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PM/estimator for residential a/v company. I'll definetely give you some feedback, should be an interesting speaker. Doesn't look quite up to its price point on paper and there's been few reviews to go off of but I'm holding strong on it going well in this particular room and how this guy listens to music.

All Macintosh pretty much, sounds great so far with a pair of Snell C7's we put out on loan.

c2500 pre

mc452 amp

mcd 550 cd/sacd

men 220 room corrector (think audyssey on steroids)

Couple digital inputs -

mac mini

marantz ud7007 blu-ray

75" 4k panel/smart hub

laced together with mid-range kimber kable

:wub: :wub:

What's that guy do for a living?? Just shooting from the hip, with those new speakers that's in the ballpark of a $50k system; right??

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Hmm. I may have to grab that receiver. That would just plug in to the existing stuff I have and I'd be good to go?

Yes, as long as none of the wires were messed with (the wires in your house) you should just be able to plug it in. It'll def do everything that Niles amp they recommended will, plus you'll have a tuner. First turn all your wall volumes down, then plug that Denon in and set the Denon's volume somewhere that's the max you would like to be able to turn up the speakers. You could also get a good BT device to plug into the receiver and possibly be able to control what you listen to using your phone.

Edited by mattsk8
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Yes, as long as none of the wires were messed with (the wires in your house) you should just be able to plug it in. It'll def do everything that Niles amp they recommended will, plus you'll have a tuner. First turn all your wall volumes down, then plug that Denon in and set the Denon's volume somewhere that's the max you would like to be able to turn up the speakers. You could also get a good BT device to plug into the receiver and possibly be able to control what you listen to using your phone.

Old airport expresses are hard to beat if you're on iPhone

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Old airport expresses are hard to beat if you're on iPhone

And he is, pretty sure he has a new 6 so good call.

I do have an Iphone. adding an airport express into the list of things to checkout/purchase.

Thanks! you guys Rock.

Ok, is there a specific airport express you'd recommend?

Looks like it needs to be at least a 2nd generation Airport express if what im finding is correct?

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I may have one laying around. If I find it tonight I'll throw it in a box with a stereo to RCA plug and shoot you a pm.

:wub::wub:

What's that guy do for a living?? Just shooting from the hip, with those new speakers that's in the ballpark of a $50k system; right??

Finance, go figure. Specific role I'm not sure of, only his firm. Good estimate - all in equip for that room is $65k, so $50k something for the audio equip - add in control, shiny cables, blu-ray, mac mini, and TV the price goes up a bit.

Out of everything, I am thrilled with the Mac mini and it's role in this system. Guy moved and liquidated a few thousand LP's so the idea was to bring him over to a totally new (to him) way of sourcing and listening to music without sacrifice. Between the monitor (75hu8550, 75" samsung 4k), on-board DAC of the c2500, and the pc it really does sound great (this is with old Snell C7s) while keeping everything SO accessible. Plus, with the blue-tooth keyboard/touch pad and beefy remote (RTi T2x) its incredibly easy to operate too.

Personally, I have never used that room corrector but it comes highly regarded. Getting that dialed in to this hard-to-voice room along with the KEFs breaking in the system should be at a different level very quickly.

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Personally, I have never used that room corrector but it comes highly regarded. Getting that dialed in to this hard-to-voice room along with the KEFs breaking in the system should be at a different level very quickly.

I haven't played with anything short of Audyssey or Yamaha's YPAO. I have an Omnimic that works through my PC, that actually does a phenomenal job of taking measurements but obviously there's no auto correction or time delay; all I can do is measure, then adjust accordingly.

Edited by mattsk8
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I haven't played with anything short of Audyssey or Yamaha's YPAO. I have an Omnimic that works through my PC, that actually does a phenomenal job of taking measurements but obviously there's no auto correction or time delay; all I can do is measure, then adjust accordingly.

