I Have The Best System In The World!
Dan’s 35-Year Quest for Bass ends at last—with a surprising solution
Photos by Karim Senoussi.
This installment in the series is a little unusual. The system featured in this article might never have been submitted by the owner, Dan—and thus would have never appeared here—were it not for a single passive accessory added to it that changed everything. According to Dan and his close friend Karim—who knows the system well and was the subject of an early installment in the series—the sonic transformation was so profound that only then did Dan feel his system was worthy of inclusion in “No, I Have the Best System in the World!”
For years, Dan had been trying to solve a persistent problem—a lack of bass, in terms of both depth and energy. And it wasn’t for lack of trying that it eluded him. But other than that frustrating shortcoming, he really liked the sound of his system.
It includes the iconic 200Wpc, dual-mono, class-AB Mark Levinson ML-3 solid-state amplifier; a Mark Levinson ML-10 preamplifier; and a Mark Levinson No. 390S CD player. Cabling includes Straight Wire Crescendo speaker cables and interconnects, along with Straight Wire Pro Thunder power cords. Power delivery is further refined with Furutech receptacles and a pair of Nordost QV2 AC line purifiers.
The speakers are the 180lb-each, five-way Thiel CS5i floorstanders. The CS5, followed by the CS5i, was once the flagship model of the now-defunct loudspeaker manufacturer. Released in the early 1990s and renowned for their “coherent source” time-aligned driver technology, the CS5 models were widely regarded as designer Jim Thiel’s magnum opus. The speakers were rated to deliver bass extension down to 23Hz.
That specification is impressive, but that was the thing. In his system, Dan wasn’t getting anywhere near that level of low-frequency extension. He was getting close to none. This had been a recurring theme for more than 35 years. As he said to me plaintively during our interview, “I’ve been looking for bass since I was 25 years old!” That search started in earnest when he bought his first true hi-fi speakers, the Thiel 2.0s. Then came the Thiel 2.2s—now residing in his son’s room—and eventually the CS5i’s.
Dan refers to this decades-long, just lifted “dark” period, to paraphrase a 1980s science fiction movie, as his Quest for Bass.
It eventually became clear that the problem wasn’t rooted in the electronics. Over the years, Dan had tried several components known for their bass output before ultimately falling in love with the Mark Levinson sound. But while those components did add a touch more weight to the bottom end than their competitors, it was their sweet, musical presentation—and the way it complemented the Thiels—that made them keepers.
Cabling, too, was unlikely to be the culprit, or even be able to help. Dan experimented with a wide range of options before settling on Straight Wire’s Crescendo and Pro Thunder models, which struck him as more balanced than the alternatives, offering a hint more bass while also attenuating what he described as a slight brightness in the CS5i’s top-end.
But it was the Straight Wire Pro Thunder power cord that impressed most, improving nearly every aspect of the sound—nearly. “Did it give me the bass I was looking for? No, no, no, no,” Dan said with mock despair. “But the Pro Thunder was the only power cable I tried that delivered all positives and no negatives.”
Was the Pro Thunder the best bang for the buck up until then?
“No, that would be the Furutech receptacles,” he said. “Like the Pro Thunders, the Furutechs made everything sound better without taking anything away, plus they provided more musical precision, more power, a better-defined soundstage—more of everything!”
Did the Nordost QV2 AC line purifiers offer similar results? “They were more subtle,” he said. “I think they added a bit of sweetness and purity, maybe improved the soundstage, but it wasn’t obvious.”
All of which meant that the finger for the bass shortfall ultimately had to be pointed at the Thiels, despite their claimed 23Hz bass extension. Why, then, did Dan stick with the Thiel brand rather than try his luck elsewhere? “Because I still loved their look and sound. They’re very open and transparent, and they throw a great soundstage. They have a knack for disappearing. I just wished I had bass!”
So imagine his disappointment when he installed the heavy CS5i’s, with their supposedly superior low-end capabilities, only to find that they didn’t deliver. To add insult to injury, the midband sounded thin. “That’s when I gave up,” he said. After more than three decades into his Quest for Bass, Dan was ready to resign himself to an audiophile life devoid of low frequency vibrations.
