Love my new stellar m700's!

So far I’m loving my new m700 amps. To quote product info “Liberate all the toe-tapping energy trapped in your media library.” That was the first thing i realized besides huge “…deep, extraordinary, wall-to-wall soundstage.” The ease of toe tapping might also be from “Revel in rich layers of fine, full detail.” About 11 days break in so far. Bass leaner than rogue. Also made some hard to listen to discs more tolerable.

My system oppo 203, creek evolution 50a (ruby dac), ps audio m700, kef ls50. Alt amps rogue atlas magnum, creek 50a power section, qinpu a6000 mkii

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Mike, I’m glad you are enjoying them! I’m curious about your experience with the M700 making some hard to listen to discs more tolerable. In what way did they help these recordings? Are they brighter on the Rogue?

Darren,

sorry, this is gonna be long, but if you’re curious…every now and then I just have to retell my journey of audio. or at least with my latest system. first system was 1990 - 2006 Audio research ls3 pre, audio research D100 amp, adcom dac, California audio labs Delta transport, monitor audio m700 speakers and sunfire 11" sub. lost my job in 2006 sold off the stereo vowing to build better next time!!

My comment about the “hard to listen discs” may be tainted with a mix of different experiences melding together. for about 10 years ('07 to '16) I was using the bryston b100 as a preamp. during the last few years ('14-'17) I was using alot of headphones, mostly Grado 325e and GS2000e. my dac with the bryston was the m2tech young dac. then I finally got rid of the bryston (about 2016) and got the creek evolution 50a (integrated amp with ruby dac card). In dec 2017 I bought the kef ls50 speakers and started listening to more to speakers than headphones. after I got rid of the bryston I also had an electrician install two dedicated 30A circuits for the stereo. I try to plug my big amps and furman power conditioner into the wall directly. I one of the biggest failings of my old system was the bryston. I started out using it as an integrated amp with built in 96k/24b dac in 2007. I bought some Dynaudio Audience 72se (special edition w/drivers from their contour line) it took me 9 years to really admit I made an expensive ($3,700) mistake with the bryston. I was still learning to “listen”, as we all are, and slowly came to realize that the amp section of the bryston was maybe dry and not well focused as a soundstage. around 2009 on a whim I ordered a little chinese tube/hybrid amp off amazon. the qinpu a6000 mkii (16 wpc) for $300! even though I used the bryston pre outs into the qinpu (double pre?) it was still more enjoyable than the bryston on its own! Then I wanted to dabble in hires files and wanted to have a 192/32 dac, so i ended up getting a deal on the m2tech Young dac. I was reasonably happy, although I had a funny feeling I should have really gone for the Rega dac. I guess I kinda faked myself out with the qinpu amp and thought I’d like a larger “real” tube amp. I wanted to buy american and ended up with the rogue atlas and bought the upgraded “magnum” version with kt120 tubes and higher output. mind you, all this time I’m listening to the dynaudio audience 72se. I liked them for their fast, lively punch and focused revealing highend with out being hard on most good recordings.

moving onto headphones: Then in 2014 I bought a house and was going to have two roomates. I still picked the best room for my stereo, but also started dabbling more into headphones. for years and years I had Sony mdr-v6 and then latere several pairs of mdr-7506 headphones. way back in 2000 I tried to go back to school for music recording. our teacher recommended the 7506’s for studio work and tracking, NOT MIXING. So I figured they were probably pretty good, but it took years to find out they’re actually “ok”. When I got a new job in 2006 a coworker recommended I try Grado headphones. I was leery of expensive headphones because of questionable quality of Bose and Beats headphones for the $300 price tags. I started with the SR-125e grado headphones for $150. then in the next 4 years spend over $4,000 on headphones chasing tone!! CRAZY RIGHT? I had worked my way through about half of the dozen or so grado headphones and earbuds at the time, plus a few other brands Etymotic, PSB M4u2 headphones. I forgot what a rabbit hole audio can be.

Anyway, I should probably wrap this email up…SOME IRRITATING DISCS I’VE OWNED… Worst offender is The Jimi Hendrix experience: are you experienced (2010 “remastered” experience hendrix Legacy label 88697 62162 2) I like the music, but the audio coming off the disc usually, literally gives me an ear ache after a song of two, even at lower volumes. it seems all of the sound is edgy, dry and brash. The next most offensive is The Fixx: walkabout (1986 mcad-5705 JVC-452) great album for fixx fans, but dry early cd sound. last, but not the only other cds Genesis: Genesis (mama cd 2007 remaster) and Genesis: Duke (2007 remaster) most of the 80’s genesis remasters were just a little brash? all these cds sound better, EXCEPT the hendrix cd. It’s a bit better, but still fatiguing and dry.

overall some of my perceptions are improved with the Kefs and others from the M700s and switching back over to speakers for serious listening. In early june I with have a week off and I plan on seriously testing back and forth with the m700s and the rogue and between kefs and dynaudio speakers and I’ll try separating the m700s to see if I can hear a difference.

