it. Now having that in mind, I do something that is capable doing double duty. After doing some research and some consultation with friends, decided to get rid of the Emotiva processor and the power amp.

Looking from the pic above you can see that I had gone back to AVR from pre pro setup. This is the Yamaha A-3050 , the first Yamaha AVR that supports Dolby Atmos and DTS X. The model is from year 2015 and is the top of the line Yamaha AVR in that time. This is a 11.2 channel AVR. The price is very reasonable too, roughly about RM7,000. Keeping in mind that I wanted dual usage on my setup, I wanted Yamaha for the neutral sound. So this AVR will serve the purpose of surround sound and also pre amp on stereo.

Next up will be the new integrated amplifier which was highly recommended by a friend of mine. This is the Musical Paradise MP-501 integrated tube amp. It has 4 x KT150 power tubes which is capable of 65 watt in stereo mode. Coming from solid state amp into tube, it really makes me love music. The price for this nice amp is about RM6500, I guess is quite ok for this is a China brand. One of the important factor is that this integrated amp support HT bypass. With the HT bypass feature, with just a flip of a switch it can be an integrated amp or merely being a power amp only. This serve the purpose for me to be able to have pure 2 channel and also using it as power amp for the home theater. 

So now we have all the hardware for the audio, except that I still needed something to playback for my audio. This is the first time I have venture into digital audio playback. Had been reading quite a bit online on DAC. To be honest after much reading, I still don't quite know what is the DAC going to do for me. Nevertheless, I went to get this Arcam rDAC. A very simple dac with coaxial, USB and optical input with 1 pair of analogue output. It pretty much do 24/192 sampling. I simply hook up my Dell laptop to it play with foobar. All the files are loaded in external hard drive to be use. 

This is how the overall setup had changed into with the Yamaha, tube amp and the Arcam DAC. This is pretty decent given the fact that I have no idea what I was doing but just reading from internet. As a matter of fact, I had enjoy it very much. Hifi is really something far more complicated than home theater. Getting music nirvana is something I had invested a lot more than my home theater throughout the years. Till today, there are more things that I had wanted but still haven't get the chance to try it out. Hopefully this year will the the time to venture into analogue audio with vinyl record and turntable. Till that time comes, the journey continue.

B&W Comes Back To Malaysia. The Experts Group.

B&W speakers makes a come back to these shores. Arcam, Classe and Abbey Road Studio cables came along for a ride. If you're following Hi-Fi Avenue blog, then this is probably old news for you, but for those whom do not know, better late then never.

Abbey Road Studio cables on display.

The Experts Group, based in Singapore, has just opened a new showroom to show case the above audio specialty brands. The showroom, located between the B1 parking basement and Cold Storage supermarket at Jaya One commercial building, is tastefully decorated with minimalist design theme.

B&W I-pod accessories.
The "Lifestyle" home theater sound system featuring the PV-1 sub woofer.
The exclusive demo area for "high end" displays.
The Classe Delta series CDP and pre amp.
The Classe Delta series power amp.

The jewel in the showroom has gotta be the Kenneth Grange(famed British industrial designer) designed B&W Diamond Signature speakers. The demo pair, finished in white and top by a marble tweeter pod, looks absolutely exquisite(I kept thinking to myself, these RM$100K babies are going to be perfect for my audio cave!). The partnering electronics are a stack of Classe Delta CDP, pre and power amps. I do hope the system is better optimised on my next visit as I believed I only heard 20-30% of the system's potential performance.

B&W Diamond Signature, only 1000 pairs will be made, an instant collectible.
A close up of the mid Kevlar driver and diamond tweeter in it's dedicated marble pod.
B&W 804 and 805 S series speakers.
B&W CM series in black, and 6 series floor standers.

B&W CM series book shelf speakers with Arcam "lifestyle" mini hifi.
The latest Arcam FMJ series electronics.
The multi award wining Arcam Solo all in one system.

Almost the full range of B&W speakers are on display, along with Arcam electronics. The showroom is attended by Henry Loh and Sam Chan, both very helpful and friendly guys.

Do pay them a visit, or contact them at: 03-79568989