Sagatun premiere 17th May

Conversations about Lejonklou Products and this Forum

Moderator: Staff

bugi666
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 330
Joined: 2011-08-11 21:39
Location: Scotchland

Post by bugi666 »

I suppose there's no plans to release the balanced version of Sagatuns?
Majik DS > CXA60 > crappy speakers...
User avatar
Erik
Active member
Active member
Posts: 217
Joined: 2007-01-31 20:14
Location: Sweden

Post by Erik »

There is no balanced version, only a Mono and a Stereo version.

Erik
User avatar
Music Lover
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 1673
Joined: 2007-01-31 20:35
Location: In front of Lejonklou/JBL/Ofil

Post by Music Lover »

With a little time between meetings, I'll elaborate on my findings.
It was interesting to notice the relative small differences between KK and Sagatun Stereo in the shop - given the large difference in my home (Erik has same experience)

Based on previous experiences and discussing this with Linnofil we are both certain this is due to how good the systems are installed.
I know Erik is experienced, dedicated to fine-tuning AND understand TuneDem.
We both have Mimer K shelves...

The shop lack the LS-NAS and the pre-amps were placed on Mimer 3.1, dramatically less good than Mimer K.

To be totally honest, digital replay without an optimized NAS is not that good at all. And a LS-NAS is a LOT better than all other optimized NAS I heard to date.
It's like going from ADS to KDS. Dare I write bigger? Mimer makes same difference...

To wrap it up, please make sure you demo in a well setup system!


btw
People I trust report Exakt to be even more sensitive to tweaks on storage, networking and positioning. Interesting! (including power feeding)
--> Source first RULES, despite the recent disappointing Linn Exakt marketing message.
It's all about musical understanding!
matthias
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 2092
Joined: 2007-12-25 16:47
Location: Germany

Post by matthias »

Linnofil wrote:There was also a brief demo of Mimer 3 vs. Mimer K shelves in the Harmonihyllan rack. What an impressive difference! Talk about a reference rack, amazing. The difference was on the same level as Sagatun Mono vs Stereo, that is not a small difference! I wish you all could here what an superb rack the Harmonihyllan is.
Music Lover and Linnofil,

that means
Sagatun Stereo on Mimer K
is on par with
Sagatun Mono on Mimer 3.1

KR
Matt
Ozzzy189
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 702
Joined: 2011-08-30 18:49
Location: North Lincolnshire -UK.
Contact:

Post by Ozzzy189 »

I have a Russ Andrews torlyte rack system, I wonder how that compares to the rack you speak about?
ADS3/SagMono/Tundra 2.2- . Totem Tribe Tower.
Lejonklou demos available in the N of England.
Efraim roots
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 312
Joined: 2009-10-23 01:37
Location: Sweden

Post by Efraim roots »

Music Lover wrote:With a little time between meetings, I'll elaborate on my findings.
It was interesting to notice the relative small differences between KK and Sagatun Stereo in the shop - given the large difference in my home (Erik has same experience)

Based on previous experiences and discussing this with Linnofil we are both certain this is due to how good the systems are installed.
I know Erik is experienced, dedicated to fine-tuning AND understand TuneDem.
We both have Mimer K shelves...

The shop lack the LS-NAS and the pre-amps were placed on Mimer 3.1, dramatically less good than Mimer K.

To be totally honest, digital replay without an optimized NAS is not that good at all. And a LS-NAS is a LOT better than all other optimized NAS I heard to date.
It's like going from ADS to KDS. Dare I write bigger? Mimer makes same difference...

To wrap it up, please make sure you demo in a well setup system!
But in the shop there was very careful attention in giving the preamps exact same conditions at least. We also did many comaparisons. You might be right anyway, I don't know.

Regarding the Mimer shelfs used, they were actually "kind of" Mimer 2 because they should be excatly the same and there wasn't enough Mimer 3 available. Pukka Mimer 3 is also clearly better than the shelfs that were used.
the players of instruments shall be there..
User avatar
lejonklou
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 6524
Joined: 2007-01-30 10:38
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by lejonklou »

Music Lover wrote:The shop lack the LS-NAS and the pre-amps were placed on Mimer 3.1, dramatically less good than Mimer K.
I will write more very soon, but just have to correct you:

All preamps were placed on Mimer 2, not 3.1. There was only one Mimer 3.1 shelf available, which we briefly compared, Efraim Roots and I, and it was quite a step up from Mimer 2. This Mimer 3.1 shelf was removed to make comparisons fair.
User avatar
lejonklou
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 6524
Joined: 2007-01-30 10:38
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by lejonklou »

