Focal Electra 1008 Be2

[avman09]

I went a little crazy and got Pass Labs XA30.5 and XP-10. Hopefully it'll be a system I can enjoy for years.

Attachment 231

Nice pair! Don't seem to have much power output, less than the 4BSST2 anyway but should be fine in a smaller room. How's your 1008 Be doing? Focal says they need some hours of break-in..

[SoundGame]

I went a little crazy and got Pass Labs XA30.5 and XP-10. Hopefully it'll be a system I can enjoy for years.

Attachment 231

Nice choice - congrats! The Pass Labs run primarily in Class A so should have no problem in driving the Focals. I would expect they would bring a full liquid sound which would complement the precise nature of the Focal Be bookshelves. Give the amps some good break-in time and a good warm-up of about 30 minutes to 1hr before critically listening and I'm sure they will sound heavily.

Thanks very much for the pic - could you share another one with the speakers in view? Would love to see the whole system together.

And, we'll be waiting to hear your impressions on the sound!

[Mike Osadciw]

Great job on the selection. You'll absolutely enjoy it for years to come! Now you can finally enjoy music!

[SoundGame]

I went a little crazy and got Pass Labs XA30.5 and XP-10. Hopefully it'll be a system I can enjoy for years.

Attachment 231

So kzhtoo - how are you enjoying your system? What improvement do you perceive with the new amplification in place? Do you feel you can relax now and just enjoy the music? Let us know. Cheers.

[kzhtoo]

Hi Suave, SoundGame and all,
I'd like to give an update on the progress. A lot has changed within past few months.

After I got Pass XA30.5, I went ahead and purchased Pass XP-10 pre as well, knowing at that point MRX wouldn't be able to do justice for Electra and XA30.5.

There were some changes upstream too. Oppo-95 briefly stayed in the system. Although I was happy with its performance (highly detail and airy, standard ESS Sabre dac signature I guess), ultimately decided not to keep it. Oppo-105 coming out in December also played a part in the decision.

I also experimented with Electrocompaniet ECD-1 dac. Beautiful midrange and very solid bottom end but felt somewhat congested. Now I have Metrum Octave NOS dac. Love its organic sound and naturalness. Midrange is also on par with ECD-1, no question.

Currently using AppleTV as main transport. This I understand is not ideal but Empirical Audio Synchro-mesh reclocker makes it very enjoyable. Not only AppleTV jitter gets cleaned up by Synchro-mesh but TI chip inside also up samples AppleTV's 16/48 resolution to 24/96. And I get to keep AppleTV superb interface, YouTube and Netflix streaming. HD YouTube sounds pretty good as well. It's amazing how beautiful it could sound once the jitter gets cleaned up. Previously I was a little underwhelmed with Pass XP-10 (only subtle improvement compared to MRX used as pre) but now soundstage is enormous and Pass combo tonal balance doesn't make me miss any sort of tone control that I've been used to all my life.

Currently using Nordost Heindall ICs, both RCA (dac to pre) and XLR (pre to amp). Just added Grover Huffman digital RCA (reclocker to dac) and waiting on Grover Huffman speaker cables. Also demoing Grover PC with the dac. Both amp and pre has Shunyata Venom3 PC but that might change depending on how it turns out with Grover PC demo.

Sorry I have to throw out all these in one post and for being MIA for quite long.

[Suave]

Hey kzhtoo - great to see you back on the forum and thanks so much for the update! Sounds like you've really been enjoying the new additions to you system and that should be no surprise because you've got some great components in your rack

I appreciate your notes about how you've got the Apple TV connected to your system. While I don't personally use Apple TV, I'm sure this will be useful to other readers. I presume you have your CD collection ripped in lossless on your computer and then use the Apple TV to stream it to your audio system. If this isn't how you play your music please explain.

Oh and one more thing - any chance of sharing a couple of pictures with us?