Tang, Mike actually wears gloves while handing the gear. I understand if that does not make you want to buy it because in Bangkok gloves are used while doing other things
Mike, I got my trusty calculator out. From your useage/age statement, you've listened to not much more than 3 albums a week on average btwn these two carts.
Do we assume you're doing the vast majority of yr listening on digital?
Mike, I got my trusty calculator out. From your useage/age statement, you've listened to not much more than 3 albums a week on average btwn these two carts.
Do we assume you're doing the vast majority of yr listening on digital?
regarding the GFS; got it new in January 18', and since then mostly digital......which i love and would go weeks at a time digital only.
got the Anna Diamond in August 19', it's mostly been on the Saskia which i waited for arm boards to be updated, then in November got the CS Port and had the Master Signature on that to begin with and then the GFS.
obviously the last 6 months my focus has been re-imagining my vinyl and i've been doing more thinking about it than listening to it. which is changing.......
I bought Mike's original Anna and liked it but didn't love it. I then purchased a GFS at his suggestion and it is by far the best cartridge I have ever owned. I do wonder how the new Anna Diamond compares to the original Anna. Either way, the GFS is an amazing sounding cartridge.
I have to agree. The GFS is a incredible performer. There is something to be said for the output of this cartridge and how it allows a phono stage to coast in the no-noise zone.
I bought Mike's original Anna and liked it but didn't love it. I then purchased a GFS at his suggestion and it is by far the best cartridge I have ever owned. I do wonder how the new Anna Diamond compares to the original Anna. Either way, the GFS is an amazing sounding cartridge.
the Anna Diamond is another level or three above the regular Anna. Fremer's Sept 19' Stereophile review compares the Anna D. directly to the regular Anna and the MC Century. he thinks those 2 (Anna D. and Century) are neck and neck and that the Anna D. is faster and more nimble in the bass. i had spent three days at Axpona last year listening to the MC Century on the new Durand Tosca and was smitten. which was what led me to acquire the Anna D.
if you are curious about the Anna D. read that review. "These are two of the best sounding cartridges i have ever heard".
regarding the GFS; got it new in January 18', and since then mostly digital......which i love and would go weeks at a time digital only.
got the Anna Diamond in August 19', it's mostly been on the Saskia which i waited for arm boards to be updated, then in November got the CS Port and had the Master Signature on that to begin with and then the GFS.
obviously the last 6 months my focus has been re-imagining my vinyl and i've been doing more thinking about it than listening to it. which is changing.......
to be fair; i spent 3-4 years trying different dacs and servers and over $150k USD (at list prices) improving my digital, and almost zero on my vinyl during that time (or for years prior). so hell yes my digital was/is awesome and i love to listen to it. agree with your thumbs up.
now i'm near the end of what will be a year of doing the same for my vinyl and it's astonishing. breathtaking even.
the majority of my listening will continue to to be digital, but vinyl will be a much larger portion than these last few years.
it's only been 16 years for 30 hours a week, since i got the barn. likely 20 hours a week for the prior 10 years, since my room was in the Den, which was next to the master bedroom where my wife sleeps. early morning and late nights is 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours a day now i did not do then, plus more on weekends too now.
before 26 years ago it was kids and boats and family......not dedicated listening. back before kids for a few years some of that.
if i had grand kids now this would be a totally different picture; but sadly i do not have that privilege.....and it's not up to me.
You have the right priorities, Mike. And don't discount the joy and many hours of listening that you provide your visitors. That is a gift to them which you also seem to enjoy fully.
You have the right priorities, Mike. And don't discount the joy and many hours of listening that you provide your visitors. That is a gift to them which you also seem to enjoy fully.
thank you Peter. and you are right that i look forward to listening visitors at least as much as the visitors. always sorry those sessions have to end. like your mom calling you in for dinner when you are playing sports with your friends as a kid. as kids we just want to keep playing.
Mike, I've been to two demos that had scale and apparently limitless boundaries (if that's not a contradiction) and were hugely adrenalising, but both had major flaws that kept the sound earthbound. They were THIS close to being perfect in their own right.
Maybe short of visiting you, I won't hear this soaring scale without shortcomings anywhere else.
Yep, at Mike’s place “just one more cut” is easily followed by “just one more cut.” My recent visit, we ended with a Stevie Ray cut played on the CS Port with the Etsuro cartridge. I think we both were transported to another dimension, ‘cause when it finished we were both gobsmacked! It was so real I wanted to reach out and thank SRV for playing for us.
It seems that over the period of time during which the fraction of your time spent listening to digital increased, and flipped from a great majority of time spent listening to analog to a great majority of time spent listening to digital, the number of your vinyl playback front-ends tripled.
How do you think about this? What do you conclude from this?
It seems that over the period of time during which the fraction of your time spent listening to digital increased, and flipped from a great majority of time spent listening to analog to a great majority of time spent listening to digital, the number of your vinyl playback front-ends tripled.
How do you think about this? What do you conclude from this?
i have no real conclusions.......but here is how i view my thinking.
as i inferred earlier, after i spent 3-4 years really deep into sorting out the digital direction and invested all the way into my dac, server and network, the performance has been very satisfying. adding streaming with Tidal and Qudoz over the last couple of years really expands the musical world access to an infinite level, and the internal PCIe drives of the Extreme server takes files to a level beyond. it's so easy to listen to the digital and it's so good i tend to let it rip.
the last year or so of my digital efforts i could see i was hungry to take another step forward with my analog. obviously i committed to the AS-2000 with that in mind, and added another Studer A-820. i did re-think the turntable choice for a multitude of reasons, but was very curious and hungry to explore vinyl reproduction choices more widely. this past year starting with the Durand Tosca tonearm in May, i've added pieces and have been sampling them, and now i'm near the closing point of this effort......just adding a few last ancillary pieces. the Etsuro Gold addition did gobsmack me and caused me to re-assess things a little. i'm coping with that now.
probably an outside influence these last 6-9 months or so while i have been adding vinyl pieces has been that my work stress has increased and so my residual energy for vinyl listening has been lacking. and as a side issue when i have gear that is in a state of change i tend to listen to something else wanting to hear it 'complete'. real life does rear it's ugly head and intervene in our feelings. i have been thankful i can just load a playlist and let it wash over me. hopefully this level of work stress is backing off now......but i'll just have to see how that goes. at 68 years old i do appreciate that i have my work energy limits and need to portion it correctly. i still work 6 days a week and am always on call. the price i pay for all my toys.
next comes the re-focus on the media side of vinyl like the streaming did with the digital.
Not Ron here. You can, Mike, and so you do. In my case, I can't see where streaming might take me, and thus I find it impossible to prioritise, let alone set a spending limit.
To the outside observer, it does seem a little crazy to run 3 uber tt rigs plus 2 tape decks, and spend 80%+ of yr time on digital.
Then again, I don't really get Tang and Christian running multiple tts, and listening approx 100% to the one.
When are we gonna get the first uber fussy digital listener who runs Extreme into a top top tubed AND ss dac, and a top transport to boot?
But if you can run multiple tt rigs without necessarily listening to lp 80% of the time, then it's just personal choice. I know I would struggle to play any digital full stop w yr 3 tts. Everytime I make big strides w my analog, cd gets forgotten about. And I have a very good cdp.
