Anyone have their Audio Aero Capitole MKII yet?


I just received mine today and was looking for other's opinions about the MKII right out of the box as compared to the MKI (or other comparable players).
listener
Fmpnd: I see you are using your Lamm L2 preamp during the burn-in and may switch to running it direct when its fully burned. Any reason for this? Just clueless and curious...
Bryans, I too have experienced that tracking problem you mentioned where it won't access a specific track on a disc even once the disc has been playing. But it will play the track just fine if the cd is simply playing through the disc. Get this, I too found the problem and stumbled upon the cure. Try cleaning the disc with dawn dishwashing soap and water very, very well. The surface of cd's must not have any foreign substance or, are you ready, "topical treatments" like Auric Illuminator, Walker Vivid, Disc Solution, etc... Once I cleaned these off my cd's, all my discs play perfectly!!! Then just for kicks I reapplied any one of the products and the same tracking thing occured in the exact same spots on the disc! Well I'll be damned. I called the distributor about this too to tell them. Once I re-applied the topical stuff the discs actually sounded worse "on this machine". This is quite contrary to all my previous experience with topical cd products where I much preferred them after application. This player makes the treatments sound bad. That's cool too because treating the discs was always a pain in the rear end.
Gerryn, I had my Lamm L2 before the AA because my old reference Cd front end did not have the abiltiy to go straight into the amps. BUT, I have heard mixed opinions on whether the AA sounds better direct or through a high quality line stage (or, as Mike LaVigne uses it, with a Placette Passive).

So, if the AA sounds better without the necessity of a $14,000 line stage, I can sell it an buy LOTS of LPs or CDs or, God forbid, SAVE the $$$!! (NOT! I'll likely feed my addiction and illness and upgrade something else!).
Just tried to feed a Symphonic Line amp direct with my AA mk II (picked it up today...YEAH ! :)) and im getting awful static/background noise in the speakers. Is this usually the cause of impedance problems, or smthg else ? I have no problems when i put my AA in my Chord CPM 3300 (integrated).

Cheers
hi Bad, is it in only one channel or both equally? maybe a loose connection?

i would try one channel at a time and switch things back and forth to isolate the problem. normally impedence would only affect dynamics and frequency balance and not add noise or static.

you could even run one channel thru the Symphonic Line and one thru the Chord to try to find the problem.

also try to plug in your power cords into different outlets to see if it might be some sort of power related issue. once i had a background buzz that turned out to be the interaction of a particular power cord with my amps.

i hope this helps.