Powered Cube to Cubix (P7) to Cubix Pro (P11)

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Having a Beatles evening Sgt. Pepper and the White Album, I forgot how clever these guys were, there will never be the likes again.

Again musical detail and nuance I have never heard or realised before - this is becoming a monotonous cry

[Ithilstone]

After very brief session the other day when I was picking up my AP20 - I need to admit Cubix PRO would made third place on my to buy list if I ever win Nation Lottery... Just after house in some nice place and Mercedes-AMG CLS 63 S 4MATIC

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

In a cliche easy listening mode before a trip to Moorfields eye hospital for check up after the op.

Bert Kaempfert - a swinging safari

Don't laugh, really good recording and tight professional musicianship. Pros are bouncing to the Kaempfert beat

[jammy395]

Its a smashing album - I defy anyone to sit still whilst this is playing........

Swingin........jpg (15.94 KiB) Viewed 1922 times

[terrybooth]

Thanks to Richard and Nadia, I had a chance to listen to the Cubix Pro yesterday.

Before I heard them I guess I had an idea of what they would sound like, after all, the speakers themselves (amplification to one side for the moment) are pretty similar to my Cubix: they're a bit taller and one tweeter is in a slightly different position. Amplification is a step up the range from what I've got at the moment. However, I'm running all NVA and the most obvious difference between what I've got and what I was going to hear was the Sony CD player.

Whatever I was expecting, quickly faded away pretty much straight away. First off, there's less - less in the way that is. Difficult to describe this, but there's just an absence of stuff I didn't really notice until it was gone - sonic window washing, moving a room closer to the music, that sort of thing.

Then there's more - and, once again, I'm struggling to describe this. It used to be that I'd pick up more on the individual voices of instruments with thing being a bit more distinct. I find my reaction to the Cubix Pro is rather like my reaction to the TSCS over LS6 - sounds are brought together more, but in a musical sense. The sound is more 'effortless': the detail in the playing is still there but now there's much more of a sense of the emotional energy behind the music. And, in writing that, I know a lot of you will wonder what on earth I've been taking.

For me, this came over more in the orchestral pieces I listening to: the sense of scale and majesty, of the interplay of the sounds and the emotional impact of the music. I'm definitely going to have to get a copy of Swan Lake!

After a session with the CD as source, I plugged in a Raspberry Pi with DAC board and my music on a USB disk. Because this is an old Pi with only two USB ports and I needed wifi to control it, this was powered by a little USB hub plugged into a BMU. First impressions were that the music was more veiled and constrained. This actually changed after 20 minutes or so as the Pi 'warmed up' but two things were pretty clear to me.

The first was that the Cubix Pros were presenting my music quite differently from what I was used to. My impression was of subtle changes to the balance of the different part of the music - the nearest I could get to explaining is it was like hearing the same music but in a different (and acoustically better) venue.

The second was that there are things the Pi is doing (or not doing) which I need to try to make better - so I'll need to resurrect my power supply and, possibly, DAC experiments with this: the challenge is to try to match the quality of sound from that CD player but at a more manageable cost.

In both configurations, it was very easy to stop listening to the hifi and start listening to the music. So, that's what I did. I haven't had chance to listen to my own system yet but, if it's anything like the other 'steps' in the NVA range I've experienced, I'll get a much better impression of what's been 'added' when I go back.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I have a window next week to start the third modules. I doubt I will be able to finish but we will be on the way.

[jammy395]

Man this THING (from unfinished reports) already seems like a giant killer.
Cant wait for the finished article, and findings......

[terrybooth]

Man this THING (from unfinished reports) already seems like a giant killer.
Cant wait for the finished article, and findings......

The first two bits - the top and the middle units - are finished and that's what I heard. The third (bottom) set are next, I understand. And, just for you, here's the wire review.

Some good and some bad news on the kill ugly wires front. First the good news:

There's only one wire needed between the pre-amp and each speaker unit and speaker cables are totally abolished.

Now the bad news:

Each speaker has two mains input leads which run from the power supply to the back of the speaker - (like your phono 2 - but the PSU is a wee bit bigger )

Perhaps you can persuade the Doc to have a conduit built into the speaker casing in your set to hide the wires.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I have got so blase about them recently I have managed to connect them up with channels reversed and had component containers perched on top of one of them and didn't notice. I was sitting thinking to myself the mains is bad today until I notice violins are on the right, they should be on the left, then I spot the boxes - bloody senility. And Zebbo was here having an amp mended, I really must have looked stooopid.

[jammy395]

I dont think yer taking this cubix pro project seriously Doc........