In closing, Thanks again for your great work on the m700s!

mike

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Thanks for sharing that Mike! Our audio journeys are so important and it was a pleasure to read yours. As long as we are still committed to the hobby, our listening skills never stop growing. For this reason, my mind never gets board with audio. There’s always something to learn; something to open your mind to.

Cheers

D

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Darren, My first response was quick and rambling. But now after listening for some more weeks I have concluded that a combination of the kef smooth treble and the m700 large soundstage help poor CDs sound better or more listenable thus taking the focus off of the negatives and putting them back onto the music. Still very hard to listen to my Jimi Hendrix are you experienced CD but many other mediocre CDs are more listenable thanks to kef and PS audio.

Keep up the great work!!!

Just ordered from my Stellar m700 pair and Gain Cell Preamp/DAC from HiDEF Lifestyle off of Amazon. I can’t wait. I’ll let all of you know my 1st Impression (cheap Karn Evil 9 reference) once everything is delivered in a few weeks and I have it setup.

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Congratulations, excellent choice. Do let us know your impressions.
Chas

Everything arrived yesterday. Integrated so easily with my Sony AVR. See my post on the prep Sony STR-DN1080 Makes a Great Home Theater Control Unit - Fully Balanced Outputs.

Sound is spectacular and the flexibility of the Stellar DAC/Preamp along with my bypassed volume control with true differential XLR outputs doesn’t color things when connect to the Stellar.

I will be doing a video review and uploading it to YouTube very soon. It will be in parts so as not to bore the viewer (s).

I received and installed the m700 set yesterday and spent several hours listening to the system. These amps replace a Rogue Hydra amp that had been in place for 4+ years.
My initial impression is that these amps are more forward in the midrange frequencies with a more expansive soundstage and palpable imaging than in the previous configuration. I will put a few more hours on these before recalibrating the system set-up (listening/speaker positioning, sub levels, etc.) I look forward to exploring the possibilities and suspect I am in store for a good deal of musical enjoyment in the future with these amps in place based on what I’ve heard so far.
One curious thing I noticed yesterday, there seemed to be more “fullness” or body to the musical presentation with phase on the DS DAC set to “out”. There was a hint of this with the Rogue amp in place but it seemed more apparent with the m700s (more resolving?).
About 7 months ago I had a dedicated circuit installed for all audio equipment except for the subs. Could what I am experiencing be due to a difference in polarity between the source circuits and ones the 2 subs are on?
So far I am very pleased with these new amps, great work PSA!

Can’t wait! Please post the video on these forums so we can all share.

Here you go Paul. These things are really hard to do. I kept it short as promised. More and better one’s to come.

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Very cool! Thanks for sharing. I’ll bet the M700s light those Bose speakers up well. They were always power hungry.

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I have two McIntosh MC50’s that I bought off of eBay last year and recapped/replaced resistors/etc… It has a super sweet top end but they fall apart under 100Hz when run 50W>@8Ω through the Bose EQ box. But they look cool :neutral_face:

They are being re-purposed into my desktop stereo. No more “Vintage Audio” for this guy. I too was shocked when I first powered these Speakers up last year. Didn’t know what to expect. They are not as bad as people say if setup correctly. The EQ box is the secret sauce and yes they need serious juice and the M700’s gladly oblige.

Glad to see there are other people who were willing to give Bose speakers a try with higher-end electronics. I wasn’t a full blown Bose basher until I attempted - just for fun - to hook up my SGCD & M700 with a pair of Bose 301 that had been hiding in the closet. It was almost unbearable (FUBAR imaging, no highs and lows, etc.) and took me about 10 seconds to shut it down and went back to LS50. Speakers are crucial especially if you’ve invested in high quality DAC and amps.

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Welcome Excelgram and fellow M700’s owner !

OK. Full confession time. I’ve never liked any of the other Bose speakers including Series 3 and up 901’s. I have Bose 251’s (surrounds) and a 151se (center channel) and those outdoor speakers blow away all those old chipboard walnut veneered atrocities they built in the 70’s & 80’s. Don’t get me started with the Acoustimass, Waveradio’s, and so on.

Another confession. I bought my Son two open box Bose Soundtouch 10’s for his bedroom and augmented them with a 10" homebrew ampified Sub & old Denon AVR to control the whole thing.

I am also a fan of their noise canceling and non-noise canceling headphones. My Son swears by their earbuds as well. I was once loaned a pair of Beyer Dynamics Amiron “Tesla” headphones and cried when I had to return them.

I’ve lusted after a pair of Series 1 Bose 901’s since I was a kid. It’s a leap of faith though. I would never have paid what they retailed for new though. Much better options out there. But in the used market, you can call them a solid bargain if you know what to watch out for (foam rot on ALL series 3 to series 6 prior to the last hurrah builds of a few years ago).

Hey, there are way better present day speakers out there for what it cost me to personally resto mod both these speakers & EQ. But I’m enjoying them and they are fun to listen to if setup properly. They can sound like a ear splattering turd if one is not careful with Speaker Placement.

The Stellar’s do them justice !

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