FREE HIGH-END AUDIO SETUP CONSULTATIONS

@colossalsound - To clarify, I am a Gon member with several decades of experience in audio as a hobby. During that period, I completed the work required to create a Vinyl Source that I am very much focused on, and it is very well received by those who have an opportunity to receive a demo. Most recently, after a longish patient wait, a custom design and built for me by the designer SS Phonostage is once more introduced to the home system. It seems SS Phonstages have been absent from the go-to phonostage options since the early 20's.     

With that said, and letting only my age be the influence on my choices being investigated for an option for a third Source at the current time. For my own purposes, I lean to the idea of avoiding streaming and having a substantial music collection that is not a Hard Medium Source. The notion that quality recordings can have their sound heard throughout the home, without my needing to be in attendance at the designated space monitoring the audio system, really appeals.

Moving away from Valve Circuit Amplification to SS circuits for the same role really appeals. The SS designs are quite predictable and typically of little concern when Powered On. Allowing their usage without constantly monitoring them whilst in use. Extending on this newly developing interest. I was out on a long round trip journey today, to experience a completely new design for an SS Power Amp with the designer/builder of the amp as the host. I was initially attending as a long-overdue social visit, with the amp debut as a segment of the day’s entertainment. After offering my assessment of the end sound being experienced and how I felt it compared to the prior used SS Power Amp. I have underpinned my positive comments by having signed on to having one produced for me. The demo was very much to my liking, and the new design power amp is 'exactly' the support I want to be at hand for my future SS experiences. 

My audio Journey (age-related, I suspect) has been challenged by a chipping away to the point that there is now the strong idea of stepping away from hard media as the commonly used methods to produce music replays.

I am completely sold on the notion of SD Card - FLAC File replays and any other files I can become familiar with producing that surpass FLAC, that are stored on storage hardware. I am more than happy to take guidance, but am not going to the multi-thousand-dollar cables suggested; I am confident all I need is on offer from much less costly cables.

I buy into your suggestion to broaden your info sharing. Commencing the creation of other Threads as sub-topics and guidance on methods used for audio replays is an attractive proposition.    

 

Pindac, in that case, using a Tascam recorder for digitizing vinyl may be a useful idea. Regarding the cables - the point is that you need a good power cord and an interconnect to make Tascam work really well. Believe me, I didn't want to plug in a 1200 dollar device with Nordost Valhalla. It sounds crazy and looks absurd. But since I heard the difference, I can't listen to this device any other way. 

When I listened to the same digital files before with some other cabling, I heard a big difference between original analog and DSD file. Digital copy was harsh, less dynamic, had grainy treble. With Valhalla Tascam plays almost on par with original. This is simply the fact I wanted to tell you. If you have some other cable that will work for Tascam so well that you won't hear a difference with the original - it's your luck. If not - now you know where the bottleneck is. 

HOW MY APPROACH IN AUDIO WAS FORMED

In the previous topic, I wrote about my first encounter with Blumenhofer loudspeakers and about helping their owner choose an amplifier in 2015. At that time, I was already deeply immersed in audio. I was helping to assemble vintage systems for other music lovers, experimenting with components, occasionally restoring old speakers, and writing articles for my site.

The person I had helped with the amplifier was planning something similar — but in the world of modern high-end audio. He had passion and ambition, but didn’t yet understand how to approach this world properly. My website, where I published my audio articles, was already quite popular. I wrote about my practical observations, experiments, discoveries, mistakes, and conclusions. People actually read them because they weren’t written from the perspective of a salesman trying to move inventory. They were written from the perspective of someone genuinely trying to understand why one system works emotionally while another does not.

We decided to unite our passions in sound and try to work together. And it worked!  

We became friends and partners. Within five years, we had a showroom packed with high-end equipment, clients from different cities, and a reputation built not on selling hardware but on helping people finally achieve the sound they had been searching for.

That may sound like a cliché, but at the time, our approach was genuinely unusual.

Most dealers operate according to a very understandable business model: they sell the brands they carry. If a customer buys loudspeakers from them, they will naturally try to sell an amplifier from their own portfolio as well. And if they do not carry a certain type of product — for example, horn speakers — they are unlikely to recommend the customer visit another store that does.

This is not criticism. It is simply how traditional retail works.

