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The Maestro outlet is good, but...

Posted by tonyptony (A) on October 30, 2011 at 13:00:15

...I'm not sure it's "perfect" for my system.

I've been deciding what to do with my wall outlet for the past several months. This outlet feeds my source gear. One output feeds a custom BPT CPC for everything but my preamp (it has a small balanced xfmr in it so it's more like a mini BP, plus an HCF-30) and an Audience AR1P from the other output into my Pass X1 power supply. The combination of BPT plus Audience feeding my source gear results in a very natural, transparent, and even-handed musical presentation with excellent control and extension at both ends.

I tried a hosptal grade Hubbel, a Porter Port (not bad!), a PS Audio outlet and one or two others - all in the lower end of the price range.

After pouring over reviews and threads over all the boards I decided to move up to the ~$100 range. I tried an Oyaide SWO-XXX first. I let it cook for two weeks straight before doing any serious listening. The XXX brought what seemed like a bit of speed to my system, but also a bit of a tip in the upper range that I wasn't sure I liked. Still, overall I liked it the best so far and it was easily better than the stock hunk of junk that was there (I have a second outlet not far from this one that was still stock so it was easy to plug my source gear into it to hear what it used to sound like - and yes that one sounds like the one I use for my system before I started with new outlets). I lived with it a while and then decided to try the Maestro. I moved the XXX to that other outlet space for the next comparison.

Where the first thing I noticed with the XXX was transparency and transient speed, after the same two week cooking the first thing I noticed with the Maestro was transparency and an even blacker sense of silence. The sense of a natural, spacious, quiet and very transparent presentation was all there. The soundstage is wider and deeper without pushing the music back into it. I like this outlet a lot, but if I had to nitpick I think it may be just a hair less good (in my system) in the areas of transient snap and the highest end space and sparkle compared to the XXX. In all other ways I think the Maestro is a great fit for my source gear; I not sure but I feel like that little bit may be missing.

My system was built around the sense of getting the best, natural sense of musical presentation, so maybe the Maestro is too much of a good thing? OTOH, is that sense of snap and speed something that is really artificial? I'm not so sure. I go to plenty of acoustic live shows every year (on the order of 8-10) so I am used to the sound of live music. By comparison the Maestro is decidedly better in emulating the sense of live music over the XXX (again in my system), but if it only had a bit more sparkle and snap without losing anything.

I'm wondering if such an outlet exists. If it doesn't I'm not sure I'd pull the Maestro out; it's otherwise as good as I've heard in my system.

BTW my wife, who loves music as much as me and knows the sound of this system very well, easily described the same differences between the stock outlet, XXX, and Maestro without me saying a thing to her. She otherwise doesn't know one brand of high end gear from the next. In the end she also preferred the Maestro for "sounding the most like real music is here in the room".

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Kimber Kable

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