You beat me by a few seconds, Efraim! :)

What is Pukka? Do you mean spruce?
Rufus McDufus
Active member
Active member
Posts: 137
Joined: 2012-04-28 07:56

Post by Rufus McDufus »

lejonklou wrote:You beat me by a few seconds, Efraim! :)

What is Pukka? Do you mean spruce?
"Pukka" is like "genuine", or "the real deal" or perhaps "the best".
User avatar
Music Lover
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 1673
Joined: 2007-01-31 20:35
Location: In front of Lejonklou/JBL/Ofil

Post by Music Lover »

lejonklou wrote:
Music Lover wrote:The shop lack the LS-NAS and the pre-amps were placed on Mimer 3.1, dramatically less good than Mimer K.
I will write more very soon, but just have to correct you:

All preamps were placed on Mimer 2, not 3.1. There was only one Mimer 3.1 shelf available, which we briefly compared, Efraim Roots and I, and it was quite a step up from Mimer 2. This Mimer 3.1 shelf was removed to make comparisons fair.
Ahh, sorry my bad. But then my comment is even more valid (i.e not as good support as Mimer K at my place)
It's all about musical understanding!
stefan
Active Member
Active Member
Posts: 88
Joined: 2007-02-13 03:22
Location: Lerum/Sweden

Post by stefan »

What you are saying is that Sagatun stereo needs Mimer K to perform equal or better than KK ? A lot more sensitive to support.
User avatar
Erik
Active member
Active member
Posts: 217
Joined: 2007-01-31 20:14
Location: Sweden

Post by Erik »

When I had the prototype, we compared it to KK in two different systems. One had a Sound Organisation? rack and the difference was almost as obvious as it was on my Mimer K.
Daniel
Member
Member
Posts: 43
Joined: 2010-08-11 11:03
Location: Sweden

Post by Daniel »

Erik wrote:When I had the prototype, we compared it to KK in two different systems. One had a Sound Organisation? rack and the difference was almost as obvious as it was on my Mimer K.
It was Audiotech.
/Daniel

LP12SE
User avatar
Erik
Active member
Active member
Posts: 217
Joined: 2007-01-31 20:14
Location: Sweden

Post by Erik »

Daniel wrote:
Erik wrote:When I had the prototype, we compared it to KK in two different systems. One had a Sound Organisation? rack and the difference was almost as obvious as it was on my Mimer K.
It was Audiotech.
Copy! My bad.
User avatar
lejonklou
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 6524
Joined: 2007-01-30 10:38
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by lejonklou »

OK, so the first two demonstrations of Sagatun and Sagatun Mono are done and I just had time to sit down for a while. I will soon start a new thread labelled 'Sagatun and Sagatun Mono' where I will go through details, performance, features etc. and answer questions. But first I thought I'd spend two posts on telling you about the demo's.

One week ago I was installing the three Sagatun's I brought with me at Hidden Systems, together with LP12, KDS, Tundra Mono's and passive Akubariks. The two Sagatun Mono's (then a secret) were brand new and finished on Thursday evening. I also brought with me tools and all necessary cabling; power cords, interconnects and K200 in 2.48 m length. Not because I doubted that Chris had what was necessary (in fact it turned out that his long Silver interconnects were much better than the Linn Blacks I had brought), but because it simplifies trouble shooting enormously. That is: If I set up a system in an unknown room and with most parts also unknown and it doesn't sound any good - where lies the main problem(s)? Things can get tricky and time consuming. But if I know what all cables sound like, I can remove them from the equation and focus on support, speaker positioning, acoustics and how each unit performs.

Not until Saturday morning did I listen to the Klimax Kontrol I was going to demo my preamps against. As I explained in Gothenburg this Wednesday, I prefer to work in "a tunnel" during development and focus 100% on finding the most promising design and then pushing that design as far as possible. Not until the design tells me it's close to perfected and I feel "Wow!" each time I listen to it, I start listening to the competition. So this was the first time I made a comparison against the latest KK since I started the development of my preamp in 2012.

Then an intense day followed, with a bunch of interesting people coming by to listen. Although I really liked the sound of the passive Akubarik's (first time I heard them), I did feel slightly disappointed with the performance of my Sagatun's. I thought the stereo should have been a bit better and in particular something wasn't right with the Mono's. Each time I compared, they were in my ears ahead of Sagatun stereo, but at the same time they also seemed to play slightly out of synch with one another. I heard their potential but also noticed an effect that reminded a bit of one channel being out of phase. The guests appeared to hear this as well, as about half(?) thought that Sagatun stereo was better than the Mono's! Apparently something was wrong, but I had no clue what it could be, so I kept on with the comparisons.

