Welcome to my nightmare Ecclectique! You seem like one of the gang already! |
oops make that "Kind of Blue" DOH! |
Ecclectique, you may want to check into the Magic Diamond Blue. I hear rumors that is is THE thing to own. No one here seems to have anything to say about it though. It is spendy! I have never seen one let alone listened to it though. |
All I know is that it is "medium" output, wich I take to mean somewhere around 1mV. The price is $5500 and up(if you have to ask you can't afford it, like buying a helecopter) for Signature models. I understand that the stylus shape is something new, and is why it works so well. The IAR did review it. |
Moncrief is not just any "toe tapping cretin".(I just couldn't help myself, stealing a line from his Well Tempered Lab review back in about 86)He is one of the only reviewers with any credibility left. I never took him for one to admire the qualities you mention. |
Twl, I have also liked the cartridges from Japan myself. I was a big fan of the FR you mentioned and the old Dennon 103D, I owned a Shinnon Red Boron Improved(not perfect but fun), loved the Talasman Virtuoso Boron. Never could affort the Koetsu thing( a friend had a "nude" Rosewood Signature) The best cartridge I ever owned though was a chain smoking Euro trash unit. An old EMT. Man I wish I had that thing back!
I bet the Shelter is very good. I just wish the thing put out some more juice. Do they have a web site? I can't seem to find anything about them or anyone that sells them. |
Ecclectique, have you seen the price of a new Koetsu Rosewood Signature? |
Twl, that is the very thing I liked about the EMT is that it had a very coherent sound from top to bottom and didn't sound like Hi Fi. You know anything about the XYZ's? I am wondering about the new Sumiko Blackbird too? I still may ditch the whole TT mess after 30 years. This is good stuff though! I need to learn more about the current transformers.
Sorry to stear this thread in a different direction. |
Perhaps I have drawn some conclusions about stylus shape and step up devices over my 30 years of fooling with tables and the related parifinalia. I need to find out more.
What is your take on the wood Grado's Twl, just to get a reference point that I know. I assumed that all the damn noise i heard from it was from the stylus shape. This was not there with my old micro ridge/boron coil. I see that the Shelter has an elliptical diamond. That sort of makes me wonder. I loved the EMT and it was of all things conical like the Dennpn 103.
The othe problem I have is(other than being broke)that my record collection needs something( I am boored with most of it too, which is why I got a CD in the first place, and new records are spendy as well). What do you do to keep things quiet? I use a Nitty Gritty but it isn't magic. Perhaps I am just more sensitive to the noise after 3 years of CD listening. I still may bail! |
Twl, isn't that what Sumiko was trying to do with the Celebration? That thing LOOKS like an old Supex to me anyway.
And as far as the "old" thing I had buddies that were into Decca's if that dates me!
I have an old Ortofon SPU/GT, including the original box( the cantiliver is tweeked a bit) hanging around that I dug out of the back of an ancient Hi Fi store I worked at back in the 70's, if antiques are interesting to anyone. |
The Grado seemed to me to exagerate surface noise. It drove me nuts and I sold it. I did like the tonal balance and the rest of the sound qualities. Now I seem to have lost my groove, so to speak. |
It may as well cost $150,000! I think that cartridges have gone insane in price for the most part.(other than some that we have talked about) The Supex never grabbed me like the Fidelity Research or the Dennon 103D did.Those wre my favorites back in the mid 70's.
I suspect that phono overload isn't my problem with noise. The modded ARC SP 9 that I use has a decent phono stage. O.K. Twl you don't get a kick out of the Grado's, can you elaborate? I now have a new(spooky to say)Sure V15 VmxR, is that my problem with my analog playback? I am wondering about trying to track so damn light, it just doesn't seem right to me after having 2 gram tracking MC's for so many years. |
I have to say that I loved my SME III back in those days. I had the EMT nude mounted into the detachable arm wand. (it came in a big clunky head shell, and was the only way to use it with the III) |
I have one of the very first Well Tempered Labs tables with their arm on it that I have had since my last gig in the audio business. |
2mv, is no problem at all for the 9 . That's what the Shinon was and it worked great. It sounded pretty good for a very long time and then all of a sudden, wow it gave it up! It was never my ultimate first choice, but it was given to me by a friend for the price of a re-tip. It may have been a bit hot on top in some ways but the rest of my system at the time(things have changed a little) was very mellow and it never seemed to be a problem.
