[Tannoy Kensington SE]

Haha, that's what I get for leaving open dozens of browser tabs logged in to stuff, then sleeping in past 1pm

Get Mike to buy you new purses & shoes!!!

Dude I've already bought her TWO purses this year. Shoes maybe, but no more damn purses!

Back to more audio-related things - I'm completely amazed at how these speakers are the most imposing large boxes I've ever owned, while sounding LESS like a box than anything I've heard. The sheer presence they project is unreal in its realism

The TD10s had a -6db roll-off point at 39Hz - a bit high for a large-ish tower. This didn't previously bother me since it was still so much better than what I'd owned before - either plenty of less controlled bass, poorly integrated bass, an even higher rolloff point, or a combination thereof. The TD10s were so comparatively balanced and splendidly integrated from top to bottom. I even had a failed attempt at integrating a Martin Logan Depth i subwoofer. Never got the combination to sound a worthwhile degree better than the TD10s alone for 2ch music (it did provide a substantial improvement with movies), though truthfully I probably gave up a bit too soon (in part to finance the Kensingtons).

Overall, the TD10s had a sonic signature that was highly neutral. However, and possibly partially due to the early rolloff, it was on the clean/lean side of neutral if anything. Perhaps that's why they sounded so stunning with the rebuilt vintage Heathkit W4 tube amps, which embody every GOOD stereotype you've heard about lush, warm, tubey mids - they were able to coax truly glorious mids out of the TD10s. Too bad these amps were also somewhat lacking in bass slam. I really should have tried to bi-amp with the McIntosh MC2100 and W4s for the best of both worlds

Now with the Kensingtons, I'm hearing sound from them that makes me realize why Tannoy targets the Dimension line towards HT use with a sub. The Kensington rolloff point is 29Hz, and there may be other factors are involved too but there is a significant difference here, for the better. They both use a 10" driver so the low-end difference must be from the cabinet: 105 Liter volume for the Kensington, 67 L for the TD10. That and the crossover (and possibly the Alnico magnet) also makes for an extra 3db of efficiency, to 93db/Watt. I'll be able to hit LOUD levels of 100db+ at my seating position from a 25-Watt tube amp. For speakers, I'm moving into the camp that bigger truly is better.

[Tannoy Kensington SE]

lil Leigh loves some Purk!!

[Tannoy Kensington SE]

(i am sooo going to get a beatn' for this, LULZ!)

i'm "teh girlfriend"!!

oooooooh, ya'll are all the same....so precious! i want to make you all lil samiches, or something...

for the record, i'm a good girlfriend. i've taught myself what Tannoys even frickn' were instead of reading Cosmo. i "bring home vinyl". i learned about TUBE AMPS?? (when HE should have learned about Michael Kors shoes?!) i have TRIED to endure audio "events" and learn how to set my "swing arm" (whateverthehell THAT means?? i'm oldskool punk; blasting the Descendents on the Maserati of speakers doesn't SEEM to make that much difference in my ears...but throw me some old George Jones on mono?? hell-to-the-hell yea...)

and as MUCH as i'd rather he spent the money on jewelry?? These Kensingtons are scorching hot!

i do hate seeing the poor old Tannoys in the corner....

i have such fun with you all....i'm about to set up my own forum for "Audio Abandoned Women"....(or, i'll just troll on here?? either way? i'm frickn' DEAD if this actually posts?)

Happy Weekend....

[Tannoy Kensington SE]

If I were a nationalist patriot I'd own Tannoys. Those are sweeeeet though. Thinking about adding on the Tannoy supertweeter at some point?

Indeed, truly fine Scottish craftsmanship

Absolutely, I'd love a set of the ST100 or ST200 tweets. They're pretty expensive though, and I already blew the majority of my headphone stash on these speakers. Naturally, while I was rushing my girlfriend to the ER Sunday night (she's a-ok now), a pair of ST100's came up on agon for a STEAL of $500 (they go QUICK at over $1K). They must have been gone in a minute, long gone by the time things cleared up for me the next morning. Heh, no big deal though - the important thing is that she's fine now. I do feel kinda bad that I feel bad about missing out there, when there were much much more important things on the line

[Tannoy Kensington SE]

Thanks guys! I realize the Tannoys are both polarizing styles. But man - the Kensingtons just push all the right buttons for me, aesthetically and sonically. I've been drooling over them for a while. Oh, and I forgot to mention/photograph the best part - the tweed cloth grills

Oh, and I recently picked up a nice looking pair of Heathkit W5-M tube amps (yes, I went crazy for the vintage stuff). 6L6GC outputs, 12AU7 inputs/drivers (though these are being changed to 6CG7s), 25 Watts. I'm having a REALLY good tube amp tech/speaker designer do a full restore. The aesthetics and satin gold paint should match the control plate on the Kensingtons quite nicely. From what I hear they should be better than the W4s which had the sweetest mids. Those mids, paired with better bass slam would be stunning.

