Out of all the feedback I get about this series of articles, the most common refrain is, “Man, those guys are lucky.” On the face of it I guess that’s reasonable, given that Ron and Rob, my two most active audiophile neighbors, get to listen to some seriously high-end audio equipment as a side benefit of my position as senior editor of SoundStage! Ultra.
What isn’t immediately obvious, though, is that I actively need these guys. Rob is the most conspicuous contributor. As I said in last August’s For the Record column on SoundStage! Ultra, Rob is a contractor, and he often works with landscaping stone. Once I helped him lift a limestone paving block out of his truck and it almost flattened me. I’m not really built for manual labor, but I never considered myself weak until I had to work with Rob. He’s incredibly strong, and his assistance in moving heavy speakers and amplifiers is invaluable. Rob also has a great ear—I often have him over to listen to new equipment, and I value his opinions.
Ron’s contributions are more in line with typical audiophile geezering. I first met Ron about 18 years ago, long before he had moved into our little group of townhouses. He was involved in the same industry as my longtime friend Rich, and Rich had arranged a visit to Ron’s place to hear his new—to him—Quad 57s and Quad II combo. It was a great session, and I left with a firm appreciation for this classic pairing.
Then, a few years later, Ron moved into our neighborhood. It was about a year before either of us twigged to this prior association. One day I was walking past his house and saw him outside on his porch. Hey—wait a minute, I thought to myself. I know that guy. Since that day, Ron has been a regular visitor. And he’s just loaded with gear and accessories.
“Hey Ron,” I texted recently, “can I use your stylus-pressure gauge? I can’t find mine.” Another time: “Do you have an extra power conditioner I can use? I’m running out of outlets.” Or, “Do you have an extra DAC we can use for Rob’s place?”
“I’ll be right over,” he’d invariably respond.
Just as important is Ron’s assistance with turntable setup and system debugging. Ron also has a good ear, and he’s much more logically minded than I am. Ron keeps me from getting ahead of myself when unboxing equipment, and he’s got a good mind for the Tetris-like task of packing up equipment for return.
And really, the logistics of full-time reviewing mean that I have to line up a fair amount of equipment, and often have overlapping arrivals. One amp comes in for review as I’m finishing with another. Rather than leaving the new unit in the box in my already-full garage, I’ll shoot it over to one of the neighbors so that they can break it in for me—and have some fun in the meantime. Everybody wins.
So far, we’ve all been happy with this arrangement. I offer, and they accept. Just recently, though, both Ron and I were totally blown away with the experience of listening to the Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 Signatures. We agreed that these were the best speakers we’d ever heard in my listening room. Rob, however, disagreed. He preferred the DALI Epikore 9s, and that’s fair, as they are also exceptional speakers. As I reported in my March editorial on SoundStage! Ultra, I’ve been working to recreate the 801 experience with the smaller 805 D4 Signature standmount speakers and a pair of DB2D subwoofers. While I was discussing this plan, Ron made his pitch.
“I’d really like to break those 805s in for you. I mean, I’d really like that.” This was the first time he’d ever asked me for such a favor. My original plan had been to listen to the 805s without subs in order to get a feel for what they could do by themselves, but Ron’s request made me rethink how I could work it. As I said last month, I ultimately decided to try the subs first and see what they could bring to my system. I would later bring in the 805s and audition them with and without the subwoofers.
The first order of business was to wheel the 805s and their matching stands over to Ron’s place and decant them. Ron assembled the stands in short order, and we proceeded to unbox the speakers. This was a much easier task than dealing with the tank-like 801s. Once we had the 805s bolted to the stands, I left Ron to hook up the 805s to his Audiomat tube integrated amplifier.
“The Audiomat’s been a touch finicky lately,” said Ron. “The tube sockets are getting loose, and there’s no way to replace them without totally disassembling the amp. She’s showing her age, the old girl. I’ll try to tighten them up a bit.”
Ron’s quite handy with a soldering iron, so I left him to his own devices. I got a message shortly after, and it seemed he was happy with the combination. The next day I hopped over for a quick listen and heard much of the 801’s midrange magic in the 805, but I also noted that the bass and lower midrange were a bit flabby due to the tubed nature of the Audiomat. Ron agreed with this assessment.
Still, Ron was enamored with the 805s. I’d asked him before if he would consider buying a pair if he liked them as much as the 801s, but he’d been evasive. I asked him again via text.
A few days later I got a call—it seemed that the magic smoke had escaped from the Audiomat; it had ceased being an integrated amp and instead had become a large doorstop. “It was old and it owed me nothing,” said Ron, ever the pragmatist. “You should come over,” he continued, “and see what I’m replacing it with. The espresso machine is warmed up.”
I hustled over and let out a laugh when I saw his rig. Sitting between the 805s was a Museatex Meitner STR-55 50Wpc amp fed by a Museatex Meitner PA-6i preamplifier (with wired remote control!). Ron also has a Museatex Bidat DAC, but at this time he was running a Chord Mojo DAC fed by an Auralic Aries Mini network streamer.
Museatex was formed back in 1990 by Ed Meitner and John Wright (who still services these products today). Ron has had a longstanding relationship with Ed Meitner of EMM Labs and Meitner Audio, going back many years. When they used to converse on the regular, Ed set him up with a full Museatex system, to which Ron added various components over the years. “I’ve had this stuff in the garage for years, and I use the STR-55 amp in my home-theater system on occasion. It’s good to see that it all works. Sounds quite good, don’t you think?”
It sure did. The cool factor from this vintage setup driving state-of-the-art speakers was off the charts. More importantly, the thickness down through the bottom was gone, along with a touch of midrange richness—but it was a change for the better, no doubt about that. Now the 805s had more of that instantaneous snap, both tonally and spatially. This Museatex stuff really sounded excellent, with no excuses necessary due to its age.
“This sounds very good, Ron,” I said. “But I think we can do better.” The Museatex gear and the Ed Meitner connection gave me an idea. I still had on hand the Meitner Audio PRE preamplifier, and what better use for this totally current unit than to drive a vintage Ed Meitner amp?
I nipped back home, stuffed the PRE under my arm, and returned to Ron’s. While I was gone, Ron had unearthed another Museatex amp—this time the 100Wpc Melior. “Oh yeah, I’ve got one of these, too. It’s black, so it’ll be a better match for the PRE.” It sure looked like business, what with the pencil-like heatsinks projecting out the back end.
We hooked up the PRE and the Melior, and even cold, this combination sounded significantly better than the Museatex preamp and STR-55 amp. We were approaching world-class sound, and now I had a good feeling that my plan to build a half-price 801 was going to work out just fine.
A few days later I got another text from Ron. He was of the same mind.
Jason Thorpe
Senior Editor, SoundStage!
