Sunday morning at the show Joel Durand removed the Telos tonarm and Anna cartridge from the NVS in the Blue Light Audio room since he had to bug out early. i had hung out in that room a good deal.....and played vinyl mostly when i was DJ'ing. one track i use at home and jtinn brought with him is 'Snooky' from the Pablo pressing of "Mostly Blues.....and Some Others", Count Basie and the Kansas City Septem. this has the Count with Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, Snooky Young, Freddie Green, Joe Pass, John Heard, and Roy McCurdy. i had played that cut 5 or 6 times over a couple of days in the Blue Light Audio room (and likely 50 times in my room at home on the same vinyl front end). it has some amazing cymbles with tons of detail, as well as a very dynamic muted horn and it is perfectly recorded. and since jtinn no longer had a need for his Lp that day and i had a few hours until i had to go to the airport, i decided to take it around to the rooms i had visited with tt's and play it. i especially had interest in how the Lyra Atlas and Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement might do as those were two cartridges that people had asked me about what i thought.
i did visit 11 rooms and play that cut. and it was an eye-openning experience. it's important to note that very little truth can be uncovered in an exercise such as this. it's simply one data point. and a heavily qualified data point at that. and it's also fair to say that i could have had a strong expectation bias....or not.
i could try and tell the whole story, but since my notes are at home and i don't want to rely totally on my 60 year old memory, i'll try to post later tonight about what i heard. sorry about the tease.
the comments about 'appropriate recordings' for particular rooms prompted me to bring this up. i'm not sure i buy into that......but i will say that particular recordings do highlight strengths of particular systems. and also that the ultra-detail on 'Snooky' did separate the men from the boys on this Sunday afternoon. some could do it, and others not so much. and $$$$'s did not entirely explain it.
before i get into my perceptions about how each room and system did with 'Snooky' i will acknowledge the obvious. beyond all the varibles of a show and the rooms, are the varibles and level of competent set-up of the turntables, and particularly synergy and compatablity of the tt, arm, cartridge, and phono stage....even the rack it sits on. rooms and systems are many times put together around who will pay for part of the expense, or who will offer to contribute gear......not what specific gear actually works best or what gear the set-up guy has most experience with.
i just don't want to cause undue negativity to any piece of gear based on my particular perceptions. OTOH i have played this cut in my system on a number of different turntables, arms, cartidges and thru different phono stages which were set up pretty good. and even thru my observations of the Durand tonearm development.....so i do have some sense of how things ought to be even with varible gear.
here we go ranked #1 thru #11;
(1) Blue Light Audio room. #418. Evolution Acoustics-darTZeel, NVS-Telos-Ortofon Anna. as set up by Joel Durand, this system (even with $2500 EA speakers) portrayed Snooky in all it's glory. no it's not fully my home system completely. but it gets the energy and full spacial rendering of the cymbals, you get the distinctive metallic shimmer, the precise rendering of all the tiny detail and complete decay. at one point in the cut, the Cymbals change from a hi-hat to a splash type and this room/system captures it completely. the muted horn is alive and vibrant. overall there is an immediacy and life to the music. it's alive. the speakers completely disappear and every molecule in the room is music.
(2) Lotus-Esoteric-SMc room--#323 in the Atrium. Joe Cohen's Ganada G2 speakers, Steve McCormack's VRE-1 preamp, and Esoteric amps. i think a Hansse tt, Durand Talea 2 arm, and Ortofon Windfield. this was the last room i visited with Snooky. and it was startling how much better it was than any of the other rooms other than the Blue Light Audio room. it's like my expections had lowered considerably, and then bam, here was the magic again. no; it did not quite reach the hights of the NVS-Telos-Anna. OTOH these speakers are 30x as expensive as the EA speakers. of course the tt-arm-cart is 1/5th the value of the NVS-Telos-Anna. it shows there are different paths to sonic bliss.
or maybe it's just that Joel Durand also set up this tuntable!
who knows?
anyway, while this system did not get quite as deep into the detail, or render the dynamic contrasts as clearly, or have quite the vivid immdeiacy in the muted horn, it did do all those things well and overall was very very good.
