Ali Tait visit to Gazjam Towers..
Ali was good enough to lug some kit in the car and come over the other day to let me compare the Mini-T amp I had on loan with the Bantham Gold “better than Tripath” amps he had.
I’m looking to change my amp, and being the bargain hunter I am I was happy to latch on to the whole class D Tripath amp movement – much amp for little money!
Ali uses his two Banthams bi-amped into Wad valve Preamps/ Behringer DCX2496 Ultradrive Pro crossover. This all in turn drives the BIGGEST set of muh’fugin speakers that my eyes have clapped onto, a twin 15” woofer open baffle design.
So the Agenda of the day was:
1. Compare Mini-T to Bantham
In my system, just swap the Mini-T for the Bantham to give me a chance to hear how good the Mini-T was in comparison with something similar. I say similar…the Bantham is 3 times the price, a factor that comes into play later.
The Mini-T had already bettered my trusty Cambridge Azur 640 in my system, a wee bit less bass but far better mid and detail and more “high end” sounding. Much lower noise floor too.
Ali wanted to know I think if he had spent his cash wisely on the Banthams and not just got a pair of Mini-T’s!
RESULT
First impressions...? The Mini-T is beaten (but not by a huge amount) on bass. There’s more of it, goes deeper and adds a more solid foundation to the music. The Bantham has two “gain” settings, the first higher quality one being quite low volume wise compared to the Mini-T’s 25w a side, and a 2nd setting giving a 6db boost…which is how we did the comparison.
Overall, I'd say the Bantham was the better amp.
Better in some areas (particularly the bass), but maybe not QUITE as good as the Mini-T in more transparent midrange and insight , but considering that the Bantham costs 3 times as much BUT DOES NOT SOUND 3 TIMES BETTER - I'd go for the T-Amp.
Maybe if I had more transparent speakers (my AE’s are nearly 14 years old and not known for being transparent) the difference in amps would be more apparent…but somehow I don’t think so.
The Mini-T has been used with some pretty esoteric speakers and its qualities have shone through.
It depends of course on your system and preferred audio flavour of course, but the Mini-T held its own.
In the context of Ali’s fantastic system, the Banthams were the better buy.
Me? I’d probably buy (and will) the Mini-T...far better value for money, Ali and I both agreed on this.
2. Set up Ali’s System and let me hear it
Once all the kit was set up we settled down to listen to a few tracks.
Jeezus...these speakers were amazing in comparison to mine!
You know that way where you think your kit is good…then you hear something better?
A big part of the improvement was in the design of the speakers…these open baffle speakers have NO box colouration, no sense of the sound from a box. The back wall just had music coming from it.
I had expected them to be bass monsters because of the twin 15” woofers…but no actually.
The bass went low, but in no way subsonic. It was tight and had great “bounce” to it…helping music boogie along.
What got me about these speakers (and Ali’s setup in general I guess), was the huge “wall of sound” it created.
A couple of tracks gave us real WTF! Moments, the kind where you’re really taken aback by what you’re hearing?
I wanted to try the setup through my Virgin Media box, as well as my DVD player; both playing through the modded Caiman.
I put on the Led Zeppelin DVD and turned the wick up….think it was Moby Dick live that was on, and the amount of air getting shifted when the drums kicked in? Wow.
Also, I stuck on “The Eagles: Hell Freezes Over” DVD, the track “Get Over It”?
Again I turned the wick up, and the feeling of scale and space around the acoustic was amazing.
I’m sure the electronics (particularly the WAD valve Pre) had a lot to do with that, but I’m sure the design of the speakers played a big part too.
Ali had said that the open baffle designs image really really well, second only to a good pair of electrostatics, and having head them I was reluctant to help Ali pack them away!
Maybe not QUITE such a massive pair though (See pictures
The main outcome of the visit I have to say is that Ali has opened my eyes to the benefits of DIY. The amount of kit you can get for your money is fantastic. His speakers and the WAD Pre-Amps are prime examples.
Along with my own DIY tinkering (albeit at a tiny scale) with the Beresford, I can really see the benefits of this approach, in fact after this I’ll have to think long and hard about buying something “stock” from a shop.
SOME INTERESTING DISCOVERYS…
Ali brought over a bunch of cables as well as a linear power supply for the Squeezebox Touch.
We compared the Linear PSU with the stock one with my Touch…really significant improvement.
No if’s, buts or mibbays…we both heard it right away.
A lot of folk say they don’t make a difference because of the Touch’s internal switching regulators etc.? Nonsense. Get one…it improves things, about the same level to me as fitting a linear supply onto my Beresford Dac.
Also, Ali brought over one of the Belkin interconnects that’s doing the rounds on the forum just now? We compared them directly to the mark Grand HD1000’s I use, and you know what, it’s pretty close.
£5 as compared to £75? Uhm..
To me I’m happy to have bought the MG – it’s a better cable – but like the Mini-T/Bantham comparison, price difference doesn’t directly translate to sound quality improvements.
Also, Ali had brought over one of Mike Homar’s digital interconnect cables for me to try?
We found that made an improvement too…
So all digital cables AREN’T the same…
So a big hats off to Ali for taking the trouble to come over and let me hear his fantastic system, and thanks too for the “wire mod” work he did on my Beresford.
A return visit to his gaff is in the works as well as a visit to the next DIY meet – so it’s all good.
Some Piccies:
Cheers.
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Originally Posted by Marco
