Doctor's Orders-Part Two-The New Listening Room Of Steve Williams

[Steve Williams]

Steve, I asked in one of the Lampi threads about the small tube in the Pacific. golum said it is a 6n6p and is used as an active load (~variable resistor) for the DHT tubes. I wonder why nobody has experimented with one of the EAT cool tube dampers for it?

Congrats on the new arm/cart. Shipping is painfully slow these days.

Interesting.

Lamm used those

I have 6n30p's in my present Lamm amplifier and preamp

 

[Steve Williams]

The Eagle Has Landed.........

A fun day yesterday.

More to come ........presently mounted on an SME 3010R, but having heard this cartridge I am going to take David's advice and move the VDH MSS to the SME 3012R and put the ZYX on the 10" arm

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[PeterA]

Congratulations Steve. How does it sound? Is that the Master Signature Stradivarius? Do you have a photo of the vdH box? I'm curious about the sound difference between the two different length arms. Have fun.

 

[Steve Williams]

Congratulations Steve. How does it sound? Is that the Master Signature Stradivarius? Do you have a photo of the vdH box? I'm curious about the sound difference between the two different length arms. Have fun.

"a funny thing happened on the way to the forum"........

I'm on a bit of a pause here as heavy handed me broke the left blue head shell wire to the cartridge, so presently i have wonderful sound from the right channel only until a new head shell arrives tomorrow

 

[Empirical Audio]

It's fascinating, the evolution of stereo cartridge. Seeing this close-up reminds me of the high-school class that I put together on the history of music reproduction.

The really interesting thing is how the Edison machine and the Victor machine merged into the needle-pickup that we all use today.

The Edison machine used a needle that moved in and out of the media (cylinder), perpendicular to it.

The Victor machine used a needle that moved back and forth across the surface of the media, driven by the groove, the first phonograph record.

The stereo cartridge uses both movements, in and out of the media as well as back and forth across the top of the media. The right channel moves along a 45 degree angle up and down in and out of the media and the left channel moves along a 45 degree angle that is at right-angles to the right channels movement. This way the two movements can be independently decoded by a transformer. The original machines needles had 1-dimensional motions and the stereo cartridge stylus has a 2-dimensional motion.

Because of this combination of the two technologies, it is possible to play a Victor-type monophonic record using a stereo cartridge. If there were an Edison-type recording on a record, this could also be played using a stereo cartridge.

This is hard to comprehend at first, but I created a slide that describes it attached here.

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[spiritofmusic]

Steve, fascinated w you guys running absolute top draw analog and bleeding edge streaming.
AF1 and Extreme.
Are you becoming more hyper aware of mastering differences?
Does Extreme now take you to a place where once stone cold lp classics lording it over lesser digitally reproduced representations now approach a dead heat or even swing in favour of Extreme?
Have you got some real fave lps that have always convinced, that you now really prefer on Extreme?

 

[Steve Williams]

all great questions Marc. As I stated here several months ago I am happy to say that I have finally reached end game in my system. I am not a cartridge collector or a tube roller but do know the sound that I prefer. This new cartridge lit me up last night even running on a single channel.
I now have 2 totally different sounding cartridges. I love my ZYX but this MSS has a sound of its own that sounds simply wonderful so far

My goal now is to do nothing but sit back and enjoy music from the best of all worlds

As for the Extreme, I can't tell you how it has changed my way of listening

I have to wait for the new head shell tomorrow and get some hours on the cartridge as right now I am commenting merely on my gut instinct

 

[PeterA]

"a funny thing happened on the way to the forum"........

I'm on a bit of a pause here as heavy handed me broke the left blue head shell wire to the cartridge, so presently i have wonderful sound from the right channel only until a new head shell arrives tomorrow

Sorry to hear that, Steve. At least you did not snap that exposed cantilever off. Why not just put the new cartridge in the other headshell which is already on the 12" 3012R?

Thanks for the photos of the box.

 

[PeterA]

all great questions Marc. As I stated here several months ago I am happy to say that I have finally reached end game in my system. I am not a cartridge collector or a tube roller but do know the sound that I prefer. This new cartridge lit me up last night even running on a single channel.
I now have 2 totally different sounding cartridges. I love my ZYX but this MSS has a sound of its own that sounds simply wonderful so far

My goal now is to do nothing but sit back and enjoy music from the best of all worlds

As for the Extreme, I can't tell you how it has changed my way of listening

I have to wait for the new head shell tomorrow and get some hours on the cartridge as right now I am commenting merely on my gut instinct

Nice stuff Steve. And only one channel. That is some magic there. Tap on ddk's experience for the cartridge set up. VTA is critical and took me an awfully long time to dial in. The other parameters were straight forward, although I experimented a lot. I ended up with the basic recommendations on antiskate, VTF, mirror azimuth and alignment. Loading took some playing with. For me, the cartridge settled into its own after a few hours, then changed slightly up to about 100 hours.

 

[Steve Williams]

Finally, speaking of the Extreme and networking. As you know I have gone down a different path in voicing my network to my system. I have a very simple network with no switches, fiber optic, ether regen or all of the other tweaks. Mine is voiced with a set of Center Stage 1.5's under both my Extreme and Pacific, a Masterbuilt Ultra PC and a Masterbuilt Ultra USB cable sitting on CMS racks. I run an ethernet cable from my satellite in my sound room to the Extreme and that's it

Having said that there was only one thing in the big list that I believed could make a sonic difference and I have said that I was gong to explore it

First of all I upgraded my modem from an Arris 6182 (Qualcomm board) to an Arris SB8200 Giga Blast modem and increased my internet speed. The main change however was my firm belief that switching from the cheap plastic power adapters for the cable modem and my satellite to linear power supplies would enhance sonic performance. This was a quick, easy and rewarding experiment as the results were way positive. So much so that I ended up adding twoLPS. Initially I added one to power my SB8200 modem and then in an attempt to squeeze a little more performance from my system I added a second LPS to the satellite in my sound room.

What did I hear?...........

I hate to use the proverbial addage but in this case it was true.....it was as if layers were peeled from the onion and sound was so much clearer. More slam, more dynamics and much tighter bass. The soundstage changed but rather than bigger and wider and deeper as is so often described, to me if I envisioned the sound stage as a palette, after placing the LPS' it was as if the sound stage was filled with so many more pixels. For me the ambience was increased and bringing with it a sense of presence. I was so much more engaged and find myself no listening for hours at a time.

So yes adding linear power supplies is a definite plus but hearing what I do now, I feel that my network although much different than everyone else's here is producing sound that i love

In fact according to everyone especially alrainbow, the position of my satellite is about as bad as it could be as it sits to the right of my front wall behind my behemoth amps and huge power cords and interconnects. I have moved the satellite all around the room and where it is now sounds sonically the best even though I am sure that I am making members cringe at the photo

 

[Steve Williams]

Sorry to hear that, Steve. At least you did not snap that exposed cantilever off. Why not just put the new cartridge in the other headshell which is already on the 12" 3012R?

Thanks for the photos of the box.

That cantilever looks like an accident waiting to happen

 

[Steve Williams]

So here is a view of the LPS powering the Orbi satellite RBS50 which is hard wired via ethernet to the Extreme using a Triode Wire Lab ethernet cable

 

[jeff1225]

That cantilever looks like an accident waiting to happen

The SME headshell does protect it much better than most other tonearms. But always remember....no long sleeve shirts!

 

[Steve Williams]

I've already been told that it is a common happening and a few members here I gather have broken 3-5 of them at a repair of about $900 each

The SME headshell does protect it much better than most other tonearms. But always remember....no long sleeve shirts!