Durand Tosca tonearm at Axpona

dminches

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108CY

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Mike Lavigne

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i've sold my Durand Telos Sapphire (also sold my GFS cart) and ordered a 2nd Durand Tosca for my NVS turntable.

the Telos Sapphire is still an amazing tone arm; it's taken the Tosca to get me to move on from it. but it's time. had it for 8 years.

i will have a Tosca on both the Saskia and NVS. with their headshells i'll be able to swap carts easily, both arms will reach both my phono choices, and i can even share tone arm cables. i've just bought a second super uber LFD phono which i'm using now on the Saskia/Tosca and it will easily swap to the NVS Tosca.

looking forward to bringing the NVS all the way up to the top level of ancillaries.
 

Ron Resnick

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I have been infatuated with the Tosca ever since I saw it a couple of years ago at a Los Angeles audio show. That Joël himself is brilliant and a perfectionist and totally delightful is just icing on the cake!

Selfishly, I would love to know how the Grado Epoch3 performs on the Tosca.
 

Mike Lavigne

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I have been infatuated with the Tosca ever since I saw it a couple of years ago at a Los Angeles audio show. That Joel himself is brilliant and a perfectionist and totally delightful is just icing on the cake.

Selfishly, I would love to know how the Grado Epoch3 performs on the Tosca.
agree on Joel. he brings much to the challenge of tone arm design.

bring the Epoch3 on up. i have an extra head-shell and multiple phono choices.

we will get right down to it.
 
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Ron Resnick

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agree on Joel. he brings much to the challenge of tone arm design.

bring the Epoch3 on up. i have an extra head-shell and multiple phono choices.

we will get right down to it.

That is a very kind and extremely tempting offer! Right now the Epoch3 is being auditioned by a friend.

The Epoch3 requires 47,000 ohms
loading and about 70dB of gain. It's a little bit harder to feed properly than one would assume.

I suspect/fear that Joe Grado's nearly infinite patience with me with this cartridge must be wearing thin . . .
 

Mike Lavigne

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That is a very kind and extremely tempting offer! Right now the Epoch3 is being auditioned by a friend.

The Epoch3 requires 47,000 ohms
loading and about 70dB of gain. It's a little bit harder to feed properly than one would assume.
the dart phono (both of them) can easily accommodate 70db of gain with 47k loading.
I suspect/fear that Joe Grado's nearly infinite patience with me with this cartridge must be wearing thin . . .
i can only imagine. :rolleyes:
 
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Mike Lavigne

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Today received my second Durand Tosca Gimble bearing tonearm (picked it up in person from Joel) and got it mounted on the left side of my NVS turntable. it's in that 'left-side' position to be able to share my LFD phono cable and CS Port phono/EMIA SUT with the Saskia/Tosca. my standard wood arm wand Telos is on the right side with the Miyajima Infinity mono 1.0 mil mounted.


the new Tosca has my 3rd Etsuro Gold cartridge mounted. setting the Tosca up, even on the left side, i'm reminded of what a dream tonearm it is to work with and set up. beautiful build quality and precision.

first impressions; using the Found Music phono cable and dart phono pre.........with the Tosca in play, the NVS has plenty to bring to the party in my 4 tt mix. it's big and bold sounding, with great direct drive propulsion and solidity, along with a precision and unflappable clarity with it's active Tana shelf. it can dig things out of the grooves in a very special way. i think the Tosca with it's top level detail and energy is a perfect match for the NVS and plays to it's strengths as well as adding some things too. it will be good to be able to add the NVS/Tosca delights to my listening. this was a (maybe the) final step forward in my grand plan of turntable exploration. been listening to more vinyl in the last 60-90 days than ever before, and this will only cause me to listen even more.

Tos2--1 (1 of 1).jpg Tos2--2 (1 of 1).jpg

Tos2--3 (1 of 1).jpg Tos2--4 (1 of 1).jpg
 
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spiritofmusic

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I've seen movies from the 60s and 70s with scenes in record shops where you could play LPs before you bought them, multiple TTs in a row, stacks of LPs on shelves
...this is the 2021 equivalent. At a somewhat higher quality of playback.
 

spiritofmusic

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Jun 13, 2013
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Yes...but somehow it would be a Hell of a lot of fun to pluck Mike's Led Zep 45s off his shelf, play them on his Saskia, CS P and NVS, and offer him a fair price for the albums (ooh, $15 each), walk out with them, and fly home...and then wake up!
 

scot

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Jan 4, 2018
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Hi

I know what I am about to ask is considered by some people as unimportant so I apologize in advance. I noticed that the effective mass in the specs is given as medium-medium high but I would like to know what that number is. Does anyone know the actual effective mass of the Durand Toscanini?

Thank you
Scot
 

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