Simaudio 820S, Part 25
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| Posted on January 17, 2021 at 00:23:14 | ||
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Posts: 7330
Location: Bay Area Joined: December 11, 2000 |
For over two years, an audiophile would check in with me, and broach topics about Simaudio's Evolution series products. Eventually, he bought a used 650D CD player/DAC, a model I have not lived with. Despite not liking the 650D's black faceplate with silver cheeks (he'd rather have all-silver), he liked the 650D enough, that he started bugging me about the 820S outboard power supply. In terms of sonics, most of my coverage of the 820S has centered on my friends' 740P preamp and 610LP phonostage. The audiophile above shrugged those off, and kept asking me about my 750D CD player/DAC. My answer was that, for my tastes, the solo 750D was okay. My wife liked it more than I did. However, we added an 820S to the 750D. IMO, an 820S did not transform the 750D. It did, however, effect enough sonic change to be worthwhile. A line I kept writing to the audiophile was that, if we paid attention to setup and ancillary gear, the 820S "tells more of the story." In high school and college (late-80s and early-90s), my friend Shelly, who is a couple years older, would share her love of heavy metal music with the rest of us. Not belonging to any clique, Shelly was a "lone wolf." We thought she'd have three kids, with three different guys. But in her own way, Shelly was actually very protective of us.  In late summer 1992, Shelly drove us to an Obituary concert, at The Omni in Oakland. They were in support of their album, The End Complete. If you add an 820S, you remember that Shelly was actually over 21, but for the 2-drink minimum, she did not get alcohol. One of the nerd girls snickered, "That's 'cuz she's pregnant." But no, Shelly was responsible enough, not to drink, when she was our driver. Live, Obituary were very good. They were neither shrill nor sludgy. Unlike their studio recordings, the band was integrated, with no one member sticking out. What set Obituary apart from death metal bands was that their songs had guitar solos.  So 90s. Shelly took this in the East Bay hills. Shelly was especially protective of nerd girls. She cautioned them about sexual assault. And Shelly also knew that, though the nerd girls were academically stellar, they could be the worst, when it came to sexual health. Nerd girls were typically sexually inexperienced, and when emotions and hormones kicked in, all that academia went out the window. Shelly said, "I don't have any proof, but I bet that [nerd girls] aren't the best in using protection." A Canare 5-pin XLR cable surrounds the ticket stub above. Sticking the 5-pin and 4-pin XLR cables on an audiodharma Cable Cooker (a) keeps grain at bay, and (b) allows you to hear the differences in these cables. This is the equivalent of clearly listening to Shelly's words of wisdom.  Also in late summer 1992, I met up with friends who lived off-campus. Some of us were about to enter our senior year. There was optimism, but there was a schism, between the boys and girls. The boys were excited. They felt like not only was this the year, but they'd have the whole university to choose from. OTOH, the girls were more cautious and guarded. While they were hopeful in finding a guy, they were loathe to date freshmen and sophomore guys.  "It tells more of the story." Okay, I'm not going to open up the 820S again, but after-market fuses do have an influence. So you have to experiment. Because of my particular biases, I went with the Hi-Fi Tuning Silverstar, for its detail, tightness, speed with control, and treble extension. This is the fuse, which brings more of your college friends together, to share their optimism and apprehension.  Just like other cable types, be sure you stick powercords on the Cable Cooker. Thus, if you just want to use the throwaway OEM cord which came with 820S, that is perfectly fine. Shelly used to remark that nerd girls could be "ham-fisted" with birth control. Well, the wrong powercord on the 820S can make the sound ham-fisted. But use the right powercord, and the 820S all of a sudden preserves soundstage dimensions, the music's movement, timbres, expression. Yes, like different people telling stories, each recording takes on its own identity and personality. And there are times, where you look up, and think that it sounded like a reasonable facsimile of a piano. With the 820S, the goal of the Simaudio 740P preamp becomes clear: it wants to be as quiet and out-of-the-way as possible. With the 820S, the 610LP just wants to read what it is fed, and pass it accurately to the preamp. But as a source component, the 750D actually creates sound. It's not so much "How does it sound?," but rather, "It tells more of the story." Yeah, I'm a hardcore hi-fi rocker. But an optimized 820S/750D can let the music speak for itself. With lite rock, it's like you are back in your late teens or early-20s, in an economy subcompact car, with three of your female friends. The lite rock somehow gets all of you to put in the effort, of singing with emotion and at the tops of your lungs. If you are not careful, you might end up with the girl next to you, even if she's not the best match. The 820S/750D completes the story. Now that Shelly and her husband have a kid, it is the husband, who now has three kids, with three different women. And, somewhat surprising to us friends, Shelly is a good mom to all three of her husband's kids (the oldest is now a young adult). Assuming the rest of the system doesn't screw it up, the 820S/750D playing Obituary's The End Complete is, by a 60/40 ratio, more 1992, than 2021. It leaves it up to you, to decide for yourself, if that is good, bad, or indifferent. But that's not going to stop the audiophile at the top of the page, from bugging me :-) -Lummy The Loch Monster
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| RE: Simaudio 820S, Part 25, posted on January 18, 2021 at 04:37:26 | |
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Posts: 15518
Location: Alabama Joined: September 11, 2010 |
Nice review- Lummy.
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