Thanks again Tls49, I appreciate your input. Like you, I bought these pieces thinking it should all be a good match, bought used of course. Spec wise, there is nothing really wrong with the system. But when I say it lacks Wow factor, perhaps I am referring to dynamics, or perhaps sound stage too? It's hard to put my finger on, or maybe I lack the language to describe what it lacks. But what I used to feel with my old system, and it was a real budget system that I would not even want to tell you about, but it gave me this long term attraction. One record lead to the next, and next, until I would find myself up at 2am on a work night! Unable to pull myself away, and each record would give me the name of the next one, and while I did like it extra loud on occasion, most times I was probably listening at about 86 to 90db or so. And late at night, not even that loud, maybe 60db max.
And there was another quality to it that I miss, that feeling of being there maybe? To be able to suspend disbelief and close my eyes and see my favorite bands up on the stage? But the emotional response, to be able to put a particular song on and know that if I set the volume up and settled back it would eventually bring a tear to my eye, I was emotionally vested in the performance! And I was not alone, I have seen a few of my friends reach this same nirvana on a few occasions. (You know the type, too cheap to get their own stereo, but do not mind coming to your house with a 6 pack in hand for an evening of good music!).
So, I thought this stereo system being of such higher pedigree, and the numbers that match well, should be blowing that old system away! But this is a new house, a larger room, and entirely different setup. The old stereo had runs of $1 a foot Monster Siamese speaker cable, with no ends on them, and I did have a pair of $75 Van den Hul linear crystal copper interconnects on my old Sony CDP608ES CD player, so again the cables I use now are far better, and to my ears sound great! In fact they made a nice leap forward after I installed them. (The Truthlinks) and I got these Legacy speaker cables with the speakers, one would think a good match, but of course we never really know. They are some very amazing speaker cables that outshine my old cables like magic. Not a great feat perhaps, but I never really had any complaints with the old wires. So, the new stereo can play loud! No problem there! It has serious bass! Amazing bass even, I am a bass guitar player and I am so impressed at how much more I can hear the bass player in my old favorite recordings. The highs are smooth and clear, I can hear deeper into the mix than I ever could with my old stereo. The soundstage is somewhat flatter, I do not get a great sense of who is in front and who is in the rear, as I have heard on other systems, the Martin Logan's excelled at that! I could tell where every piece was! And how tall the singer was! But of course they were being driven by $30K worth of electronics at the time. (At the salon, you may recall).
So, while all of these dimensions would seem to add up to a very nice system, I can hear that it does more, and sounds better on the surface, (deeper and accurate bass, smoother revealing highs), I can actually hear more of my favorite recordings than ever before! But, this stereo has never, not once ever brought a single tear to my cheek, no emotional involvement, and I do not have that feeling that one album will lead to another until I have lost all lack of time. How do I get that feeling back? What is missing from this system that the old bargin system had? OK I will tell you, it was an Adcom 555 & Adcom pre driving Bose 601 mkiii. Not trash by no means, but certainly nothing special. Perhaps this better spells out my dilemma, thanks for listening.
Russell