As Anthony mentioned in his review, a discovery was made late in the afternoon. I had brought with me five identical UK power cords - good sounding Volex models that I supply with my products - that went into a great sounding 6-way block that Chris had in the store. But now there was not five, but six power cords in that block. And the sixth one was a short cord of a different type, feeding one of the Sagatun Mono's! How did that happen? When I made this discovery, I told the guests about it and as an experiment I put this short power cord on the KDS, which was the source we were listenening to. This short cord feeding the KDS made the music die completely and I think that everyone noticed this from the first notes in the song. So the bad power cord was removed and using only the good ones, I made one last preamp demonstration. This time the Mono's were simply better and had none of that weirdness from before. I can't help thinking how weird it is that a power cord can do that kind of damage.

I was both pleased and annoyed with this turn of events and just let the system play music after the last demonstration. It was also a lot more fun listening to it now! We were on KDS, Sagatun Mono's, Ozzzy's Tundra stereo and single wired passive Akubariks. It sounded really good on everything people were playing and it was also surprisingly loud (occasionally too loud for my ears) with great control of the speakers all the way down to the lowest bass.

To summarise, I think the best part of the premiere day for me was meeting and discussing all things audio and music related with those who turned up. Lots of enthusiasm and strong opinions! The performance of the system started at decent but gradually improved and by the evening it sounded really great. I went back home feeling satisfied and knowing I would spend a couple of days going through the Sagatun stereo and in particular the two Mono's. I knew something was holding them back and it turned out I was right.
User avatar
ThomasOK
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 4358
Joined: 2007-02-02 18:41
Location: United States
Contact:

Post by ThomasOK »

You're supposed to put "To be continued..." at the end of that. Obviously you don't watch enough American TV!
User avatar
CJ1045
Active member
Active member
Posts: 119
Joined: 2010-01-15 14:07

Post by CJ1045 »

If it was American TV then he should have adverts after each paragraph!

CJ
lunch
Active Member
Active Member
Posts: 85
Joined: 2012-01-05 10:09
Location: Oslo

Post by lunch »

Heard about product placement?
LP12 - Karousel - ARadikal - Keel - Ekos SE - Kandid - Entity
KDSM
SuperKikkin
Solos
Akubariks
User avatar
ThomasOK
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 4358
Joined: 2007-02-02 18:41
Location: United States
Contact:

Post by ThomasOK »

CJ1045 wrote:If it was American TV then he should have adverts after each paragraph!

CJ
And midway through each paragraph as well. About half of them would be for pharmaceuticals.
User avatar
Music Lover
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 1673
Joined: 2007-01-31 20:35
Location: In front of Lejonklou/JBL/Ofil

Post by Music Lover »

stefan wrote:What you are saying is that Sagatun stereo needs Mimer K to perform equal or better than KK ?
No
I consider Sagatun better regardless conditions.

I tried to express that the difference KK vs Sagatun going to be bigger in a better installed system, and smaller elsewhere. This is quite normal but the difference in the shop was a lot less than expected given the outcome at home.

BUT BUT - the important conclusion was that Sagatun Mono is GREAT!
Making the KK vs Sagatun Stereo comparison almost irrelevant!!
It's all about musical understanding!
Charlie1
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 4831
Joined: 2007-12-11 00:30
Location: UK

Post by Charlie1 »

Music Lover wrote:...Making the KK vs Sagatun Stereo comparison almost irrelevant!!
Unless you have approximately £3K to spend and are considering either a Sagatun Stereo or second hand KK1, then it's very relevant.
stefan
Active Member
Active Member
Posts: 88
Joined: 2007-02-13 03:22
Location: Lerum/Sweden

Post by stefan »

Music Lover wrote:....
BUT BUT - the important conclusion was that Sagatun Mono is GREAT!
Making the KK vs Sagatun Stereo comparison almost irrelevant!!
For you, yes. But in my case, if and when I replace my Kinos it's a question of a s/h KK of some sort or Sagatun Stereo. Judging from what I heard I would think the KK needs to be of latest spec to be considered.