But we accidentally built something very different. Instead of competing with other dealers, we started cooperating with them. We built relationships with distributors across the market and began assembling systems based on how they match, rather than on brand loyalty.

That changed everything.

The reality is that components within the same dealership portfolio are not automatically ideal partners. Sometimes they work beautifully together. Sometimes they absolutely do not. And even if they technically match, they may still completely miss the listener’s emotional priorities.

Someone who primarily listens to chamber music and small acoustic ensembles may emotionally connect most strongly with horn speakers. But if a dealer doesn’t carry horns, they will rarely say:

“Actually, you should go buy the speakers you’d love at that place.”

We did the opposite.

We started building systems around the listener rather than around inventory. And because we had access to products from many distributors, we could experiment constantly: different amplifiers with different speakers, different cables, different cartridges... With all the possible inventory around us. 

At the same time, my earlier experience with vintage Japanese equipment proved to be unexpectedly valuable. It taught understanding why certain speakers behave the way they do, why some amplifiers control bass differently, why some systems create emotional coherence while others only produce detail.

We began applying that understanding to modern high-end systems as well.

And sometimes that led to combinations that traditional dealers would never assemble.

For example, we occasionally used relatively inexpensive custom-made components within extremely expensive systems simply because they performed better in that context or allowed the customer to achieve a much higher level of sound without overspending.

That philosophy proved very successful. People began saying something we heard again and again: “For the first time, I’m hearing the kind of sound I was looking for.”

And then they brought friends.

Very soon, we were no longer only assembling systems from other brands — we became official representatives of Blumenhofer and several other well-known high-end manufacturers, building large-scale systems and increasingly ambitious projects.

But the most important part of all this was the experimentation itself.

Because we worked with so many brands simultaneously, we were constantly comparing, mixing, listening, learning, and reevaluating assumptions. Those years became an enormous practical laboratory.

At the beginning of 2022, our showroom was in its prime. But if you compare the expression on my face in the first photo with the one in the photo below, you may notice a difference - sadness in the eyes. It’s not a riddle - I already knew that I am leaving all that behind and jumping into the unknown.  

Now I have started writing audio articles again. The first articles I wrote many years ago were written in real time, almost like a diary of discovery. I would learn something new, test something, become excited about it, and immediately write an article. In fact, many articles on my old website are now partially outdated simply because my understanding has evolved. That is inevitable in audio if you continue listening seriously for many years.

Today I write retrospectively. I look back at years of experiments, successes, mistakes, expensive lessons, unexpected discoveries, and changing opinions — and try to compress all of that distilled experience into something useful and practical for other music lovers.

I’m not trying to convince anybody of anything or sell something. I just share, and it’s your choice how to use it.

__________________________________________

And that brings me to a question.

I will eventually write about all of these topics, but which one would you personally like to read first?

Why do some turntables use multiple tonearms, and how should they actually be used?

How to get the maximum performance from vinyl without spending much money.

Several practical ways to improve the sound of a vinyl playback chain.

How and why cables really influence a system.

I’m curious which direction interests readers most right now.

@colossalsound  Please do write about your topics you feel are beneficial when shared .

Looking at the images, I see a selection of TT's, and I suspect Tonearms, that will be common as a Thread Topic in the Analog Section on this forum. It would be great to learn measures taken, if any? To rejuvenate them, and get them to a near-optimised condition as a functioning device. 

I encourage this Topic Type, as I have been involved with changes being made to the mechanical interfaces on TT's since the mid 90's. Where the intent is to create improvement over the producer's design and the effects of 'wear and tear'.  In the 20's, this evolved into having works undertaken with the focus on the Mechanical Interfaces and Electronics, intending on improving on the factory design and eliminating the issues with 'long-term wear and tear' on Japanese Vintage DD TT's.

This forum is seemingly a good place, with a disclaimer being used. To document such practices undertaken. As many beyond the forum membership are keen to improve their understanding of methods that can be adopted to eke betterment from a vintage TT or Tonearm. If they adopt to participate in the actual activity, the disclaimer will assist them in assessing the risk associated with undertaking any methodology suggested.

Reference Vinyl Recordings — What Are We Actually Striving For?

Before I begin publishing a series of articles about improving vinyl playback systems — whether through targeted upgrades to an existing setup or through a more carefully matched combination of tonearms, cartridges, and turntables — I would first like to upload several reference recordings that demonstrate what I personally consider good vinyl sound.

