Hi all
I just bought MSB Premier with Digital Director and s500 power amp to drive my Estelon X Diamond Signature speakers.
As it is adviced i take the s500 amp’s gain to low to keep the volume between 95 to 106db on dac.
System is verry detailed and has great tonality from 70 to 90db but after 95 everythin changes. Soundstage gets bigger in all directions. System starts to make a holographic soundstage with lots of micro details in the blackest silent backround i ever heard. After my Goldmund Telos 690 it is quite a difference. I don’t know if i am gonna used to this ristricted range to listen music. Let’s see
My question is comparing my older systems lov level listening performance is really problematic. Soundstage shrinks and do not hear much details. Is it becouse of digital volume control or lovering the amps gain?
I use an audioquest niagara 3000 which is great with my older amps( ok normally amps must be plugged directly to mains on wall but audioquest says plug it into high current input and i am very happly used that way) but maybe this giant amp is to much for it.Does it make worse the lov level listening quality?
my experience with the M205 is that the 3000 simply isn’t capable to supply the needed transient power, I upgraded to the 7000 and was very happy with the result but sadly I have similar experience, my old system doesn’t sound as good every (by a wide margin).
However my M205’s driving Estelon X Diamond MkII with the Cascade as a source need louder volumes than I am used to to come to life. At my normal listening level (55 on the cascade) the system is simply great but when the cascade hits 65 the system becomes amazing!
I have a pair of M500s and each has its own Niagara 7000. It really works really well. When I first added them I had some (skeptical) audiophile friends, who had heard my system many times before, over to listen. They couldn’t believe the improvements they heard.
Go by your own ears, of course, but keep in mind that when you set the gain on the Cascade over 100 you adding an active gain stage to the output. At 100 and below the volume control is purely passive.
Past 100 you are not adding an active gain stage. It is actually applying digital gain before conversion. This is for getting the volume up properly on quiet recordings (such as A Nightingale in Berkley Square by Harry Connick Jr) the proper gain setting on the M500 or S500 for your speakers is either low gain, or if you are often setting your volume to more than 100 with low gain then med or high gain. If you are occasionally setting to more than 100, especially with quiet recordings, then you have the gain set perfectly.
It is likely due to the limitations of the digital volume control. The volume control on the Premier is actually a analog/digital hybrid, so as you scale down the volume steps it may improve in certain areas. As Dustin said, the gain above 100 is digital on the Premier as well. The closer you are to 100 will have better signal/noise ratio, so that is always ideal. If you could get your hands on a used Reference DAC, that would have the fully analog preamp option.
S500 is a beast. It is a monster amp for sure. It is super silent and drüvüng speaker with authority. Best bass performans i ever heard. We do not know the damping factor but i gueass it is at least 2-3.000
