Dexer
New Member
Hi everyone!
22 years ago my friend invited us to his small 2 room apartment at Moscow outskirts to show his new audio system. The room where system was located was absolutely empty, it didn't even had wallpapers, walls was just concrete. Empty walls, scent of new apartment, sofa in a middle of room and this audio system:
NAD 501 CD player
NAD 306 Integrated Amplifier
Mirage M-490 Bookshelf speakers
I don't remember brands of interconnects and i still don't know the brand of speaker cables.
At that time I never heard better sound, the soundstage was around me, instruments was so real, voices was so believable. It was like they were really here, inside room. Sound was strong, punchy, dynamic and powerful. It was like beautiful dream, it was pure magic.
After some time my friend decided to buy a new system with turntable so he was willing to sell this one and i was happy to purchase it for only 400$.
I have spent numerous hours listening to my new treasure, it greatly changed all my musical tastes and opened many new genres for me. I was very very happy with it. Many of my friends was also deeply impressed by its sound. I have also found a huge difference in sound quality of original expensive CDs vs cheap "grey" CDs which was sold everywhere at that time.
Time have passed, we had a small kids and one titanium tweeter on Mirage was already creased by little finger. Later, another tweeter was creased too and even punctured a little. Surprisingly, system still sounded good and magic was still here.
So long story short, some time ago i decided to give this system a second life. CD player stopped working and i decided to buy a DAC instead of CD player. I have purchased AudioQuest Dragonfly 1.2 and tried it as a source, but its not impressed me at all. Not with NAD-Mirage combo nor with my headphones Sennheiser HD-598.
And now i again decided i need to try to get magic back. I have purchased NAD D3020 and tried it with my Mirage speakers. It sounded mediocre, so i decided to buy new speakers and purchased KEF LS50. It still sound thin and weak, and doesn't impress me. So now i have 2 systems and still unhappy. I really don’t know where is a problem and how to solve it. Im sure KEFs are better than my old Mirage. Maybe a problem with my room? But NAD D3020 sounds unimpressive with my Sennheiser HD-598 as well. Maybe problem is in my ears?
Here are pics of my current room and setup. Its a quite big room, but i have tried it in a small room as well with not much better results.
22 years ago my friend invited us to his small 2 room apartment at Moscow outskirts to show his new audio system. The room where system was located was absolutely empty, it didn't even had wallpapers, walls was just concrete. Empty walls, scent of new apartment, sofa in a middle of room and this audio system:
NAD 501 CD player
NAD 306 Integrated Amplifier
Mirage M-490 Bookshelf speakers
I don't remember brands of interconnects and i still don't know the brand of speaker cables.
At that time I never heard better sound, the soundstage was around me, instruments was so real, voices was so believable. It was like they were really here, inside room. Sound was strong, punchy, dynamic and powerful. It was like beautiful dream, it was pure magic.
After some time my friend decided to buy a new system with turntable so he was willing to sell this one and i was happy to purchase it for only 400$.
I have spent numerous hours listening to my new treasure, it greatly changed all my musical tastes and opened many new genres for me. I was very very happy with it. Many of my friends was also deeply impressed by its sound. I have also found a huge difference in sound quality of original expensive CDs vs cheap "grey" CDs which was sold everywhere at that time.
Time have passed, we had a small kids and one titanium tweeter on Mirage was already creased by little finger. Later, another tweeter was creased too and even punctured a little. Surprisingly, system still sounded good and magic was still here.
So long story short, some time ago i decided to give this system a second life. CD player stopped working and i decided to buy a DAC instead of CD player. I have purchased AudioQuest Dragonfly 1.2 and tried it as a source, but its not impressed me at all. Not with NAD-Mirage combo nor with my headphones Sennheiser HD-598.
And now i again decided i need to try to get magic back. I have purchased NAD D3020 and tried it with my Mirage speakers. It sounded mediocre, so i decided to buy new speakers and purchased KEF LS50. It still sound thin and weak, and doesn't impress me. So now i have 2 systems and still unhappy. I really don’t know where is a problem and how to solve it. Im sure KEFs are better than my old Mirage. Maybe a problem with my room? But NAD D3020 sounds unimpressive with my Sennheiser HD-598 as well. Maybe problem is in my ears?
Here are pics of my current room and setup. Its a quite big room, but i have tried it in a small room as well with not much better results.
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