For this purpose, I suggest downloading and listening to several test digitizations. At this point, I should immediately address an obvious objection:

“How can you evaluate an analog vinyl setup through a digital file?”

At first glance, the idea does indeed sound strange. But only at first glance. The reality is that modern high-resolution digital recorders using DSD 5.6 format have advanced enormously compared to the digital technology used during the first wave of CD transfers in the late 1980s and 1990s. In fact, if the digital technology available today had existed back then — and if the majority of analog master tapes had been digitized with the quality we can achieve today — the vinyl renaissance itself might never have happened in the form we know it.

What we often have today are mediocre early digital transfers of extraordinary analog master tapes from the 1970s and 1980s. Only the largest and most commercially important artists — bands like Pink Floyd and a handful of others — regularly receive expensive modern remastering and archival re-digitization from the original tapes. So what does this have to do with vinyl playback?

A modern digital recorder connected to a properly configured analog vinyl playback system can capture a surprisingly accurate imprint of the sound coming from the turntable itself. Of course, the result is not identical to direct analog playback. Digital artifacts still exist. High frequencies become slightly grainier, low-level jitter appears, and some degree of analog continuity is inevitably lost.

Despite this, a modern DSD recording can still serve as a very accurate “snapshot” of the sonic character of a vinyl playback system.

And this is the key point: we are not comparing “digital versus analog.”

We are comparing multiple high-resolution snapshots of different vinyl playback systems against each other — and, if desired, against your own turntable system at home. I believe many listeners will find this comparison extremely revealing.

Before moving on to vinyl playback itself, however, I want to establish one more important point:

In my view, a truly good vinyl playback system is one that approaches the sound of analog tape as closely as possible.

After all, the great recordings of the 1970s and 1980s were originally recorded on analog tape. Vinyl is already a second-generation medium derived from that source. Compared to the original master tape, vinyl will always involve certain compromises and losses. But the closer a turntable system comes to reproducing the character of the original tape — its density, focus, tonal integrity, timing, and natural flow — the higher the level of that playback system can be considered. So before discussing vinyl itself, let us first remind ourselves what analog tape recordings actually sound like.

The first folder contains several short excerpts transferred directly from analog tape. The tracks are well-known recordings, but only short excerpts are provided — between roughly 40 seconds and 1.5 minutes each.

FOLDER 1 - TRUE ANALOG TAPES

These files, taken from master tapes, also allow you to evaluate the overall recording quality of the DSD 5.6 recorder itself. The same recorder was used for all test recordings presented in this article. This is important to keep in mind, because every analog setup in this comparison was recorded under identical digital capture conditions, using the same recorder and recording chain throughout the entire test series.

The second folder contains 3 versions of the same well-known track recorded from the same record.

If you do not want to go too deeply into comparisons, download dozens of files, and spend hours listening, it is enough to compare just the 3 following recordings. The track was recorded from the exact same vinyl pressing on two different turntables. The third comparison track was transferred directly from the analog master tape.

FOLDER 2 - REFERENCE BUDGET VINYL SETUP vs REFERENCE HIGH END SETUP vs TAPE

If you listen to these fragments one after another, you will hear that the first version — which can still be considered a fairly good example of vinyl playback — nevertheless sounds, compared to the second version, less energetic, more blurred, less focused, and less dynamic. It has less bass authority, a less energetic high-frequency response, and, overall, a looser, less controlled presentation.

The difference between the first and second turntable setups stems from several major changes introduced simultaneously: the transition from an MM cartridge to a properly matched MC cartridge, the transition from a 9-inch tonearm to a 12-inch tonearm, and several additional improvements in the turntable's construction and overall engineering.

It is important to reiterate that this “reference budget” turntable remains a very respectable and highly capable solution for vinyl playback within a limited budget. The total price for the first setup was about 2,500 USD. At the end of this article, for those who wish to go deeper into the comparison, there will be more than a dozen additional recordings made from turntables that were actually significantly more expensive — in some cases several times more expensive — yet whose playback often sounds less engaging than the reference budget setup. The reason is quite simple: the overall analog chain was not carefully assembled and optimized, the cartridge-tonearm matching was less successful, or the cartridges themselves were simply less interesting and convincing in terms of musical presentation.

