i wonder if they would be any better than your Ruark's which are quite well built and designed. i think you would have to go a bit further up the chain to appreciably outdistance the Ruark's.

what is it about the Ruark's that you find lacking, or what is it you are looking for in another speaker?

Hi,

Hi dingus,

To answer your question.......................I don't know why I want some more speakers, I have asked myself this.

The conclusion that I have come up with is this.............................it's all in my mind!

Let me explain, because I have recently bought a Tag Mclaren PA20R preamp, the Harman Kardon PA2400 power amp & my latest buy, the Esoteric SA-60 Universal disc player........................I just have it in my mind that there is something lacking!!

Hence me blaming the Ruark speakers!!

Having assembled all this new hifi & listening to it, apart from the Esoteric which has not been delivered yet, there is something 'missing'.

I have my hifi set up in my 'office' at home, it's just a small room, 2.5 metres wide x 5 metres long.

But I can only have the speakers 1.3 metres apart & I think that this is not allowing me to obtain soundstage, depth, height, etc.

Don't get me wrong everything sounds ok, but it lacks something & I don't know what.....................hence my mind taking the easy way out..................blame the speakers!

I honesty believe/believed that the Ruark Templars are not in the same league as the Tag, HK & Esoteric...................as I explained in my introductory post here at ST, is this naiveity on my part.

Perhaps it's my hearing, I don't know, I just want more!

But in all honesty, I don't know what this 'more' is!!

I have emailed Esoteric regarding plugging the SA-60 into 'my mains filtration & they came back to me & said DEFINITELY DO NOT PLUG THE SA-60 IN!!

The mains filtration is a 'Russ Andrews 4 way Silencer Block' as shown here, bought for £65 in their 'bargain corner'!!

http://www.russandrews.com/product.asp?loo...MMLYTHYSWXHIQHU

But I have been using this for several months now & to me it has improved the sound!!

So to get back to your original question.........................I don't honestly know why I want some more speakers......................................because they were ok before all this 'new' stuff arrived

Help & advice definitely needed, PLEASE!!

willie




PS Since posting I have had another 'thought', two in one day!!

Could it be the Marantz CD 67 SE, heavily modded though, just a thought!

so how goes the speaker search?

Any news from the Esoteric?

Hi all,

dingus & clint e,

To answer your questions re my speaker search & the Esoteric SA 60.

My search for speakers has come to a halt, I have no decent 'hifi shops' near me to listen to various speakers, so I will probably have to buy them 'blind' & hope for the best, but, as I have stated earlier, do I really need any other speakers!!

Re the Esoteric SA 60, it's a fantastic cdp, but I am extremely glad I didn't pay anywhere near the full price.

It definitely 'improves' the playback of all my cd's, sacd's & dvd audio disc's, but, this is only my opinion, is doesn't warrant such a huge price (new)!

As a matter of fact it highlights a lot of my cd collection, in as much as that you now realise how bad the original recordings are, it shows the lack of good recording practise by the recording studio's.

I would also welcome your/any advice on the three settings on the Esoteric for audio playback, they are;

1. FIR
2. RDOT+FIR
3. PCM-DSD

Please refer to Esoteric SA 60 user manual shown on this link;

http://esoteric.teac.com/resources/pdf/SA-60%28EF%29B.pdf

Getting back to the speaker issue, I would welcome ANY advice.

With reference to a comment in one of clint e's posts, I can understand him using a computer disc drive to play cd's, as stated earlier, the Esoteric SA 60 is GOOD, but in my opinion, they are VASTLY overpriced.

willie

interesting. what type of cable are you using with the Esoteric? also you might benefit from a DAC, but i expect the cost of a matching Esoteric DAC would be high.

Hi All,

dingus,

I am using Nordost Blue Heaven & their Solar Wind as well as Chord Cobra 3, plus some Technics Class 1 LC-OFC CORD for Hi-Fi Audio (Made in Japan)!!.

Hope this info helps, still pleased I bought the Esoteric SA60, but I thought the 'quality difference' would be similar to the impact that cd had over cassette tape!!

willie

perhaps this is contributing to what you find lacking with the speakers? sometimes the best best you can do is to hope that a remastered or re-issue version is up to par (if even available).

Hi,

dingus,

One thing that I have 'learnt' over the last several months is that there is indeed a lot of hype over speaker cables & interconnects.

I have some reasonably priced cables, all of which were bought 'used' & were also cheap.

But I saw my friend, the wizz kid, recently & he had made some interconnects using enamelled silver wire, as the signal wire & enamelled copper wire as the earth/return.

They were almost like the anti cables that you can buy, the copper wire was 'coiled' around the silver wire, see the link below for 'anti cables,

http://www.anticables.com/anti-ic_photo.html

My friend had been using them for over two weeks when I heard them. At first he said they were awful, but they had got much better.

When I heard them, just a week ago, I was amazed, they sounded fantastic.

His total outlay was £4.86 ($7.75)!!!!

So all this 'snake oil' stuff about cables is just that, SNAKE OIL.

These cables were so good I intend to have a go & make some.

In my opinion, they were as good as all the cables that I have.

Comments REALLY welcome here, please.

willie

i asked about your cables to the Esoteric because i see it can use cables with an XLR connection which is generally preferred over RCA.

as for DIY cables i did some silver wire IC's that i use with superb results in my main rig - http://www.sound-thinking.org/index.php?showtopic=2959. as you'll see in the thread i had no idea what i was doing going into the project and came out only slightly more informed. i am very happy with the end results though.