postjack

Yes, handling it is like walking on eggshells. I couldn't imagine not having the small handle to maneuver it with. I just have to be real careful that I don't lower the arm with the stylus too close to the edge of a record. As for the sound, I'm quite pleased. I was complaining in another thread that I felt the overall setup sounded too bright, but I started vomiting shortly thereafter, and I realized I had food poisoning. Also I had just quit smoking a few days ago. So the fever and nicotine fits made everything sound bright. Now I'm a couple of weeks away from my last cigarette, and I switched out the tube in the Bellari phono stage with an Ei 12ax7e gold pin. Finally the cart is beginning to sound similar to how I've read elsewhere: smooth n' lovely midrange, with extremely realistic sounding vocals. Contrary to being bright, the music is actually missing a bit of sparkle in the highs, but detail here is fine, so this is acceptable to my ears. The bass is typically nice and big, but can be a bit bloaty in spots, but not to the point where it overwhelms anything else. Instrument separation and sound stage is wonderful. My gripes are minor. I wanted an analog rig that could at least hold its own sitting on the same table as the 999es, and the Technics has proven itself worthy. A well mastered SACD on the 999es could still beat the pants off of it anyday, though. But it is a LOT easier to get good sounding cheap records then good sounding cheap SACDs.

Just some pics of the nude stylus I thought were cool. You can see the dust on it, I need to get a record cleaning machine.

Yes, just an a/b switchbox basically.

Thats not an entirely bad price. I'd consider DIY but I haven't touched a soldering iron since I built a beige box in 6th grade. Or I could just wait until a buy a new amp and get one with multiple inputs. Its just that I'm happy with the ppx3 slam right now, and I have lots of great tubes for it.

My amp only has one set of inputs, and I'm getting really tired of pulling RCA's everytime I want to go from TT to CDP. Is there some kind of switch box I can buy I can put between my amp and my sources that will add convenience without sacrificing sound quality? It doesn't have to be pretty, just functional.

Just from pictures, I think the "new wave" of Meier amps look great. I liked the brutish old black designs as well though.

That was a great review. I would love to hear one of these. It certainly is an attractive piece.

Having spent a bit of time with my TT now, I can relate to what you are talking about when you say drum impact and instrument weight. When listening to certain clean records I have, I get this weird feeling like the music has infinite space and could go anywhere, not trapped in the upper frequencies of a 16bit CD. Having said that, my biggest complaint about the 1200Mk2 + Vp129 combo is that it can be too bright and fatiguing, which is actually the opposite of how I thought it would be. I'm not sure if this is more attributable to the TT itself or the MM cart, which I've heard are, in general, "jumpier" then MC carts (meaning the sound jumps out at you more, more of a rock cart to over generalize). Or maybe I'm just startled coming from the deep warmth and smoothness of the 999es. However, the TT is extremely sensitive to tube rolling in my PPX3, so a trio of Sylvanias helps tone that down enough to make the experience quite enjoyable. I am hoping that swapping the cheapo tube in the phono stage will help as well. I've gotten in a new production Ei 12ax7, but I need an allen wrench to get to the tube in the Bellari. \ I'm grateful that I did go for an integrated cart, because not having to worry about cart alignment etc. is one less thing to worry about. Its insane the amount of shit that can greatly affect the way a record sounds. Probably the biggest single change in the sound of the TT was when I changed the tonearm height from 1 to 0.5. I had no idea that could smooth out the sound so much and, again, take the edge off the brightness. Then I finally bought myself a small level and adjusted the legs of the TT to make sure it was all level. Again, improved the sound. Also, apparently my whole house is leaning towards the northwest. Its only been a week, but getting a turntable setup is a lot of work.

panda, thats a good point about the 5th cylon, for some reason my mind didn't even think of that. All I know is there are a whole lot of holes that need to be filled in the next season. And yes, we must have more space fights.

actually phish and widespread panic wrote it, i tink. it was about desert storm in the early 90s.

I thought they were all panicking pretty bad when they found out, more of an "oh shit" then a "meh".

My bad. And your point is valid. Too many people knew Tigh during the first cylon war for him to be a true post-war skinjob. So maybe some kind of doppelganger thing? But maybe complete memory recreation is too far fetched. Or maybe they are not really cylons at all, but maybe had something done to them by the cylons, maybe during the occupation on New Caprica. Anders was held on Old Caprica, and Tigh was held on New Caprica, but I can't recall of a time when Chief or the sexy President's assistant were in cylon custody. I remember way back when Chief thought he was a cylon, when he had that nightmare and beat the shit out of Kylie (his future wife, I'm bad with names, obviously). Then he spent some time with Quantum Leap cylon who was a priest or shrink at the time, which was weird. Lot of maybes, and plenty of time to think about it until next season.

Season finale was last night. I thought it was great, the last 10 minutes were a total mindfuck, oriental pop version of AATWT and all. *********** SPOILERS DUSTY CHALK OMG DON'T LOOK*********** The trial was fucking awesome. I'll be honest, after Apollo's speech, I was convinced Baltar would be acquitted, and that he should be. Not to mention this provides more interesting plot possibilities. Starbuck coming back at the end was cool, kind of cheesy-lame, the whole "I've been to earth" thing, but still, pretty righteous. The best part of the whole episode is that we finally see 4 more faces of the Cylons, which leaves only 2 faces unrevealed. It was chilling when Tigh went back to ops and said, "You can count on me." I can't fucking believe Tigh is a cylon. Something else I considered was that if Chief is a cylon, then his baby is another half cylon half human, a la Hannah. ******* OMFG SPOILERS DUSTY CHALK READING BACKWARDS DO NOT LOOK OMG **********

I remember reading about this over at HF, IIRC it is at least a few grand. I'm still pretty tickled with my $200 Velodyne Front Row 5 piece speaker system and $200 Bic subwoofer, so thats how I'll be watching movies for a while.

