Review: KEF Q350 speakers

 

Nothing too expensive or too exciting but for the price - brand new - from Accessories 4 Less, I couldn't pass them up. I've been a KEF fan for a long time, owning multiple iterations of the Uni-Q driver over the years. I was curious to see how this similarly priced speaker would sound versus my favorite budget Wharfedale Dentons.

I've been letting the speakers cook with daily usage from a vintage Dual CS5000, Schiit Mani, and Ortofon OM20 combination. At moderate levels the difference between the old *Wharfedale Denton and the KEF Q350 speakers are subtle. The Q350s are a touch cleaner with a brighter tone. Detail - neither are what I would call overachievers here - is also a little better, perhaps the difference between aluminum and woven Kevlar drivers.  The bass out of the 6.5" KEF woofers go down a touch deeper and with a bit more definition than the 5" unit on the Dentons.

With the family out of the way for an hour, I fired up the Thorens TD309 and spun my US copy of Pink Floyd's The Wall. At a higher listening level: within their dynamic limitations, the KEFs do a bit better here too. The busy sound effects come across cleanly and have real depth too. Definition - inner detail and body - are certainly not the best I've heard. These are, after all, no electrostatic speaker or an Altec 604 driver with a time-aligned crossover, but given the price the KEFs are more than acceptable. The old "PRAT" factor is high with lots of toe tapping enjoyment. Bass with the 6.5" driver is good but if you want to go deeper and louder a sub (or a larger Q-series) would be needed.

Further listening with a variety of records revealed a clean midrange with only some minor veiling - again, compared to the best I've heard. ie - there is an ever-so slight blurring of aggressive guitar work and the leading edges of high-hats. The treble is, however, extended with shimmer and shine but still not etched. I was expecting some overdone brightness from the aluminum tweeter but my (aged) ears weren't driven out of the room.

Overall I would give the KEF Q50s a solid thumbs up. They do punch quite above their cost point but these days that's no big surprise given the available computer modeling and testing that would have been a dream for speaker designers in the past.. I'm curious how the R Series would perform. But that's a future hope.

*Regarding the Wharfedale Denton speakers: these are equally good speakers but something I would recommend with a more aggressive digital front-end or amplification chain. In my case the smoothness of the Aleph J and the slight darkness of the Classe Five preamplifier was perhaps too much of a good thing. The Denton appears to have been voiced to have a vintage, smooth sound instead of the "hi-fi" approach of the KEFs.

System: 

Classe Five preamplifer

Aleph J amplifier

Thorens TD309 turntable with Ortofon Bronze phono cartridge

Belden 9497 speaker cable

various budget interconnect cables 

Short Review: Schiit Mani

With a new Thorens TD 309 turntable in the house, the Dual CS5000 still manages to live on to play less-than-mint records or non-audiophile recordings.  So it was goodbye Pioneer DVD player that I used for CD playback.  Since the Classe Five preamplifier only has one phono input. I needed a separate phono stage.  There are several budget options available but I zeroed in on the Schiit Mani.  US-made, handsome, the silly name, and designed by Mike Moffat.  What's not to love?

How does it stack up to the Classe?  Not bad at all.  The Mani is a little edgier, not as big and dynamic, and also lacking the inner detail.  But it certainly sounds better than I expected: fun even though it doesn't exactly have the smoothness of a good tube unit, or even a FET based preamplifier.  Oddly enough, the lack of detail works well with the Dual CS5000 turntable, removing some of the veil and analog playback artifact noise.  I'm reminded of a more "really nice CD Player or mid-priced DAC" sort of quality to the sound.

The longer you keep this unit on, the better it does sound.  Given the low power requirements, why not?  With the new KEF Q350 speakers, the Mani does sound way better than I expected at this price point.  Of course many will disregard anything using op-amps but my experience with the Audio Sector Phono Stage disabused me of that notion.  Recommended for budget systems.

Review: Thorens TD 309 turntable

 

I've been making slow but steady steps upgrading my current family shared stereo.  I've gone from decidedly mid-fi gear to something that I consider a step up from the usual bog equipment.  The Aleph J, for example, continues to amaze me as does the clarity of the Classe 5 preamplifier.  The Wharefedale Denton speakers have also been a real treat, easily besting anything I've heard in the sub-$1000 (USD) price range.  However there has been one niggling point that has been pulling back this stereo from being truly great.  I am, of course, talking about the turntable.  The Dual CS5000 has been in service for me for almost a decade.  It does a competent job of playing vinyl, my preferred medium, but I knew it was time for an upgrade.

The question was what to get?  In the past few years the turntable market has exploded with varying makes and models across all budget ranges.  Given my under $2000 (USD) price range I had a few options including the discontinued (and marked down) Rega P8, the Rega RP6, or the tried and true VPI Scountmaster (used or B-stock).  I hemmed and hawed, thinking of my experiences with solid plinth turntable, and in the case of the VPI, the JMW unipivot tonearm.  I wanted something a little different, a little more old school, with a suspension. I won't go into the ancient debate between suspended and solid plinths, each falling in and out of favor as the years have gone by.  I will instead just go with what I heard with the best systems.

