Its been a while now and I've made my way to a listening session in vienna.
We had the Arcam SA 30 and the JBL Synthesis SA 750 in for direct comparison. We were mainly listening with Vienna Acoustic's Beethoven Baby Grand Reference.
for the first moment it really felt like the Arcam and the JBL were twins. But as everything settled, we all focused on the music it developed a clear picture - even though they seem to be an internal copy of each other - they definitely are not sound wise ..
the Arcam tending a bit too much to the warm side, having a very laid back presentation, with some details missing in the heights. The JBL did not have that overwhelming attack, but listening closer bass was more refined, stage presentation definitely won on the JBL and details were much clearer.
So I'm going for the JBL.
We also had the LYNGDORF TDAI 3400 hooked up to the speakers later on which was a bit of a disappointment. Without having the direct comparison I would probably also have liked the Lyngdorf, but in direct comparison the JBL was my favorite. There definitely was more bass energy present with the Lyngdorf (which also resulted in the acoustics of the room being a little overloaded with bass energy, giving us a bit boomy bass) heights were clear and crisp, but we were missing some liveliness and naturality - it sounded a bit too clear for our taste.
We had the Arcam SA 30 and the JBL Synthesis SA 750 in for direct comparison. We were mainly listening with Vienna Acoustic's Beethoven Baby Grand Reference.
for the first moment it really felt like the Arcam and the JBL were twins. But as everything settled, we all focused on the music it developed a clear picture - even though they seem to be an internal copy of each other - they definitely are not sound wise ..
the Arcam tending a bit too much to the warm side, having a very laid back presentation, with some details missing in the heights. The JBL did not have that overwhelming attack, but listening closer bass was more refined, stage presentation definitely won on the JBL and details were much clearer.
So I'm going for the JBL.
We also had the LYNGDORF TDAI 3400 hooked up to the speakers later on which was a bit of a disappointment. Without having the direct comparison I would probably also have liked the Lyngdorf, but in direct comparison the JBL was my favorite. There definitely was more bass energy present with the Lyngdorf (which also resulted in the acoustics of the room being a little overloaded with bass energy, giving us a bit boomy bass) heights were clear and crisp, but we were missing some liveliness and naturality - it sounded a bit too clear for our taste.