Hi all,
After listening to my XPL-200A's for a little while, I was getting impatient looking at my DX-1's sitting there doing nothing because I did not have a second stereo amplifier to utilise them.
So, off I went to my wife's uncle's place and borrowed his Dr. Thomas Music Fidelity pre and stereo power amp. After fiddling with the power taps to convert my DX-1's to 220v, I went about horizontally bi-amping my 200's. I hooked up my exisiting NAD 208THX for low frequency and the Dr. Thomas power amp for high frequency.
Before I connected up the DX-1, I was using my NAD 208 to bi-wire the 200's. My impression of the 200's without the DX-1 was that the soundstage was moderately wide, replication of instruments was very detailed and revealing in the top end, vocals were forward and almost like you could touch them and the bottom end provided enough bass extension that was definite but not tight and not so much a fuller sound as compared to my B&W 801's.
With the DX-1 connected, my experience was somewhat surreal yet amazed with a dash of intrigue thrown in. So, the story goes like this.......
I hooked up my DX-1, turned everything on and waited with bated breath. My reference was Patrcia Barber's Cafe Blue, track 10 "A taste of Honey" and Nora Jones' Come away with me, track 10 "Painter Song."
To say that the DX-1 made a difference is an understatement. To me, the DX-1 was stunning, so much that I didn't think such a change was possible. The articulation of instruments was so defining. The sound stage was much wider and the definition of vocals was yet more revealing.
What I did notice was that the placement of the singer or vocals was more set back, it's as if the sound stage was stretched wider and the vocals pulled back into or further away from the listener. The other point I noticed was that even though the high end was so crisp.....I began to think that it was too crisp....like almost unreal and that the top end was somewhat too bright/tinny.
Something just didn't sound right. Funny, something so stunning yet I was so intrigued. I came to the conclusion the the top end was so accurate yet lacking some body. I started to think where or what might the problem be.
Than I started to think back when I purchased the DX-1 and cards and it came to me. The cards I purchased were a set of S5500 and a set of S9500 cards. When I found out that bbn04 sent his DX-1 back to Greg Timbers for modification, I contacted Greg personally and struck up a deal where I gave him my 2 sets of cards in return for 2 sets of XPL-200 cards. The S5500 cards were then sent back to bbn04. Everyone was a happy camper.
So, for arguements sake, I rigged up my second DX-1 and whacked it into the system and noticed a change where the soundstage was as wide but the vocals were more forward/close to the listener and the brightness was not so extraordinarily bright.
So, I decided to pull both DX-1's apart again and take photos of the both sets of cards and have posted them here to see if there were any differences. Looked at the photos/cards myself, I noticed the resisitors on the LF Set 1 R208 was inverted as compared to R207. LP Set 2 R208 and R208 are the same. The HF cards were the same and therefore should not have made any differences to the way the top end sounded. My question is, which cards are the proper 200's and what's the deal with the inverted resistor on LP Set 1 R208? Anyone care to explain if inverting the resistors was a mistake or made up to match another speaker? Maybe a remnant or a modified card that didn't get completely converted back to an XPL-200 card.
I've labelled the first set of cards, which I found to be really bright and crisp as DX-1 HP/LP Set 1. The set I am now running is DX-1 HP/LP Set 2 in a different DX-1. When I have a bit more time, I will inspect the internals of both my DX-1's and see if there are any differences.
I would also like to get some comments/suggestions on changing the op-amps inside the DX-1. Greg has suggested replacing with OP275's. I've heard and read that the AD826 is a much better choice and sounding op than the 275?
Any help here would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Pasadena.
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Originally Posted by Robh3606