Searching through Audiogon listing and doing a lot of review reading, I came to the Thorens TD 309 Tri-Balance turntable.  The reviews, even with the included and very budget Audio Technica AT95S, were mostly positive.  It seemed that any negative points could be ameliorated with a better cartridge.  I was also taken by the engineering with a speaker manufacturer to reduce motor and environmental vibration.  The speed controlled DC motor, the available colors, and the Japanese quality bearings was a bonus.  So I purchased one - used - that came with an Ortofon 2M Bronze cartridge.

Once I received the turntable via FedEx it took me a solid 90 minutes to set up.  Some of this involved running off to the grocery store to buy some batteries for my digital style gauge.  At first glance it looks to be a well-made record player.  I was especially impressed by the methods used to decouple the platter from the motor.

Installation of the 2M Bronze wasn't exactly a breeze.  It required the removal of the headshell and some fiddling of the screws that mount directly to the body of the cartridge.  Using the Thorens supplied protractor I was able to get the alignment zeroed in pretty quickly.  After adjusting the counterweight I was finally able to listen to some records.

Initial Impressions: I can immediately tell there is a difference. With the Thorens there is a lot of weight to the bass.  Music plays with a lot more ease and less grunge than the old Dual.  Which is to say there is a lot less mechanical noise with the new turntable.  This in turn reveals more detail, makes the notes "breathe" easier, and also increases depth and width of the soundstage; allowing the listener to "hear" deeper into the recording.  I'm reminded of the VPI Aries 1 in this regard, and, given the difference between the platter weight, a surprise.  I suppose a well-tuned suspension can replicate the solidity of a table with a solid plinth and heavy platter.

After a few hours of enjoyment and some tweaking of the arm setup, it was time to sit down and do some serious listening.

Dead Can Dance - Into the Labyrinth is a well-recorded gem.  The Thorens/Ortofon combination reveals quite a bit more detail, a pulsing bass, and a soundstage that had width and depth.  The music positively soared, leaving, in comparison, the old Dual sounding like an AM radio.  Voices were especially good, with excellent body and realism.  Congestion was nil, each instrument sitting in its own space without confusion or muddiness.

Background noise, on this original 1993 UK pressing, was suppressed with any ticks and pops riding on a separate plane of the music.

Neil Young's live acoustic album - Massey Hall 1971 - is a well-recorded album.  A good system should sound like live music, revealing not only excellent timbre but the very hall itself.  The Thorens TD 309 does a very good job here.  If I close my eyes it does feel and sound like I'm really there, enjoying the concert.  The only break in the spell is the lack of chatter behind me, and of course no cigarette smoke.

The reverberation or natural slap of the hall walls can be heard.  Impressive with much more life than any digital rig I've ever heard.

Animals is my favorite Pink Floyd album so I was looking forward to hear what the Thorens to do.  Instead of a big vibrant soundscape, I began to hear a lot of compression (at higher levels).  Once I turned the volume down, the compression disappeared.  As an experiment I went upstairs and pulled out my backup amplifier, the venerable Adcom 545, which has roughly 4x the power of the Aleph J.

Long story short, it turned out that the Thorens had such an extended bottom end that it was making my low-powered single-ended Aleph J clip!  Such is the life of trying to live with so little power with a pair of 86dB speakers.  This pointed to a future speaker upgrade.

With the Aleph J back in the system, I went for something a little less bombastic.  Gabor Szabo was a Hungarian guitarist with a delicate touch.  He died too young but luckily left a large body of beautiful work.  The album High Contrast works well with the Thorens: with speedy lead note changes, the shifting dynamic drum work and the perfect rhythm guitar genius of Bobby Womack..  The attack of the guitar is just about right, never edgy, revealing the intricacies and subtle methods of Szabo.  The imaging, given the multi-miked nature of the recording, is also very good with the lead guitar slightly forward of the rest of the instruments.




As you can tell I was quite taken by the Thorens, at least once I understood that it had such a wider dynamic range than the Dual CS5000.  This lower, more refined bass response caused all sort of havoc with my amplifier/speaker pairing, leading me to the decision that a more efficient pair of speakers is in my future.

As regards to overall sound quality:

Bass: Dynamic, at least within the limitations of the small Wharfedale speakers.  The midbass frequencies are special here with lovely timbre and shades that I've heard only on the better turntables.  It's the sort of bass that I prefer over digital, which can plod and sound artificial. 

Midrange: Subtle, expansive and revealing.  Different recordings, well, sound different.  So there's not a lot of coloration or analog "dither" (noise) over the music.  Once again it's not a sterile presentation, which can occur with lower-end digital, but shines a light on the notes in an engrossing way.  It's also easy to shift attention to another instrument.  Organic is a word that comes to mind, but not overly warm like some noisier turntables.

Treble: Smooth, provided the cartridge is setup correctly.  An aggressive recording is not going to sound rolled off, but something well-balanced won't sound dark either.  There is a nice sparkle and shimmer too.

