Back to the future............... Possibly

No, don't think it's that Oli, as have made various changes to keep things interesting. I've owned most of S2 for 30 - 40 years, the only new elements are the streaming, 401 & speakers, still have a Mantra & P77 Mg + my oroginal Sony cassette deck and Sansuii tuner, plenty of time to get bored with things if that's the problem. It's definitely the overall sound signature of S2 that's doing it, a sound that I guess is smoother, more rounded, but still with richness, detail and separation.

Well Sunday is here and my mate came round about 1 to help me, play with my audio options. Having first transferred my spare Cambridge A50 to the musicroom and plugged it in to warm up, we sat down to dial, our ears into system 2 and agree on some test tracks on Qobuz.
Tracks chosen were:
I've got dreams, Otis Redding
You're going to nna leave, Steven Marley (acoustic version)
Summertime Eilen Jewell
Aurora En Pekin, Marc Ribot
These boots were made for walking, Nancy Sinatra
Everything was sounding wonderful as expected, after all this is my new reference/preferred sound, rich with plenty of detail nice plumbey full upper bass and mids.
Next up was a listen to the main rig in standard guise, this admittedly only lasted a couple of tracks as it doesn't sound how I want it now. Yes it's detailed with deep tight bass and airy hf, and generally very holographic, but with, for me that X factor missing.
Next step was to bring in the 104ab to see what would happen to their sound when fed by topline sources and better Pre/power via modern Chord cables. As was to be expected they sounded stunning fed by the ZenITH, BI and MFA/GamuT, adding most of the sound signature I was after, plus sounding a lot better to my ears than the Summits, WTF. Yes we both expected a different presentation from the 104s, what we didn't expect was for them to trounce the Summits at the same time.

Next up in the plan was sticking the A50 between the mfa Baby Ref and the 104s inplace of the GamuT D200, so cables were dicked with and the A50 fed with the last track played before the swap. Within 30 seconds of hitting play we turned to each other and said in unison quite loudly, WTF!!! This should not be happening, to both our ears the A50 had just comprehensively wiped the floor with the GamuT and it continued to do so track after track. Something that definitely was not predicted and has left both of us gobsmacked. At this point my friend said there was nothing left to prove, as we had eliminated room 2 as a factor and it was a combination of amp & speakers bringing all the goodness. The ratio of what was doing what was not as expected though, yes the speakers determine the final sound but we felt that the amp was contributing far more than anticipated at around 60% of the final sound.

After my friend had gone and prior to reassembling both systems I decided just for shits and giggles to see if the 50wpc Cambridge A50 would work with the Summits, thinking it would struggle with the potentially awkward panel load (drops to <1 Ohm at upper hf). Did it hell, with the A50 driving the Summits I was, near as damn it listening to a 5 foot tall pair of 104ab, Whaaat The F!!!

The 50wpc (@ 8Ohms)class A/B Cambridge Audio A50 power amp was £200 in 1988 (about £1400 now). The 180/8, 300/4, 420/2, GamuT D200 mk2 was £6.5k in the early 00s.
Not exactly a fair fight, you could say it was David Vs Goliath, and again David d won the day. The GamuT is currently unplugged, out of the rack and on the floor in the corner.

So what have I learned from this exercise?
1. The Kef 104ab are bloody superb speakers and I have vastly underestimated them.
2. Stan Curtis knew what he was doing and the A50 is far far better than I and probably many others realise.
3. After the Wam show I definitely need to do some serious thinking with regards to my main system.

I've still to try out my 1994 Technics SL-PG440A CDP in the main system (it sounds epic in system 2). There is also the replinthed 401 with Jelco 750 (once built) to try out, which I suspect will out the Bardo/Enterprise permanently.

I suspect following some re-evaluation many of the high ticket items will be getting sold. Ohh err.

Have had some more fun this morning, this time with system 2 and the 401, having had to return the R200 to The Vinyl Source for them to check the arm wiring (R +ve & L - ve no continuity) I decided to slap a spare RB250 on the 401 and also fit a <50 hr ex-dem Benz Ace SH I'd pick up for a song. DAMN!!! I cant wait to get this deck re-plinthed and fitted with the Jelco 750 if it sounds this good with the 250. I've never had a Benz or an HO cart for that matter, but it sounds absolutely stunning into the phonostage of the Cambridge C50 (Thankyou Stan) and has to be about the best £300 hifi punt I've ever taken.

I am firmly of the belief (these days) that the most bang for buck when upgrading comes from getting the best speakers that you can afford.

Whilst there are valid reasons for upgrading sources, where poor performance is rife IMO, and preamps (attenuator related for me) there aren't as many power amplifiers that are underperforming.

Speakers and the room are what do the damage to most listening experiences, and spending wisely there makes the biggest difference.

I think it's easier to buy, try and morlve ancillary devices like DACs etc, as speakers tend to be very difficult to shift and not lose money on, so I get it, but that's my take these days....

Speakers first!!!!