Who make a decent transformer and where can I get some info on them for future reference. I actually was into medium to high output MC's(I think the EMT was 1mv, which is where my user name comes from, crank the old ARC to max and get those Maggies singing), since I never had good experiences with any sort of step up device in the past. |
I think what may be driving me out of analog is the price of new records( the damn things are $25 each if you can find what you want other than the 86th special re pressing of "Kinda Blue",as I mentioned I bought the CD player because I was tired of most of my collection),cartridges, and all the associated gadgets.
This may seem odd in this TT guy thread but I would much sooner buy a $5000 CD player than a $5000 cartridge. For one thing I can be more confident that I can get a used $5000 CD player with some life in it for around half of that. Used cartridges are a crap shoot.
Why do you think I have so much time to dink around here on Agon and with my Hi Fi, I haven't much worked since 9/11 happened, so that is something that would require selling something else, like the TT, current CD player, pre and Nitty Gritty. The records would have to finance new CD's. |
Lugnut,(just turned 45 about a week ago)I am down to about 250-300 records. It is hard to find the most new stuff I am interseted in listening to. It culled my record colletion a few years back and it's about 1/4 of what it was. I never got a lot of the classic jazz & classical I should have bought years ago since I always thought I would get around to it. I got to hear that sfuff so much at work and at friends houses it didn't seem important to buy it at the time. I am by no means a record collector, who just buys stuff to have it. So my collection is sort of an odd blend of stuff that isn't real exciting to me right at the moment.Don't get me wrong I do have a lot of gems in there. What do you do if you want to listen to, say, a new band you just found out about like, Calexico. Where the hell you gonna find a copy of "The Black Light" on vinyl? Not gonna happen!
I think the pre is fine. Not everthing sounds noisy, but some of my favorites that were dead silent with the MC seem annoying now. It could be that I just have gotten too used to the sound of CD's.
You don't list your rig, what are you spinning your fuzzy warbles on(ever seen "A Clockwork Orange", "come hear all proper")? You know, flat, black, and circular. Licorice pizza. |
Lugnut and Rockinroni,
The step up thing baffles me as well. I know if I had the money to buy any phono stage and cartridge that I desired this would be a non issue. I could get The Groove, or an ARC REF Phono, and run the microscopic mv coils evryone loves. I guess it is the sound that MM's make that I don't like. Perhaps I will try another MC before I dump it all. It's tough to get new releases on LP. If you do find them they are the expensive heavy weight audiophile pressings. It sounds like you guys get your newer stuff on CD. Does your BPS read noise like mad, Lugnut? I know Twl didn't have much good to say about it, what do you think of it? I could live with a few warts if the damn thing was quiet. |
I understand that the ARC Ref Phono uses the Jensen transformers in it. I admit that my experience with transformers in the past were tainted and most likley loading related. Thanks for giving me some better info to digest. It is opening my eyes a bit. It is easy to come to the wrong conclusion at times with this stuff. I know people do it all the time with speakers and electronics. |
Twl, where can one get raw Jensen transformers? It can't be very hard to build something. All you need are some RCA's, a case, and the transformers, Right?
When you mention Euro cartridges, I assume you are refering to the ClearAudio and Van Den Hul stuff? Do you put Benz in this same group? You seem to like some Ortofon units. A friend just got a Kontrapunkt b he seems to like. Don't get me wrong, there seems to be proponents of all sorts of sounds out there that I don't understand. A great deal of the speakers I hear fall into that group. There seems to be a trend to what I feel are overly bright speakers now, I guess that has been going on for some time. Perhaps this is the same trend that you are pointing to in the Euro cartridge arena. Detail at the expense of all else? I like detail, I just don't want it shoved at me and force fed to me. I think the same may be going on with cables as well. |
Twl,thanks for the Jensen site info. Those are a real possibility. The transformers are small,look easy to do something with, and only $104 each. Good info to have on hand. |
Jackcob, I wasn't trying to start anything, as it was my question to Twl that brought out the strong opinion. I was trying to qualify some of the information he is giving me and that gives me some frame of reference. An opinion was what I was after. I am in the throws of an analoge mid life crisis, and Twl is trying to help me out. I know that cartridges are very system dependant and as subject to taste as speakers. I have a friend that I have not seen in many years who I know for a fact is a good listener. We communicate some via e-mail now. I do trust his judgment on things of an audio nature. This friend of mine used an expensive ClearAudio MC and likes it very much. I have to assume that his system is voiced to work well with it. His system is very different than Twl's. I am sure that they both get good sound from their systems as I am confident that you do as well using the Black Beauty. In no way was I trying to stir up any bad feelings with my question. As experienced audiophiles we know that how you set up your system can be just as important, if not more so in some cases, than what gear you own. Thanks for all the info. |