Other: This sort of tight analog foundation seems to be rare but adds to the rhythmic toe-tapping experience of music.  More than once I found my foot moving with the beat.  The turntable plays very quietly, doing an excellent disappearing act in minimizing coloration.  The Ortofon 2M Bronze is a great tracker too, playing the last songs without any audible IGD.

Conclusion: For the money, the Thorens is a nice alternative in a very competitive price range.  Even if I had bought a new unit I still would have been perfectly happy with the choice.  Given the quality of the tonearm, the engineering of the suspension, the DC motor, the platter thickness, and the modern looks, the TD 309 gets a solid recommendation.  As does the 2M Bronze, though a Black stylus may be in my future.

System:
Dual CS5000
Classe 5 preamplifier
Aleph J amplifier
Wharfedale Denton speakers
Canare interconnects
Kimber 8PR/4PR speaker cable

Short Take: BLISS Shibata Stylus for Ortofon Super OM Cartridges

The Ortofon Super OM 20 cartridge has been discontinued for some time now.  This is a shame, especially for owners of turntables with lightweight tonearms like my long-running Dual CS5000.  The Super OM 20 cartridge provided a warm but still lively sound and seemed to have a synergistic match with the Dual.  Given my last one was in need of replacement due to wear, I began researching a replacement cartridge or stylus.

There are a few makers of high compliance cartridges out there but I have ventured in that area without too much success, at least compared to the good sound I was getting with the OM 20.  With that in mind I decided to buy a replacement stylus.  I could have gone with the OM 30 or 40 replacement, but this aftermarket unit available at TurntableNeedles.com caught my eye.  The Shibata needle profile, in theory, will pull in more detail and have a better high-end response than the ol' nude elliptical of the OM 20.  It's also priced lower than the higher end OM models so I decided to give it a chance.

Given that the cartridge body is the same and the only difference is the stylus, needle, and cantilever what kind of changes did I expect?  Not too much.  The body of the music is the same, as is the fun liveliness nature of Super OM series.  But, compared to the OM 20, there is more fine detail and treble information.  A minor step up to be sure, but one that is the worth the small price difference between a stock OM 20 stylus and its aftermarket Shibata replacement.  Highly recommended.

Project: Building a Pass Aleph J Amplifier

After the success of the ACA amplifiers, I decided to tackle something a little more difficult: the Aleph J, which is yet another Nelson Pass design that he released to the community at DIY Audio. Like the ACA, the Aleph J is single-ended design but instead uses two output devices in parallel, along with a current source. Power output is in the 25W range, which is good enough for my small listening area, even with 86dB efficient speakers. Except for the input capacitor on the negative leg of the input, the entire amplifier is also DC coupled which means the output offset must be nulled out.

Nelson Pass has a manual on the Aleph J here.

DIY Audio Build - with better pictures than mine - is here. Also includes a schematic.

I first stuffed the circuit boards, including the power supply PCB, with the passive parts:

And next was the installation of the Jfets and FETS, along with the placement of the circuit board on the heatsink. I ran into some problems that the DIY Audio community graciously helped me with. Turns out that I have too much of a soft touch with the soldering iron and had a few cold solder joints. It's that fear of burning up those rare 2SJ74 jfets that make me nervous. Also note the Keratherm output transistor insulators which are a lot easier to install than the old "white goop" thermal grease, and also make removing the board easier for troubleshooting. 

  

I'm obviously skipping a lot of the build steps - power transformer installation, power switch, and the wiring. So with the magic of my time machine, here is the end result of most of my labor: some magic glowing blue LEDs. I do have to say that the DIY Audio Store supplied chassis and circuit boards made this project a lot easier - everything, with the exception of the power transformer, just fits without having to drill holes or battle with placement.

Here is a picture of the completed amplifier :

Note on playing the Aleph for the first time in the main system: I'm quite impressed - lots of little detail on records that I hadn't heard before, super fast but delicate sounding - ie, not aggressive. Excellent bass control. Some actual depth and wide imaging. They would make excellent mastering/studio monitoring amps.

The sound is a tad "clean" - lacking some of that bloom that I hear with the best tube amps. So like digital television versus 70mm film. Perhaps not the best analogy but the only one I can think of. It does need some more break-in time so I'll be patient. But - at least in this system - it is the best solids state amplification I've heard. I think a really good SE tube amp would be preferable but at half the cost, the Aleph is certainly in the running.​

01/04/19 Update: The Aleph J is one of the more interesting amplifiers that I've ever experienced.  It has such a lack of apparent "character" that it just blends into the background.  I'm not trying to say it is boring, quite the contrary; you can hear the differences between recordings.  That is to say every record sounds different, as to be expected.  And, for a solid-state amplifier, it has some of the best body and definition I've heard.  I'm really beginning to hear the limitations of my front end now!  The bottom end is also tightly controlled too, giving quite a bit of boogie factor even with the small woofers of the Denton speakers.

Now the Aleph still doesn't sound like a tube amp - but it also doesn't have that upper-midrange glare or treble edginess I hear with lesser solid-state amps.  Highly recommended for its neutral character and dynamic ability.  This amp will be running in my system for a long time while I start to explore different turntable and speaker upgrades.  Stay tuned!