(3-tie) Soundsmith-#204. not sure the amps; the speakers were $3k retail. it was a VPI HRX tt, VPI 12" arm and Soundsmith Hyperion cactus needle cartridge. normally i don't care for Peter's rooms (OTOH i think Peter is super and a true asset to the vinyl community). he plays the music too loud and i have never warmed up to the Strain Gauge cartridges. but i'm sure the set-up in this case was super and the Hyperion is the real deal. there was a clear drop-off from #1 and #2 but this did capture the information for the most part.....although not the energy or note decay. but it was not just mush. i liked it.
(3-tie) Voce-Lindeman-Zesto #1011. vintage Luxman tt, Triplaner, Soundsmith Hyperion cactus needle cartridge. very similar to the Soundsmith room; maybe a little better as the speakers were higher level but not much. nice; it got the information. i liked the Zesto phono stage. the music had that ease and relaxed presentation.
(5) High Water Sound-Cessaro speakers-Thoress electronics. #243 in the Atrium. TW-Acustic tt and arm. Shilabe cartridge. i visited this room 3 times and stayed awhile. i always enjoy Jeff's room. he plays great music. overall it was a fine sounding room except there was just a slight bit of shoutyness from the horns. on Snooky it was good, but not great. most of the information, but not quite the full measure of the bloom and detail.
(6-tie) Silverline-Conrad Johnson-Kuzma #1018. Kuzma tt, Kuzma 4-point arm, Transfiguration Orpheus cartridge. this was pretty good and did get most of the information; but a clear level below the 2 Hyperion cartridges. good energy and flow.
(6-tie) Magico-Constellation-Brinkman-#203 in the Atrium. Brinkman tt, arm and cartridge. competent. nothing wrong. not quite the Orpheus in detail. overall i liked it.
(6-tie) Rockport-BAT electronics-Brinkman. #331 in the atrium. Brinkman tt, arm and cartridge. the room had issues but they were mostly in the bass; and so Snooky came thru fairly well. the combo of Rockport and BAT is not one i would have choosen, as both are a bit laid back in character, but i did enjoy it.
(9) Vandersteen-ARC-Basis #1004. Basis tt, Vector arm, Lyra Atlas. i liked the room and did visit it a couple other times and listen to other vinyl. it did sound good overall. i really do like the Vandersteen's and ARC gear. but on Snooky it was mush to a degree. and A.J. was out in the hall so you would assume the set-up was very good. yet; it did not have even the precision of the Soundsmith Hyperion cartridge....let alone anywhere close to the Durand-Ortofon's. if you never heard Snooky done right, i can see where you'd be enjoying it. but for me i was disappointed as i expected much more. i'm sure the Atlas is better than this.
(10) Von Schweikert-Sora Sound-George Warren. #529. George Warren tt-Morech arm, ZYX cartridge. this was ok, but could not reveal the detail.
(11) Scaena--VAC-ARC. #216. Kronos tt, Graham Phantom Supreme arm, Clearaudio Goldfinger Statement cartridge. i had high expectations for this system, the tonearm, and the cartridge. i had enjoyed the Scaena speakers before, the VAC electronics are always enjoyable to me, and i was anticipating hearing the Graham Supreme and the Goldfinger statement. i sat down right next to the Kronos turntable designer, who i assumed had set up the arm and cartridge. it was mostly a mess. everything. the bass was not right at all, the tt seemed to have speed issues, and Snooky was not happening. i'm going to assume that none of the parts were at fault, and wait until next time to assess the Phantom Supreme and Goldfinger Statement.
i had visited this room 3 different times and never heard it sound quite right.
ok; that is it. a caution; my comments pertain to the ability of these systems to play 'Snooky' at that particular time to my ears and nothing more.
