So how are they now that you’ve had them for a while? Not missing the old Meridians?
Love the Olympica III speakers. Superb sound and gorgeous cabinetry. Enjoy them!
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Wrt the Chord Hugo stuff, I was very happy when I got the Hugo 2 (Audeze LCD-4z cans).
And I read about the M-Scaler and TT2 and was very tempted.
But then my friend recommended the THX AAA 789 headphone amp (all analog), for $350. And it is awesome. I drove it with the Hugo 2 and it was great, but that is silly because the Hugo has its own amp, and is not price appropriate.
Then I got an SDAC by Grace, also from Massdrop, for $80, and the combination makes me very happy.
I think we may be focusing overmuch on the digital subtleties, like one million taps, and forget the analog part. Or whatever. In any case, the THX feed-forward design works well (Amir liked it).
But I need a serious DAC for it, it’s in a different room from the Hugo 2.
So I could go all Chord, M-Scaler and TT 2.
But the other company that uses the THX technology is Benchmark, although at a different price point. And it goes well with the Benchmark DAC.
So now I am all in a dither.
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It does. With the stands, sanity has been restored – no more boom-boom for me. 
They’re good. I doubt they’ll ever be the end-all of music reproduction, but I like the way they sound and how they play everything I throw at them from whatever angle.
The Meridians are your favourite jeans: very comfy, but a bit boring after 10 years. That – and I really needed RC to handle the bass of the 5200. RC never comes free.
The Phantoms are a bit more naughtly in most respects, but ‘HiFi’ enough to enjoy the delicate details in a late night ECM session. I did not expect to like them as much as I do – so I kept them. 
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Is it me, or do they look like something from Star Wars?
I was thinking they needed matching black bowler hats to complete the look and integrate better with the television.
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LOL… Excellent!
And d*mn – now I’ve got to get myself a pair.
Wonder what their size is…
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My very messy Nucleus experimentation desk … An ELAC Z3 and a Phantom Gold that replaced it.
My wife was coming by … I asked her to bring the cowboy hat 
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Genius 
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I was getting really depressed about all the petty complaints and level of personal animosity in the 1.6 Feedback Thread (in the face of what I at least consider a brilliant new version!). So this thread has brought a smile to my face (and thank you Rene for taking it so well). Cheers!
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It’s also why I got the 
!
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Yes, but did you A/B with and without the hats to see if there was an improvement in SQ? 
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SQ: Is that “smile quotient”?
I was referring to sound quality. I like your response better. I think there would be a market for audiophile hat tweaks. We could ask 3 grand apiece.
Make that 4 grand if we provided "guided soundpath projection,“custom shaped variable soundwave transparency,” and “frequency shaping brims.” 
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It’s winter here… Minus 10 outside:
I do sense a bit of added warmth on top.
Then again – that could just be 1.6. 
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Thats not winter.Here in Winnipeg,MB Canada with windchill -38