Playback designs followup?

I know this is going in another direction, but I heard the Playback Design and It wasn't my cup of tea. At the time I had a Marantz SA7 and greatly preferred the sound. Since then I've given up my CD player in favor of a Modwright Truth Transporter with upgraded vintage tubes. I greatly prefer the sound, not to mention the convenience.

"About half the owners immediately start thinking of modifying their units. That's never a topic about the PD."

Dave is there a company that modifies the PD? How many people worldwide own a PD cd player? In fact, how many people outside of Audiogon even know what PD designs is? There won't be any options for improvement until Jonathan decides to give you one.

I'm glad you are enjoying your machine.

Not only is Jonathan a dealer, he is the manufacturer of Playback Designs, Evolution Acoustics, and the NA distributor of darTZeel. I've owned and sold both darTZeel equipment and Evolution Acoustics speakers. I guess that is why I'm currently on the "Out List" of the Chambers clan. The products are OK, but certainly not the final word in quality. To me, there are better sounding products and certainly more reliable ones available.

Dave - Before you jump to any conclusions reread my post from 2/13/09. I sold the Marantz in favor of the Modwright Transporter. I have no axe to grind. I simply have a different opinion than you. I'm also not at all defensive about any of my equipment. We all have different tastes. After owning some of the Chambers Audio products, I just found things I liked better and moved on. My hearing tests perfect. As I've stated to you in the past, if you don't limit your comments to non personal ones, your opinion looses all credibility.

Grr6001,

I couldn't agree with you more. My room is 15 X 21. I have a carpeted floor and a few sound panels situated to reduce first reflection points. I sold my darTZeel amp and preamp in favor of a BAT VK52SE preamp and VK 250SE power amp. Speaking strictly in terms of sound the darTZeel's were a slight bit more transparent . The BAT's have a better bottom end. They only give up a very slight bit to the darTs in overall absolute performance and cost a fraction of what the darTs cost. The darTs are much nicer to look at. I had maintenance issues with both my darTZeel preamp and amp. I am basically a plug and play kind of audiophile. I replaced my Evolution Acoustics MM2s with a pair of Hansen Prince speakers. I use Stealth Metacarbon balanced interconnects and Kubala-Sosna Emotion speaker cables. I only owned the EV MM2s for about seven months. I did break them in. They didn't work well for me in my room at all. I found that if I tried to adjust them to anything other than a flat setting they just didn't sound "right". I've looked at your system and I see you have a lot of the components that I've moved on from. I certainly respect your pursuit of great sound. I am finally very pleased with the overall sound, ergonomics, build quality, and convenience of my system at this time. I'm not going to state that it's better than anybody else's system, just that it's the best overall system I've owned since getting involved in this hobby. If I had to choose a favorite component, I truly love the Hansen speakers. I don't plan on ever parting with them. They work in my room and they are small enough that if I sell my home and eventually down size (not for 10 years) I can take them with me.

The Modwright Truth Transporter can only sound its best if you upgrade the tubes. I'm running a Mullard GZ345AR4 rectifier and RCA 6CG7 tubes I bought from Andy at Vintage Tube Services. They made a huge difference. I've been listening to Pandora music service a lot. I know it's not true hi resolution, but I love all the variety and new music I've been listening to. I always wanted a tuner, but never was able to get the reception I wanted. The Pandora service is great!

Happy listening.

Tvad, I'm having more fun with the Modwright Truth Transporter then I've had with any piece of audio equipment I've bought in a long time. Fun is why I went into this hobby to begin with.

Andy was referred to me by Frank Huang formerly of Audio Outlet and currently of Reference Cinema & Sound. Of all the audio dealers I've done business with over the years (quite a few), I consider Frank to be beyond reproach. He is always professional and has complete integrity.

Arthur