Well, as we always say, "Just one more thing"!... I have been into this passion for almost 35 years and I am one or two steps away from being finished with this system. I really like the Levinson gear for the smooth, well-matched sound, reliability and user interface. I have always purchased the ML equipment from the pre-owned market and it has worked out very well. I feel that buying it new would be beyond what I would be able to justify. My room is kind of small and in sort of an "L" shape, so the Snells' XA controlled directivity helps to eliminate the room reflections and firm up the imaging. And the Snell's remote control allows me to adjust the Subwoofer output and treble range to account for the poor mastering on some of the early vintage CD's I own. The Aragon has been with me through a couple of generations of this system and has been flawless, but I am wondering if I can do better. So, the open issues are Power Amplification and Speaker Cables. I am leaning toward a Levinson (surprised?) No. 336 and Kimber 8TC cables. I would like to hear if any of the Audiogon Alumni have any thoughts.
One more thing: you are the only other person that has the Aragon 47K as I do. How do you like it & have you compared it to any other phono stage? I always dream of an Audio Research PH3, what about you?
I do find the use of Aragon with Levinson rather interesting. I did have the Aragon 8008BB as you did but its being placed in another system with its sister an Aragon 8008-X3. I am currently using 2 Aragon Palladium mono blocks & the difference in sound is much improved. I am part of an unoffical audio club & one member is using the Levinson No.336 amp therefore I can compare all 3. If you want to go all the way, why not go to mono blocks? For speaker cables I went from Neo-Tech Bi-wires (Harmonic Technology offshot) to Monster Cable 2.4 Bi-wires (for holographics) to Synergistic Research Resolution Reference .5 Active Shield speaker cable 6 ft for upper 1 x 4 electrostatic panels & Synergistic Research Signature 10 Active Shield speaker cable 6 ft for bottom 10 inch woofers. Therefore I am using 2 speaker cables instead of bi-wires, again the sound improvement is vast.
What are the xa90ps like with proper ampliification, I am using a marantz multichannel right now but am looking up move up the amp chain, how personally would u rate them.... I love the aq, just know I am not getting the best out of them.
Wow! Great system. I bet it sounds great. Try swapping your MDC-1 for an Orchid (by Kimber) and the monocule XL speaker cable. This should unleash the magic in your system. As always.....Good luck! Vader