For those with the best sources, bad news :-) You need Mono and two dedicated Mimer K shelves. For everyone, you really need to hear Sagatun Mono ! And this wasn't the finished product.
User avatar
lejonklou
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 6524
Joined: 2007-01-30 10:38
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Post by lejonklou »

Ok, part two and another mega-post:

After I returned home, I worked for two days on Sagatun 001 and Sagatun Mono 001 and 002, measuring and checking every part of them. As expected, the main circuit behaved perfectly on all three. This part is built with components that have been measured and selected into small groups before they're shipped to the circuit board assemblers, so I really didn't expect anything but perfection there.

Then there's the power supply and regulation, and here some parts are a bit tricky. I had only spent a day on the Mono's before flying to London, and to my surprise they (number 001 and 002) did not want identical settings to sound optimal. This was unexpected and could indicate a necessity for fine tuning each unit by ear before delivery. But I don't really know this yet and need to spend a couple of weeks trying all combinations and understanding how they react before the Mono's are released.

In the two days before the demo in Gothenburg, I did make three small but worthwhile improvements to the power supply and regulation on the Mono's. And one of these was also applicable to the stereo Sagatun. Although no night and day differences, all three units now sounded a little more at ease and in balance. And I think this was evident on the evening of the 21st, when a bunch (15?) of enthusiasts showed up in Tonlägets small demo room to hear the Sagatun's.

Two main demonstrations were made during the evening, using a KDS/2 as source, Tundra Mono as power amps and Klångedang T1 as loudspeakers. Afterwards we continued comparing preamps and Harmonihyllan shelves with various types of music. A few songs stood out for me, for instance where a female singer was presented in quite different ways by Sagatun and the latest spec KK. This gave rise to an interesting debate about which one was correct, which one was more engaging and whether that's the same thing or not. I think a majority preferred listening to the lady with Sagatun. Then the Mono's were connected and the same tune repeated. The discussion ended. Linnofil said something about her changing from "an OK singer", to "a girl I like", to "a girl I'm in love with!".

Some shelves were compared and indeed the latest Mimer K, on which the Klimax DS/2 was placed, is so good that one HAS to hear the difference it makes to believe it. The older models of Mimer are more HiFi-ish and sound great too, but the musical impact of moving a unit to Mimer K is... I don't know how to put it. Anders played a piece by Jan Johansson with a preamp (I think it was Sagatun stereo) on Mimer 2. When he paused the music, I said that this piece is a lot better on vinyl. The digital version tend to sound a bit sterile and not really capturing the bittersweet qualities of his playing. Then he moved the preamp to Mimer K and played the song again. I now had to admit that there was nothing wrong with those digital files!

I also briefly tried stacking Sagatun Mono. Two on top of eachother, on a single shelf. This was quite OK, but did sound a bit worse than on separate shelves. I compared the channels against each other and it turned out that the bottom unit was happier than the top one. To confirm I reversed their positions and the results were the same: The bottom Sagatun sounded a bit better. Please note that the Sagatun's and Tundra's should NOT be stacked without a piece of cardboard below each rubber foot, as the feet otherwise leave marks on the paint. One thing I'll investigate in the future is whether it's possible to make an even better sounding foot (the current one may look simple, but it actually makes the unit sound really good on a variety of surfaces). If so, I'll make sure it's a simple and inexpensive upgrade, and that it's more stacking friendly.

But right now I will focus on finalising the Sagatun Mono and bringing both preamps out on the market. It should only be a matter of weeks until they start shipping. If I may say one final thing about them, to those who are wondering which path to choose: Sagatun is a living design. This means that whenever possible, affordable and retrofittable upgrades will be offered to all owners.
Ozzzy189
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 702
Joined: 2011-08-30 18:49
Location: North Lincolnshire -UK.
Contact:

Post by Ozzzy189 »

Thank you fredrik, that was very interesting reading. The last paragraph is almost exactly what I wrote yesterday in my thread too.
I only hope my rack system is in a similar league as the mimer, or I'll be wanting something else I can't afford!
ADS3/SagMono/Tundra 2.2- . Totem Tribe Tower.
Lejonklou demos available in the N of England.
Efraim roots
Very active member
Very active member
Posts: 312
Joined: 2009-10-23 01:37
Location: Sweden

Post by Efraim roots »

Ozzzy189 wrote:I only hope my rack system is in a similar league as the mimer, or I'll be wanting something else I can't afford!
Harmonihyllan is a good product (expensive thou), but I definitely think the praise of Mimer shelfs should be taken with a pinch of salt (mega expensive).
the players of instruments shall be there..
Post Reply