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Cary Audio Design Superior Quality and Value

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  #21  
Old 02-18-2013, 11:12 PM
LordoftheRingsEE LordoftheRingsEE is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dminches View Post
Update on my setup:

I spoke to Cary tech support today. They are always helpful.

They said the balanced outputs should work with the 7.1 analog in. I checked my connections and I had the L/R from my Oppo incorrectly routed to the Cinema 12. As LOTR said, sometimes the solutions are the simplest.

I also got the test tones to work with the manual setup. What the manual doesn't say is that you first have to select an input which has nothing hooked up to it when you go into manual setup mode.

So, things are working well. The unit sounds wonderful, but that's what I expected.

Thanks to everyone for their helpful comments.
-- That's very sweet to hear. ...Patience/persistence finally paid off.

Cheers,
Bob (#11489)
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  #22  
Old 04-10-2013, 04:27 PM
Sonic Sonic is offline
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How does the C12 compare to the Krell Foundation?

I'm not able to go fully balanced between my C12 and ARC. Integration requires the use of RCA's for communication between the two otherwise I get no sound through my mains with movies; it's either that or manual volume calibration on the ARC (and remembering to turn the volume down every time I switch between movies & music). The result seems to be generating a bit of inherent noise coming from only my mains during movies. My center and surrounds are completely silent. I'm assuming this is because they go directly from the amp into the C12 via XLR unlike the mains which have to travel via RCA from the ARC to the C12. Any advice on what to do here? The noise is bothering me a bit, especially during quiet scenes in movies. It's only coming from the FL & FR.
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  #23  
Old 04-14-2013, 01:50 PM
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Well, following up with my noise issue, I decided to disconnect the ARC and route all cabling directly into the C12 - and the noise is gone. This is a bittersweet discovery; sweet because the noise has vanished from the mains but also to my astonishment, the C12's musical performance is at least as good as the ARC and even a bit better through HDMI it appears, which I can't believe I'm saying. I get a nice full bottom end in the bass that I can feel which is absent through XLR (unless I can go in manually and change that). Bitter because well, I have an ARC that has just nearly been abandoned. Everyone has such stellar things to say about Audio Research tubes but everyone hears differently. To my own ears thus far, the C12 seems to have an edge on the ARC - again, bittersweet and also quite surprising!
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  #24  
Old 05-10-2013, 01:53 PM
commuteman commuteman is offline
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Default Just ordered a Cinema 12

Hi,

First post here;I found the community while doing some research on processors. The reasons for choosing the Cary are kinda interesting, a combination of sound quality, price and dealer issues.

I am replacing an old Meridian 500 series combo; the processor will be the primary digital music path in my main system as well as doing the obvious movie processing, so the 2-channel audio performance is very important.

I narrowed the choice down to 3 candidates, and the other two were the Arcam FMJ888 and the Anthem AVM50V. At this point i didn't want to stretch the budget up to D2V or SSP territory, given that this space is still evolving. The Cary is the cheapest of the three, but reputed to have the best 2-channel sound.

Surprisingly, I wasn't able to find a dealer in the SF Bay Area who actually had either of the Anthem units (or would return my phone calls). More than 6M people here and no Anthem processors? More or less the same with the Arcam, although I did not call every dealer.

Sound Vision SF had the Cary, and I spent an hour or so listening to both the analog pass-through and the digital processing. In both cases, the performance was at least as good as I expected. The pass-through signal came from an $8k Wadia unit (maybe a 581, but I did not look closely) and was fabulous, but the processed signal through the Cary was not too far behind. A little more closed-in, not quite so much air and separation, but close.

Obviously this is a risky approach since I was auditioning it in a foreign system, but the experience was good enough that I ordered one on the spot.

Should be here in a week or so, and I will post more once I play with it.

Peter
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  #25  
Old 05-10-2013, 05:38 PM
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Peter, welcome to AA!



I'm looking forward to your experience with the Cary processor.
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  #26  
Old 05-10-2013, 07:43 PM
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commuteman... Welcome!
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  #27  
Old 05-24-2013, 01:26 PM
commuteman commuteman is offline
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Default Update on the Cinema 12 experience

Thanks for the nice welcome!

I've had the Cary for a week or so, and I did say I would come back with initial impressions so here goes:

The build quality is obviously very high, and the C12 feels really substantial ans solid. The controls all have a great feel to them, and it's clearly a high-end product. The packaging and documentation make it clear that this is still something of an artisanal product; everything has a handmade vibe (in a good way..).

