Room One
Stereo System:
Display:
Surround System:
Those of you who have dealt with me probably know that I have been having a long term affair with the Ambience Ribbons, the Australian made devices that I feel to be an unparalleled bargain in the esoteric market place of panel loudspeakers. Taking away the box of a transducer is the best way of removing sonic colouration. These particular speakers are the Reference series that at 95db sensitivity are the most efficient ribbons that I have ever encountered and give quite exceptional dynamics and headroom. Although my own musical taste verges on reprobate, these will handle anything with ease.
The three Moon Items are the top of the range of this particular series in Australia and give the same type of transcendental revelation into a recording as do the likes of the top end Mark Levinson or Krell, but without the clinical presentation of those products or the garish international pricing disparity.
The whole kit is wired with the Nordost cabling; in this particular room is where we keep our little box of Nordost tricks which is a delightful James Bond style of aluminium-suitcase-with-expensive-techo-bits-inside. The Nordost cable range allows one to climb a ladder of musical exposure as you go up the range almost regardless of the starting level of the equipment. One can find one’s self getting serious musical value for money out of a system where the speaker and interconnect cable is worth twice as much as the rest of the components put together.........
The Sharp LCM3700 is my favourite display by a major margin. I love this new generation of LCD panel, they completely lack the visible screen structure of a Plasma or CRT and this device in its null state forms the ideal black slab like a 2001 monolith... The non reflective qualities of this screen make its appearance truly stunning. Via a DVI connection from the Denon 2910 the image is startlingly detailed, like almost better than anything I’ve seen, however I think it may be sacrificing some smoothness of motion interpretation in comparison to the earlier model DV2900 running component connection. A very astute and careful customer I met suggested that the Faroudja processing in the Denon may be responsible for the motion interpretation on the particular display. One area with these Aquos LCDs that I have not had a problem with is their refresh rate. Even close up and personal against a state of art Plasma I see no discrete artifacts that are related to the refresh rate. If anything the artifacts that are seen of that nature are related to the digital TV broadcast rather than the panel.
Room Two
This is the "boardroom" for Carlton Audio Visual and is currently kitted out thus:
The recorder is the CD version of the old Superscope line of audio recorders and is an excellent way of incriminating ourselves at staff meetings...
The choice of speakers was largely cosmetic to match the TV but one must put a word in for the Morels as they are one of the better moving coil products available. We do a lot of business in their sub/sat products that frankly outmatch virtually everything else in the lifestyle arena. This room will be trying out the windows media centre products soon. There will be much consumer exposure of this convergence system product in the New Year and we expect to have a bit of fun along the way....
Enough for today
Regards
Rab Turner
+61 3 9639 2737
cavmail@carltonaudiovisual.com.au
164/172 Lygon St, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
