Got my (Chord) Mojo goin' and I'm gone baby, gone real bad.....

Well it's been a while with my CXA60 amp and the audiophile in me has been getting restless. I quickly decided the Schiit Bifrost 4490, which I had upgraded from the Uber was a better DAC than the Wolfson WM8740 that is built into the CXA60, but it is convenient to use the Wolfson with the TV and the Bifrost for music. Just for the convenience of switching with the remote. The Bifrost seems to have a bigger sound stage and a softer upper range.

But then I read John Darko's review of the Schiit Gungnir Multibit (http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/01/zesty-and-sweet-the-stunning-schiit-gungnir-multibit-dac/) and I began to think about spending over A$2000 on an upgrade.... How much do I value my marriage? But wait, the Chord Mojo (http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/02/chord-electronics-mojo-lost-found/) is a whole lot cheaper and he rates it up there with Gungnir.... (http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/the-darko-dac-index/) And so do many others! (http://chordelectronics.co.uk/mojo/#nav-reviews , http://www.stereophile.com/content/chord-electronics-mojo-da-headphone-amplifier#XrV15eiY4du1u5rG.97  and just google it!) And you can use it as a portable with up to 10 hours of playing time or you can use it as a desktop with your computer or with your lounge room system. One wonders about the long term reliability of the battery, but I had to audition a Mojo, which I did through headphones (NAD Viso HP50) at VAF in Adelaide and then I had to bring it home.

I have in the past sat around analysing DACs for their subtle and not so subtle differences. No such problem with the Mojo! The differences are are simply there.. right in you face in a dramatic and even astounding way. The dynamism, the imaging, the clarity and the detail bring the music to life. It's just brilliant sound. At first I wondered if it was all too much, but the clincher for me was that I would soon give up on comparisons and simply listen. Even to very familiar music, to the end. Spotting the difference between sources, CD, Sonos Connect or whatever is much more of a challenge than the difference between the Mojo and my other DACs. This is, in my opinion an improvement worth paying for. Now if I want to listen at home or at work with headphones, I can have a wonderful sound quality with me....  Maybe one day I will have the spare cash for a Gungnir, or a 2Qute but for now I don't feel deprived.... I've got my Mojo going!

What makes a good HI-Fi sound from me....

For me, a good Hi-Fi system sounds like a good curry tastes. A good curry has a well-balanced spiciness with rich complex flavours and enough chilli to bring it all to life. Not enough fresh spiciness (read nuance, detail etc) and you have a bland unengaging presentation and with too much chilli (read punchiness or bass), the subtleties are drowned out by the heat. Each to their own, but that’s how I like it.

The new Cambridge CXA60 amplifier played through my "Adelaide Speakers", reviewed previously, comes close to this ideal.... for now....

My What Lovely Speakers You Have, Grandma

The Timberwolfs from Adelaide Speakers.......................................

I may have been expected by friends and acquaintances to be writing here an obituary to my late and beloved mother-in-law who died peacefully from pneumonia on the weekend. I did so for our pets when they died! However, after my father died last year, I felt a blog was a sadly inadequate way of paying respects to someone so important to my life. Perhaps the virtual nature of the Web is disturbingly too close to the temporary, illusory nature of life itself for me to entrust my deepest emotions to it. It seems too commercial, too much like advertising. Its all about selling. If not our products, its ourselves as human beings. So I am far more comfortable telling you about the new loudspeakers I have acquired from Edward at Adelaide Speakers than I am about my late relatives and the time spent doing this is quite therapeutic to the grieving process. Doing this is in truth a form of advertising but it is also about providing information, which hopefully is helpful. I have no commercial connection to the company and do this only out of respect to Edward and the pleasure he has brought to our house.

It's surprisingly, two years since I acquired the 3 way Summoner floorstanders which I have blogged about here previously and some eighteen months since Edward re-fitted my old Kef Concertos in nice new boxes and with his cross-overs so they could continue life in my son's house. Now I have some new Timberwolf 5522ks slim floorstanding speakers for our living area. They stand 80cms tall, 15cms wide and 30cms deep. They have two 5 inch drivers and a tweeter and are finished in a maple stain... see the pic. They look good and suit the room. We wanted something that sounded good but did not dominate the room both visually or with its sound. We considered bookshelf speakers but you still have to mount them somewhere and they won't sound as good. How do they sound? Very pleasantly balanced. Clear articulation with good imaging. Reasonable bass extension but may add a sub-woofer one day. In short, they sound lovely and perform what I wanted them to do. We now enjoy listening to music in the living/dining room as well as the lounge room where the Summoners are.

They run off a Marantz 5003 amplifier with Playstation / PlayTV or NAD cd player providing the audio input. This means we have a wireless network source option, which is nice as well.

Compared with the Summoners, these Timberwolf models hold up very well. Where they differ is in the imaging which is less expansive and in the bass extension which is noticeably less if you do an "a to b" comparison as I did last night. Just the differences you might expect based on the size of the boxes. Other than that, I have noticed surprisingly greater differences in mid to high frequency sound quality and nuance between the NAD and Marantz amplifiers I have!

So once again I am very pleased with Edward's product and recommend you consider his quality, value for money speakers and if you can, spend a little time in his company, while he is still alive and working. I am not starting a rumour about his health. It is just that when one's loved ones are dying, one is reminded to make the most of life's opportunities and pleasures and when you meet a special person who is a true gentleman with something special to offer, he deserves your attention.

So Grandma, I hope you are not insulted I spent all this time NOT writing about you. You were special too and we all loved you. Perhaps if you made loudspeakers, I could have written this about you! Huh. I know. "Cheeky bizm" as you would say.