The setup is pretty straightforward, but the manual isn't as helpful as it could be. For example, there are two different configs for movies and music, which I will use down the road, but there is no clear indication how they are selected or when you would use them. I found the answer while playing with the remote... The manual does step you through everything that you need to do to get up and running, but it doesn't provide much info about why you might want to choose this option vs that, or what will happen if you do. If you are looking for simplicity and great documentation, and you are not comfortable with a "some assembly required" experience, then this may not be the product for you.

I ignored the auto setup process, since all it does is identify the speaker channels that are present, work out the distance (and hence delay) from each speaker to the listening position, and set the levels. Since I own a tape measure and a sound level meter, and I know how many speakers I have :-) it was easy enough to handle manually.

Randy at AudioVision SF warned me that burn-in could take 100hrs, and I tend to agree. When it was first installed, the sound was way more detailed than the Meridian units it replaced, but sounded a lot thinner. Over a two-day period it became much warmer, with a lot more bloom and air surrounding instruments.

But how does it sound?

So far I have tried CDs via coax; Blu-ray, a Dish DVR and an Apple TV via HDMI; and my phono preamp routed through the analog bypass mode.

The Cary sound is very similar across all of these sources. There is a ton of very fine detail, the sound stage is very clearly laid out, and the separation between instruments is really, really good. There is also a great sense of "bloom", the sense that each instrument has space and air around it.

I haven't spent a lot of time yet on movie soundtracks, but I plan to fix that this weekend. We have been watching a lot of concert movies lately, and both the Clapton Crossroads blu-ray and Lightning in a Bottle via Apple TV sounded great.

The sound is definitely still a little brighter and more forward than the Meridian sound, but it is definitely not at all hard or shrill. It handles violins beautifully, and that is usually where I find any digital/transistor artifacts stand out, so it is probably a reflection of the Meridian's "over-smoothness".

My system is at least as "musical" as before, and despite all the strong high-fidelity attributes the Cary is not at all sterile; it really lets the emotional content through.

Don't forget that I am comparing it to a pretty old Meridian 500 series combo; I'm really curious how the C12 would stack up against other modern digital processors.

The most shocking thing is that I swear the phono stage sounds better through the Cary than direct, although I might just be enjoying the fact that I now have remote control of LP volume for the first time.

No idea if I am losing anything without having ARC or Audyssey, but in the past I have found that adding any additional processing incurs a penalty in detail and musicality. I'm having too much fun listening to music to worry about that!

Operationally, there have been no issues but it is going to take a while to sort out the setup completely. I was worried that others had reported issues with things like skip forward or back on a DVR via HDMI, but I have not experienced this. There is a definite delay of a few seconds when switching HDMI sources or skipping tracks etc on an HDMI-connected device, but that is no big deal for me.

The only quibble so far is that a bit more gain would be nice. I'm going to experiment to see if that is something I can change via setup.

Bottom line: the sound quality is absolutely fabulous, the video switching works and stays out of the way, and I'm getting less sleep as I work through my music and movie collection..

So far, I'm a very happy Cary owner.

Peter
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  #28  
Old 10-30-2013, 05:04 PM
milll36 milll36 is offline
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Hi , im considering a cinema 12 for our Showroom theater, we were searching for something with PEQ and good sound so this fits the bill. I want to know all the current glitches , and what are the recommended connections. and suggestions. We have the following equipment :
Sunfire 7401 7 ch Amp
Triad Gold LCR Inwall Fronts
Triad Inwall Silver surrounds (Sides, and back)
Triad Inwall Bronze Subs (4) on the walls.

Our sources are coming thru our hdmi switching system, so there we have 3 cable tv box motorola dcx 3200, apple tv.
XBMC HTPC, that would run al the movies.
And maybe an oppo.
So first question will be usually our media is on our automation system and is connected thru the audio matrix to an analog input or optical out, what is your suggestion so we can have great stereo sound also on the theater?
tks
daniel
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  #29  
Old 10-30-2013, 07:00 PM
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Daniel, welcome!

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Stereo: Hegel H590, Grimm Audio MU1, Mola Mola Tambaqui, Burmester 948 - V3 & V6 racks, Vivid Audio G2 Giyas, REL Carbon Special (pair), Silent Angel Bonn N8 Ethernet Switch & Forester F1, Wireworld Platinum Eclipse IC and SE SC, Furutech Digiflux
AV: Hegel C-53, Marantz AV8802A, Oppo BDP-203EU, Pioneer Kuro 60", Vivid Audio C1 & V1w's, Wireworld Platinum Eclipse, SE & E
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  #30  
Old 10-30-2013, 08:13 PM
milll36 milll36 is offline
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hi bart thanks for your message
now im a subscriber, so its easier to write something..

Last edited by milll36; 10-30-2013 at 08:24 PM.
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