Not sure what the famous nail polish trick is.

^^^bump^^^

is the slow slow slow forum is the slooooooooooooooooooow forum bo jumped over the charcoal & number blue bird

On the topic, my SL1200 is en route and, according to UPS, will show up Thursday. Dude was a week late shipping it, but I won't sweat it so long as everything works when it shows up.

You know, usually I go for the chick that is not supposed to be as good looking in any set of females. You know what I mean, like there were these popular twins in my high school, and both were super hot, and everyone always went for the blonde, but I was always a sucker for the brunette. Like I tend towards the cuter hot girl instead of the supermodel hot girl. But in the case of BG, I'd take 6 over Athena/Boomer anyway. ***SPOILER ALERT DUSTY CHALK, BEWARE!!*** Really great episode last night BTW. I'm glad to see some more focus on Tigh, he has always been one of my favorite characters. He's such an all around fuck up, the perfect compliment to the old man. What the hell is the deal with the radio signals? Is he going nuts? Not to mention the trial, which is so interesting it has left me questioning the true guilt or innocence of Baltar. Then again, I think he is the best actor on the show, and I really don't want to see him pushed out an airlock for that reason alone, so that may be affecting my judgment a bit. ***SPOILER ALERT DUSTY CHALK, BEWARE!*** BTW KG, I only read the first couple of spoilers in your list, and they were indeed true of the episode last night. So I don't know if the rest of the spoilers are true as well, but if they are, thats pretty much a dick move on your part.

You could run those three in series.

Cool, happy listening. I was told a week ago my TT would ship this past Tuesday, but I have received no shipping confirmation and my credit card has not been charged. Come to think its time to send an email.

I ordered the Boltz CD-600 a couple of weeks ago. A part was back ordered, so it didn't ship until this week, but when it finally did ship, it was only in transit for two days. Assembly was a breeze, just lots of repetition, but I always feel great after I put something like this together. I also have a box with an adjustable incline writing desk sitting in another room ready to be assembled. I'm puttin' shit together, cos I'm on vacation this week, y'all. Respect. Sorry, no step by step building shots. Just know that there is a lot of screwing hex nuts and acorn nuts on long skinny poles. Assembled: Alphabetizing albums: All done: I got the anthracite metallic finish. Much better pictures of the different finishes can be found at www.boltz.com. As for value: when I first started looking for some kind of simple CD shelf, I was surprised at the insanely high prices a lot of places charge. So when I found this rack, with a 600 CD capacity, as well as the ability to expand if more space is needed, for just north of $200, I decided to go with Boltz. Right now I am pleased with my purchase. The rack is sturdy, substantial, and doesn't sway or rock. The slider "bookends" are great. The surface of the rack is smooth and pleasing to the touch. CD cases slide on nicely and stay where they are put (unless they get loose and rock to the side, then they go a-tumbling to the ground. Thus its best to use the sliders to keep them upright). The CDs are on a gentle enough angle to make looking for and picking out an album easy. The best part is CDs aren't covering my desk and floor anymore.

The RS-1s are on the brighter end of the can spectrum, but not hurtfully bright like the 325i (to be fair, when I owned the 325i I had a solid state amp). Harsh, definitely not. Smooth as melted butter on a pecan pie at Waffle House, and as sweet, too. The soundstage on the SR225 and 325i was very small. One of the first things I noticed when I heard the RS-1s was like you said, the depth. The soundstage expanded greatly on the horizontal axis, though in some recordings I get the "fly buzzin' round my head" circular type of soundstage. I didn't like flats on the SR225 or 325i. I enjoy swapping between flats and bowls on the RS-1, and I've found myself rolling different tubes in depending on whether it will be a "flats" listening session (brighter, more neutral tubes) or a "bowls" listening session (bassier, warmer tubes). The RS-1s biggest shortcoming, in my opinion, is they don't like "busy" songs. Anything with lots of different tracks/instruments going crazy all over the place can confuse the RS-1, and the sound becomes a bit too dense, but still listenable and sometimes enjoyable. Having said that, the bowls help with slightly busier tracks, while the flats can be heaven for intimate, personal performances, like jazz for example. But hell, since I've bought them they quickly became my main can. I've only picked up the Senns for a few classical listening sessions, and actually the RS-1s shortcomings made me appreciate the HD650 even more. I think they are great complimentary cans. But for the RS-1s: jazz, rock, post-punk, dance, electronica, synthpop, industrial, futurepop... yep, sounds great with plenty of my tunes. Sorry, I don't know anything about Woo amps so I can't help you there.

Hey Tony- I'm a relatively new convert to tubes. I went from a Corda HA-2 MKII SE to a Singlepower PPX3 Slam, and I was shocked. Despite all I had read, I wasn't expecting tubes to be capable of slam, impact, and speed, but the PPX3 has it in spades. Tubes enabled me to enjoy listening to music at low volume, though I still enjoy cranking it up on tunes I'm really into. And of course there is tube rolling, which is an experience in and of itself. Its so cool to be able to throw in some tubes and alter the character of an amp's sound. Plus the glowing is pretty cool, and all your normal friends think you're weird. Then I'm like "fuck yall yall weird i dont need yall i got my d-getters, bitches". Then you can stay home all the time.