Visit to Marc C.'s (SpiritOfMusic's) House in England
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
- Start date
I have indeed, and I much prefer balanced in the system.
I'm just so happy with my Esoteric combo. I'm planning to climb the ladder, as their dacs have improved by leaps and bounds since mine was made. Hopefully by the Spring i will have the Grandioso G1 clock.
I just love the awesome dynamics I'm getting now. The Esoteric stack is such a good fit in my system, it really plays to it's strengths
Of course the whole system took a major step forward last weekend, with the arrival of my, long-saved-for, Tripoint. Je suis one happy bunny
I just love the awesome dynamics I'm getting now. The Esoteric stack is such a good fit in my system, it really plays to it's strengths
Of course the whole system took a major step forward last weekend, with the arrival of my, long-saved-for, Tripoint. Je suis one happy bunny
Well, I knew you didn't buy it. For me the Eera ticks so many boxes. There are those who go gaga over Polish when it comes to their piece of digital heaven, but something in French digital speaks to me (loved Micromega and Audio Aero back in the day, Neodio, and my beloved Eera).
Two great DACs in their day.
I remember hearing an Elvis vinyl recording through Micromega's first CDR machine into Audio Research V140 monos and a pair of Martin Logan Requests and it was fabulous.
Always lusted after the AA, too. It cropped up all over the place and always sounded good.
Well, I'm familiar w the AAero at Barry's, prior to him going the SGM, and now Extreme, direction.
I also had a very soft spot for the Audiomeca.
On the Japanese front, deffo the Reimyo, and my fave of all time, the two-box Marantz CD12/DA12.
I also had a very soft spot for the Audiomeca.
On the Japanese front, deffo the Reimyo, and my fave of all time, the two-box Marantz CD12/DA12.
I just loved the fact the Micromega could record vinyl and sound like an absolutely top quality vinyl set up. Which is obviously what it was sourced from. That said, we never got to hear the source it came from direct and what the subjective deterioration level was.
An extraordinary event for me at the time.
That said, audio makes no sense sometimes. MP3s at low bit rates can sound better than high rate bit sources on some material. Tis all madness.
I can sell you the solution, but it will cost you £83,923.
An extraordinary event for me at the time.
That said, audio makes no sense sometimes. MP3s at low bit rates can sound better than high rate bit sources on some material. Tis all madness.
I can sell you the solution, but it will cost you £83,923.
Well, my recent upgrade experiences with Straingauge boron stylus (from ruby), and Permali plinth/armboard (from slate/Aluminium) have taken me to a place w my sound where I'm literally reassessing where I've been over the last 13-14 years, effectively the whole hobby going back a quarter century...yes, I'm THAT old lol.
Until 2008, I had been poodling along in the hobby with a particularly uninviting digital sound (Marantz SA-1), and functional but ultimately unimpressive analog front end (Michell Orbe/SME V/Transfiguration Orpheus/Tom Evans Groove).
The CDP just never engaged, and the TT had plenty of pep, but poor resolution and tone.
A lot of the latter was due to the phono loading being a poor choice for the cart. Too bad my dealer failed me here, and too bad I didn't work this out for myself.
Then in 2009, I upgraded the SA-1 to an Emm Labs CDSA, and at a stroke my CDs became engaging, and the schism in my analog more marked.
Ok, cue gnashing of teeth, migraine headaches researching a new analog front end (my dealer now history), and I plumped for what looked and sounded a unique way to play vinyl, my rim drive Salvation TT/air bearing LT Terminator/Straingauge cart, all for less than the cost of a TW Akustic or SME 20 or Brinkmann La Grange (the other alternatives I was surveying). Purchased in 2013.
And in lots of ways, my vinyl and CD never sounding better, and I became format agnostic at this point. Despite still championing vinyl first, a lifelong obsession is hard to placate.
The next rupture was buying the Eera Tentation a year later in 2014, and a gap opens up again as I *finally* lose all aversion to digital, and with great cognitive dissonance admit to myself that I may be the only vinylphile who's analog setup doesn't match his CDP.
However, this always jarred psychologically because all you read online from those who've got their LP playback optimal is that it always maintains a healthy edge over even the best digital.
Hobby interrupted as we plan our radical house move, and the kind of budget that would bet me a fully loaded Brinkmann Balance or SME 30 front end instead goes into constructing a dedicated listening room, to replace the flawed acoustic I had back in London.
12 months system packed away, reinstalled in early 2017, shows amazing promise, and my first major step towards the fantastic place I'm in today with my analog is the install of Stacore Advanced isolating platform. After a few months of fettling, my analog is moving closer to my digital. Rounds of system optimising incl balanced power, dedicated lines, Sablon loom etc, just upping the ante all round.
The Eera CDP sounding great consistently, but my next analog breakthru after the Stacore is bespoke dual mono LPS to Straingauge cart energizer. With the Stacore optimising things via vibration management, noise floor on the system is dropping, but I'm still some way off LP proudly kicking ass.