The next 4 folders contain examples of turntables and vinyl playback systems that I personally consider to be reference-level. If evaluated on a hypothetical ten-point scale, I would place these systems at roughly 8. More advanced systems certainly exist — systems that could reasonably be considered 9s and 10s — but I simply have not yet had the opportunity to record them properly. So for now, we will limit ourselves to what I would already consider a very high level of analog playback. All of these systems are broadly within the same class, but they differ in:

• turntable design,

• tonearms,

• cartridges,

• plinth construction,

• and overall presentation.

As a result, each system has its own sonic character and emphasis, even though the general performance level remains consistently high. Most folders contain the same set of tracks:

• Reference Track 1 - Livin Blues Black Night 1972

• Reference Track 2 - Judas Priest - Beyond the Realms of Death 1978

• Reference Track 3 - Iron Maiden Strange World 1980

The reason these particular reference tracks were chosen is quite simple. They are ordinary blues rock and rock records from the 1970s and 1980s — not exotic audiophile pressings, but regular original pressings from those years, exactly the kind of records that make up the collections of most vinyl listeners.

These tracks were selected because they contain a wide variety of musical material that clearly reflects the sonic character of a vinyl playback system: vocals, guitar textures, slow atmospheric intros, fast riffs, dynamic transitions, and dense instrumental passages.

There is intentionally no classical music included in these reference tracks because I strongly believe that classical repertoire requires a different cartridge and tonearm configuration than those used in these reference turntable setups. For classical music, a separate dedicated reference setup is presented later in the article.

These repeated recordings allow direct comparison between different playback systems using identical musical material. Some folders also include additional tracks that do not repeat, but help reveal the specific strengths and character of a particular setup more completely.

FOLDER 3 - REFERENCE SETUP 1

FOLDER 4 - REFERENCE SETUP 2

FOLDER 5 - REFERENCE SETUP 3

FOLDER 6 - REFERENCE SETUP 4

The next two folders contain two systems configured specifically for classical music playback. Interestingly, the turntables themselves are largely similar to those used in previous examples. The major differences lie in the tonearms and cartridges. This is extremely important because classical music requires a fundamentally different approach to playback than rock, pop, jazz, or electronic music. For truly convincing classical playback, cartridge behavior becomes critically important - cartridges that excel with classical music are quite different from those optimized for rock or modern rhythm-based genres.

FOLDER 7 - CLASSICAL MUSIC SETUP 1

FOLDER 8 - CLASSICAL MUSIC SETUP 2

Interestingly, Classical Music Setup 2 costs roughly three times less than Classical Music Setup 1. Nevertheless, both tonearm/cartridge combinations belong to the same sonic family, sharing a similar tonal balance presentation and musical priorities. Each excels at conveying the qualities that matter most in reproducing classical music.

Another folder contains an example of what I would consider a strong result within a relatively moderate budget. 

FOLDER 9 - REFERENCE BUDGET SETUP 1 

FOLDER 10 - REFERENCE BUDGET SETUP 2 (The channels were accidentally swiped during the recording for SETUP 2. For accurate comparison, please swap the left and right channels during playback.)

These two examples should provide a useful reference point for what is realistically achievable in the 3500 USD for the whole vinyl setup. If someone manages to achieve even more within that budget range — excellent.

Finally, the last two collections are intended for the most dedicated audiophiles. They contain Reference Track 1 and Reference Track 2, recorded on 12 different vinyl setups using a variety of cartridges and tonearms.

In both folders, the first position is occupied by the high-end reference system that personally sounds the most convincing to me. The remaining recordings are arranged according to my own subjective preferences. Most of them fall within what I would consider a respectable performance range, although the last two examples strike me as noticeably less engaging than the others.

What makes these comparisons particularly interesting is that price and performance do not always move in the same direction. Some of the cartridges I personally prefer are significantly less expensive than those ranked lower on the list. For example, a cartridge placed around the middle of the ranking cost only a fraction of the price of the two last cartridges at the bottom. Likewise, one of my favorite cartridges in the collection costs roughly half as much as another model ranked below it.

In other words, this is not a ranking of price, prestige, or technical specifications. It is simply my personal listening hierarchy based on musical enjoyment and long-term experience. Your own preferences may be very different.