Tell me about it, there is some fun to be had breaking out the painters tape and a measuring tape and getting things all dialed in. With this thing I'll just measure of system center and off the wall, toe in a touch and let it go mostly.

As far as those speakers go:

OqtSW0V.jpg

Obligatory tubes

4OxjzaB.jpg

Right out of the box - the packaging was sufficient, not quite what I'd like to have seen but certainly good enough. Part of the reason I say this is that there was a ring around both speakers, top and bottom, from where the fabric that wrapped them for protection had rubbed into the finish. Thank god a little elbow grease had this removed - not what was expected in a speaker of this caliber. Once removing the blemishes I was finally able to enjoy the fit and finish of the speaker. The cabinet is a remarkably deep black and even while the face has this muted gleam that is really quite great - even if the picture makes them look kind of generic. Grills are not even an option as they do not ship with.

The base of these speakers are worth mentioning as they are incredibly dense with great carpet spikes. Plus there's a nifty little level built into them. Speaker looks thin but has a great amount of depth. Bass drivers surrounding KEF's uni-q driver is a, somewhat, unique appearance and the two bass ports in the rear have swappable baffles to help bring the low end to your liking and to your rooms acoustics.

Now, aside from whatever quality control these went through - and judging by production certificate - Mathew from KEF did spend some time making sure frequency response was up to par and within spec and we were even provided a graph for this pair.

Didn't get to really set them in, but powering on the speakers (Brahms: The Cello Sonatas performed by Rostropovich, Serkin) I continued to be impressed . I loved the Snells for their flowing, open sound that was still very articulate. The KEFs, however, make them a appear muddy and unrefined right out of the box - almost to a fault. The detail they present is beyond impressive. I am hoping that the break-in will open them up some and pick up on some the Snell's characteristics I was hoping to expand upon and bring some "emotion" forward. The lack of imaging at this point, I am imagining and hoping, comes from not being able to take the time to place them correctly. Again, the room corrector should work some magic here but I'd like to not rely on it completely.

All in all, if it were my money I'd likely be more critical but for now, and in this initial phase, I am excited and quite pleased. I am positive our guy will be running these non-stop until Tuesday, when I'll be configuring the corrector, so we should be approaching the break-in period fairly quickly. The pre and the amp are accumulating hours as well which is only going to benefit us come time to voice.

Edit: Had this guy going on today too -

grFWX2Z.jpg

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Ok so this is the back of the receiver that should be arriving tomorrow-

92047F5F-58D8-470A-BE3A-05E454EDEFA4_zps

And this is the wires going to my house speakers

5A9C45A8-BB2B-47CD-B84A-B8F048ABCC1D_zps

How exactly do I want to wire these together?

BDE610A1-B344-475B-A149-3231BBD22EE8_zps

Thanks!

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No labelling on the wiring? Ouch. No sure how you'd go about figuring out where exactly white and green are going. If it had been me, I'd have probably made the normal red/black pair right channel and the white/green pair left with white being positive. But I don't think you can tell for sure without pulling the speakers and looking.

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So, typically

Red - Right Positive

Black - Right Negative

White - Left Positive

Green - Left Negative

This is how it was done in your house as well, according to your connectors.

So go from "Main A" into the Hub, hopefully you have the phoenix clip. If not use one of the ones still attached. Speakers should all be connected in that middle portion of the hub while amp input is labeled off to the right.

Airport Express into CD input.

Before firing it all up, turn all of your volume controls to the left (off). Put your airplay device at ~%50 as well then adjust the amp volume about %50.

Go room by room bringing the volume up on your device to test and hopefully by the end of your walk you'll have a working stereo.

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If that doesn't work, wouldn't the back-up plan be to OHm all the combinations of pairs, like red/green red/black red/white etc, with the NILES's connectors plugged in? When you get a hit that is 8ohsm, or something reasonable, that's the pair. Non-working combos would be ultra high resistance.

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