Next up is an updated version of the air LT arm, identical design, just superior implementation and use of materials, and timbral accuracy strikes me as a thing...maybe because we're going to way more live classical, it's become a thing I'm more aware of/sensitive to. That's in 2019.
Then a very big stride forward, upgrade to rim drive motor courtesy of SOTA Condor Eclipse Roadrunner package w Farad Supercapacitor LPS in 2020. Again, more noise floor reduction and neutrality via more accurate speed and likely less vibrations.
For the first time, my CDP isn't lording it over my vinyl, I'm eeking out critical aspects of musical reproduction like timbral accuracy, tonal variation, that were absent in the London acoustic and before these upgrades happened.
Covid is ticking along, and tbh had I stayed here, I'd be chuffed w my vinyl sound despite still being aware the guys I visit w better LP sound are at a more advanced place than me.
However, the real shocks and surprises hadn't happened yet.
My Straingauge system goes back to NYC for fettling and provision of replacement stylii, I decide to buy 7 to keep me good for a couple of decades, only an 8 month wait Lol, and on setting up and playing first LP on 1/1/22, I am struck dumb by what I'm hearing, effectively a new cart and phono, effectively a whole new analog front end. The Straingauge has always majored on speed, dynamics and detail, just a little cool re tone. Now it's kept all its plus points, and added the kind of tone I hear w Red Sparrow and DaVa at Bill's, and Murasakino Sumile and Madake at Tom's.
That's an immediate by boost to my vinyl, and on its own pushes my TT out in front of my CDP for the first time. That is massive for me, unexpected in every way.
And now to add to a level of goodness I couldn't have dared hope for, the new Permali plinth/armboard are in, and the effects on dropping noise floor are stupendous, so much low level detail, nuances, acoustic cues, plus vitamin shot to bass articulation, apparent.
This and the tonal/warmth/bloom upticks via the new stylus, has totally transformed my analog, the days of it being the poor relation to my digital over, and has in the end justified me staying on this path, building from the core choices I made nearly a decade ago.
No way would I claim there's any method to my madness, none of the options I've spent on existed in 2013, I've just chosen to go (down the garden path, down the rabbit hole w Alice).
As someone who sees the ironies in life and life choices all too readily, wouldn't it have been easier to buy that SME or TW, and save myself the trouble of a half dozen major upgrades and transplants? I certainly would have settled the analog >>> digital debate a decade earlier.
Or is this proof positive of an infinite number of roads lead to the Italian capital, my cluttered brain and illogical decision making choosing the most round about way to my final destination.
And finally I can say this vinylphile is happy to listen to CD, but it's very much not the superior format anymore.
Only a quarter century to establish that to myself Lol.
Until 2008, I had been poodling along in the hobby with a particularly uninviting digital sound (Marantz SA-1), and functional but ultimately unimpressive analog front end (Michell Orbe/SME V/Transfiguration Orpheus/Tom Evans Groove).
The CDP just never engaged, and the TT had plenty of pep, but poor resolution and tone.
A lot of the latter was due to the phono loading being a poor choice for the cart. Too bad my dealer failed me here, and too bad I didn't work this out for myself.
Then in 2009, I upgraded the SA-1 to an Emm Labs CDSA, and at a stroke my CDs became engaging, and the schism in my analog more marked.
Ok, cue gnashing of teeth, migraine headaches researching a new analog front end (my dealer now history), and I plumped for what looked and sounded a unique way to play vinyl, my rim drive Salvation TT/air bearing LT Terminator/Straingauge cart, all for less than the cost of a TW Akustic or SME 20 or Brinkmann La Grange (the other alternatives I was surveying). Purchased in 2013.
And in lots of ways, my vinyl and CD never sounding better, and I became format agnostic at this point. Despite still championing vinyl first, a lifelong obsession is hard to placate.
The next rupture was buying the Eera Tentation a year later in 2014, and a gap opens up again as I *finally* lose all aversion to digital, and with great cognitive dissonance admit to myself that I may be the only vinylphile who's analog setup doesn't match his CDP.
However, this always jarred psychologically because all you read online from those who've got their LP playback optimal is that it always maintains a healthy edge over even the best digital.
Hobby interrupted as we plan our radical house move, and the kind of budget that would bet me a fully loaded Brinkmann Balance or SME 30 front end instead goes into constructing a dedicated listening room, to replace the flawed acoustic I had back in London.
12 months system packed away, reinstalled in early 2017, shows amazing promise, and my first major step towards the fantastic place I'm in today with my analog is the install of Stacore Advanced isolating platform. After a few months of fettling, my analog is moving closer to my digital. Rounds of system optimising incl balanced power, dedicated lines, Sablon loom etc, just upping the ante all round.
The Eera CDP sounding great consistently, but my next analog breakthru after the Stacore is bespoke dual mono LPS to Straingauge cart energizer. With the Stacore optimising things via vibration management, noise floor on the system is dropping, but I'm still some way off LP proudly kicking ass.
Next up is an updated version of the air LT arm, identical design, just superior implementation and use of materials, and timbral accuracy strikes me as a thing...maybe because we're going to way more live classical, it's become a thing I'm more aware of/sensitive to. That's in 2019.