The main purpose of these collections is to provide a rare opportunity to listen to twelve different cartridge-tonearm combinations side by side, compare their presentations, and discover subtle differences in tonal balance, dynamics, texture, imaging, and overall musical character.

FOLDER 11 - VARIOUS CARTRIDGES AND TURNTABLES - REFERENCE TRACK 1

FOLDER 12 - VARIOUS CARTRIDGES AND TURNTABLES  - REFERENCE TRACK 2

I intentionally do not provide complete technical descriptions of every setup, cartridge modification, tonearm, or turntable combination used in these recordings. Partly because the exact hardware itself is less important than the audible result. And partly because I would prefer listeners to focus first on what they actually hear — rather than immediately reducing every difference to brand names, pricing, or internet mythology. Anyway, beyond the highest-level examples, nearly every subsequent step downward primarily demonstrates one thing: a gradual movement away from the sound closest to the original analog tape recordings. 

The changes in sound are quite easy to hear. As the progression follows from top to bottom, the presentation becomes:

• looser,

• less controlled,

• less resolved,

• and noticeably less energetic.

High frequencies begin to lose their natural physical character. Cymbals no longer sound like real impacts against metal surfaces, but instead collapse into a soft, indistinct “tsssh” somewhere in the background. Bass becomes inflated and less articulate. Rhythmic precision weakens. Spatial focus softens. Instrument separation becomes less stable. The entire presentation starts to lose coherence and tension.

And the important thing is this:

These differences are clearly audible even through high-resolution digital transfers — because the transfers themselves preserve a remarkably accurate imprint of the playback system’s character. The turntables themselves sound exactly this way in direct listening as well.

So, for me, this entire collection of reference recordings forms an informal scale.

If we imagine the best examples presented here as roughly an “8 out of 10” and the weakest as closer to a “3 out of 10,” then these recordings can serve as a practical reference for comparison. If you own some of the same records used in these examples, you can compare your own playback system against them and roughly estimate where your vinyl setup currently stands.

If your system performs at or above the 8-level examples, congratulations. That is already an excellent level of analog playback, and beyond that point, improvements become increasingly expensive, subtle, and system-dependent.

If your playback falls noticeably below that level, however, then there is still considerable room for improvement — often through much more targeted and intelligent upgrades than many people realize.

All excerpts included in these folders are intentionally short — typically between 40 seconds and 1.5 minutes depending on the length of the original track. In most cases, this represents roughly 10–15% of the full composition.

The recordings are provided solely for technical and comparative listening purposes. They are not intended for commercial distribution or replacement of the original recordings in any way.

The purpose of these examples is to demonstrate how dramatically vinyl playback quality can change depending on:

• setup quality,

• tonearm type 

• cartridge matching

• mechanical control

• phonstage and SUP selection

•  overall fine-tuning 

And perhaps even more importantly, to demonstrate what is realistically possible from vinyl playback when a system is assembled and tuned correctly.

In future articles, I will offer several additional comparison sets that demonstrate how the sound of a vinyl system can change with a few relatively simple and inexpensive modifications—most of which enthusiasts can implement themselves.

The first comparison will be devoted to my Goliath project—an upgrade of a well-known and affordable moving-coil cartridge that allows it to perform at a level far beyond what its original price would suggest, bringing it surprisingly close to genuinely high-end designs.

At the time these recordings were made, however, I was still unaware of another important factor that would later become one of the most valuable lessons in my analog journey: a turntable’s sound is influenced not only by its cartridge, tonearm, and electronics, but also by what the turntable itself is standing on. Had I known then what I know today, these recordings could likely have been improved even further by reducing the subtle resonances introduced by the wooden plinth and support structure I was using at the time.

That discovery became the basis for the second comparison. In that experiment, I will present before-and-after recordings demonstrating the effect of a specialized support platform and the changes it produced in the system's overall presentation.

The third comparison is aimed at owners of more advanced belt-drive turntables. In this test, I will demonstrate the sonic differences between a conventional belt drive and a thread-drive conversion—an upgrade that can be implemented on certain turntable designs with relatively little effort and expense.

Whether these differences prove significant to you is something only your own ears can decide. My goal is simply to provide real recordings, real comparisons, and an opportunity to evaluate these ideas through listening rather than theory.