But then something happened—something so astoundingly unlikely it feels almost predestined. One day, while walking his dog, Dan noticed his neighbour, Alain, a machinist in the aeronautics industry, working in his garage. He stopped to chat, and as the conversation unfolded, Dan learned that Alain co-owned a new company, Coga Audio, with another neighbour, Jean-François, an IT specialist with a background in high-performance cars. As chance would have it, Coga Audio designs and builds vibration-damping feet for speakers and audio electronics.
A couple of days later Alain and J.F. placed some Cogas under Dan’s speakers and, well, the earth shook, the sky cleared, and the angels sang. To quote Dan: “I *bleeping* freaked, Robert! There was the bass—what I’d been searching for the past 35 years! My Quest for Bass was over.”
And the Cogas brought more than just bass to the table: “Things I’d never heard before,” said Dan. “And I don’t know how—I’m not an engineer—but the Cogas seemed to extract more power and potential from the Mark Levinson ML3 amp.”
The change was so dramatic that both Dan and Karim proclaimed the system’s sound as having improved by 100% across the board!
It turned out the problem had always been the floor—or, more precisely, how the speakers were coupled to it. As Coga’s J.F. explained to me in a subsequent conversation, Cogas are CNC-machined components made from high-carbon coral steel, layered over a compliant, suction-like compound. Their purpose is to prevent bass energy from being dissipated into the supporting surface and into the home’s structure, while simultaneously rejecting unwanted vibrations.
As passive accessories, Cogas are designed to allow a component to perform exactly as its designer intended, free from external mechanical interference.
On Dan’s invitation, I went to his place to hear his system for myself. As soon as I walked through the front door, there they were, at the far end of the family room —the mighty CCS5i’s standing like Easter Island moai stone statues guarding the land. As large as they are, however, their black finishes allowed them to blend inconspicuously into their surroundings.
As I approached them, the rest of the gear came into focus, all beautifully aligned against the wall on rust-coloured slabs of hemlock inserted in a slatted wall frame.
While I didn’t know what Dan’s system sounded like pre-Cogas, attempting an A/B comparison would have been a back-breaking exercise considering the sheer mass of the Thiels and the suctioning grip of the Cogas, so we left them in place.
What I can report with certainty, after listening to a number of tracks by, among others, Quebec’s own Gino Vannelli and Céline Dion (not together), is there was no lack of bass. It was full. It energized the room.It plunged deep toward the threshold of audibility, before throbbing against the floor and beneath my feet. It thumped in my chest like a second, more powerful heart. The tonal balance was not thin, but fleshy.
Vocals were large-scale and tightly focused. The soundstage was open and vividly panoramic, projecting waves of energy and room-enveloping sound. Harmonics were expansive, details glittered, and violins, drums, and guitars appeared substantial and well defined, their contours shimmering in three-dimensional relief.
The sound was, in a word, majestic. Dan was right; his system was ready for primetime!
When I asked Dan what he liked most about the hobby, he said, it was, “Just to listen to music with the lights out, a glass of wine in hand, maybe with the fireplace on. I often listen with my eyes closed; I do that to see the music. It’s very relaxing. I find that once I start listening to music, three or four hours can go by and feel like 10 minutes.”
Was he contemplating any further upgrades?
“I’ve been told I have a Lamborghini now, so no,” he said with a chuckle. “But if I were to do anything, it would probably be to install a nice, thick rug to dampen the room a bit.”
Any words of wisdom for readers?
“I’d tell them not to skip over the old gear—the stuff from the ’70s and ’80s—just because they’re afraid it might break,” he said. “If it’s quality equipment, it’s often easier to fix than a lot of the newer equipment.
“Oh, and if there’s something missing in the sound of your system,” he added. “Don’t worry because there’s likely a solution out there. I should know!”
Not one to disregard a killer accessory, I plan to try the Cogas under my own speakers, the Dynaudio Contour 30.1’s, soon. More to follow…
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For more information about Coga Audio and their products, visit www.cogaaudio.com
PMA Magazine, the power of music and audio
Robert Schryer believes that all you need is love… along with music and good gear. Such is his belief in the power of music and audio to bring harmony to the world that he has chosen to dedicate his life to advancing their collective cause.