Then a very big stride forward, upgrade to rim drive motor courtesy of SOTA Condor Eclipse Roadrunner package w Farad Supercapacitor LPS in 2020. Again, more noise floor reduction and neutrality via more accurate speed and likely less vibrations.
For the first time, my CDP isn't lording it over my vinyl, I'm eeking out critical aspects of musical reproduction like timbral accuracy, tonal variation, that were absent in the London acoustic and before these upgrades happened.
Covid is ticking along, and tbh had I stayed here, I'd be chuffed w my vinyl sound despite still being aware the guys I visit w better LP sound are at a more advanced place than me.
However, the real shocks and surprises hadn't happened yet.
My Straingauge system goes back to NYC for fettling and provision of replacement stylii, I decide to buy 7 to keep me good for a couple of decades, only an 8 month wait Lol, and on setting up and playing first LP on 1/1/22, I am struck dumb by what I'm hearing, effectively a new cart and phono, effectively a whole new analog front end. The Straingauge has always majored on speed, dynamics and detail, just a little cool re tone. Now it's kept all its plus points, and added the kind of tone I hear w Red Sparrow and DaVa at Bill's, and Murasakino Sumile and Madake at Tom's.
That's an immediate by boost to my vinyl, and on its own pushes my TT out in front of my CDP for the first time. That is massive for me, unexpected in every way.
And now to add to a level of goodness I couldn't have dared hope for, the new Permali plinth/armboard are in, and the effects on dropping noise floor are stupendous, so much low level detail, nuances, acoustic cues, plus vitamin shot to bass articulation, apparent.
This and the tonal/warmth/bloom upticks via the new stylus, has totally transformed my analog, the days of it being the poor relation to my digital over, and has in the end justified me staying on this path, building from the core choices I made nearly a decade ago.
No way would I claim there's any method to my madness, none of the options I've spent on existed in 2013, I've just chosen to go (down the garden path, down the rabbit hole w Alice).
As someone who sees the ironies in life and life choices all too readily, wouldn't it have been easier to buy that SME or TW, and save myself the trouble of a half dozen major upgrades and transplants? I certainly would have settled the analog >>> digital debate a decade earlier.
Or is this proof positive of an infinite number of roads lead to the Italian capital, my cluttered brain and illogical decision making choosing the most round about way to my final destination.
And finally I can say this vinylphile is happy to listen to CD, but it's very much not the superior format anymore.
Only a quarter century to establish that to myself Lol.
Last edited:
Your suffering, travails and triumphs are the stuff of legend. How can we provoke your audio pain for even greater joys and victories later on?
Just kidding. I'm a regular subscriber to your thread.
Just kidding. I'm a regular subscriber to your thread.
Marc's "final destination" ?
I have a feeling another tweak will find him in a not so far away future !
Last edited:
Milan, the point of my long drawn out post was really to say that the recent stylus and Permali plinth change has been of such a dramatic order, that it's turned a lot of long term assumptions and understandings on their head, and resolved my biggest cognitive dissonance (my inability to get my vinyl to be as consistent and open as my CD and to maximise what I know makes vinyl way more compelling), that anything from this point is just gilding the lily.
The point is that I now have that lily whereas before it was more a slightly sad looking rose.
And that my vastly increased exposure to live classical has informed my preferences, and given me way more confidence to select the right choices.
The point is that I now have that lily whereas before it was more a slightly sad looking rose.
And that my vastly increased exposure to live classical has informed my preferences, and given me way more confidence to select the right choices.
Some "exciting" news on the amps front, although my GF thinks I need to re-check the definition of exciting in the dictionary.
A fault in one of my Nat monoblocks got me taking both of them and pre amp to one of the few engineers in the UK happy to look at them.
Fault diagnosed, soon to be sorted hopefully. And a schedule of works to replace stock large reservoir smoothing caps, and copper foil signal coupling caps, total replacement with Audio Note and Nichicon.
Only decision is to consider AN Kaisei caps.
In addition, I've sourced a quad of GE 211 tubes from Audio Antiquary in Italy, two balanced pairs, will get these biased by the engineer.
Likely to be my big expenditure for 2022, hoping for a positive outcome here.
A fault in one of my Nat monoblocks got me taking both of them and pre amp to one of the few engineers in the UK happy to look at them.
Fault diagnosed, soon to be sorted hopefully. And a schedule of works to replace stock large reservoir smoothing caps, and copper foil signal coupling caps, total replacement with Audio Note and Nichicon.
Only decision is to consider AN Kaisei caps.
In addition, I've sourced a quad of GE 211 tubes from Audio Antiquary in Italy, two balanced pairs, will get these biased by the engineer.
Likely to be my big expenditure for 2022, hoping for a positive outcome here.
Those are interesting developments! Best of luck on achieving the sonic outcomes you are hoping for!
Watch it though, Marc. I heard the foo banana central intelligence agency loves you and are most jealous of your kit.
Tax disincentive 89 bananas. For a better system the price has already been paid