Those speakers look heavy. =T

I think I like the TD10's more (visually), but for some reason, these Kensingtons are growing on me.

Not too heavy considering their size - 81 lbs IIRC. I can pick them up and move 'em around but it's not terribly fun.

I love Tannoys "old school" line of speakers. That said, I'd never own them.

Are they corner loaded? I forget...

I think you're thinking of the Westminsters. Those things are beasts, and I believe there's a pair coming to my area soon

The cabinet work on those is dead sexy. They'd look at home next to late period Victorian furnishings, or even early Arts & Crafts. I have the perfect dresser to go with them.

I dunno if they'd be of interest to you, but this guy makes cables terminated for McIntosh amps. I don't have any experience with his speaker cables, but I have a number of his ICs and a headphone extension cable. He's got a pair listed here right now. I can't say much for the red, but I know he offers a combination of colors and sleeves.

Woah, those do look like very nice cables for the money and that's just the kind of spade I need. Definitely under consideration - thanks!

Mike:

I was looking around yesterday for some spade terminals especially fit for a phono stage binding post and noticed that both Cardas and Vampire make spades especially for vintage gear using barrier strips, such as your Mac amp. Here's some pics:

Anyways, not that I'm advocating better cables in your setup, but just happened to notice these...

Yep, thanks for that info. I do have some small Audioquest crimp-style spades (I think the 1010G) that fit the barrier strips. I have soldered these very poorly to those white PVC sleeved start-quad 11 AWG cables. Did I mention my work is very sloppy...but, it works for now and somehow sounds decent

[JimP]

I sold Jim an Apogee Duet with upgraded break-out cable and everything went very smoothly! Prompt payment and just all-around nice to deal with

[Tannoy Kensington SE]

Here's what I've been selling off my high-end headphone gear for. Just moved them in an hour ago. Unfortunately I'll have to wait a bit to give them a listen, as I've got some work to catch up on! Also, mine is the only residence in a block of businesses, so I need to wait until evening to crank things up

Uses a 10" dual-concentric driver with all the specs of the TOP end of the Prestige line. That means Alnico (Alcomax) magnets, twin-roll impregnated fabric surrounds, doped paper pulp bass drivers, 2" round-wire wound voice coils, and the special Pepper-Pot tweeter waveguide instead of the Tulip waveguide used on the lower lines. There are separate magnetic motors for the woofer and tweeter. From what I read, the length of the horn/waveguide is such that it is exactly 1/2 wavelength at the crossover frequency from woofer to tweeter. The tweeter is wired 180 degrees out of phase to compensate, and in theory you have 100% phase coherence at the crossover frequency. Works out great because the woofer magnet is pretty thick and the horn length provides the appropriate space for it all to fit in there.

I've listened to them plenty in the dealer's room - they're the ONLY other speaker/headphone I've heard that matches the sweetness of the R10's mids (driven with a top-class amp and source, even), but with the bass impact and imaging of a top-notch speaker too.

I liked the look of the Tannoy Dimension TD10s, but they're not everyone's style and they look like dogs next to these Kensingtons

Clearly I need to upgrade the cables for the cosmetics if nothing else. White PVC sleeve, ugh. I LIKE the look of the Audioquests with some of the darker-color braids, but those are fairly expensive and though I want something like a Rocket 88 or Rockefeller - heck I'll be laughing at myself for spending so much on cables

Hope they were worth it. I'm pretty confident they will be...

[Recommended reading for room setup, treatments, building?]

I am no expert - but I've noticed that it works nicely whenever I've heard speakers placed with a large alcove or a sizable opening to another room behind them, rather than plopping them in right front of a flat wall. In general keep the speakers away from large flat surfaces as much as possible. Tall ceilings are great, of course. I do like to sit fairly close, say 8-9 feet from each speaker in a near equilateral arrangement, FWIW - which is less demanding on the amps and also allows more placement choices in a given room

Solid stuff (walls/floors/ceilings) is GOOD, you can damp down reflections with furnishings/treatments a lot easier than you can stop a flimsy wall from acting like a sound board.

I think a room with an aesthetically pleasing shape, layout, and furnishings (think "warm", avoid barren or minimalist) is going to stand a pretty damn good chance of sounding excellent on its own once a good position is found for the speakers. It will certainly be a much nicer looking room than the "shoebox chock full of treatments" alternative

I like my current living room a lot, and I've kept the treatments here pretty minimal (in fact at this point I'm not sure they have ANY discernable effect). The speakers have lots of free space in pretty much all directions, and I avoid things like sitting half-way along a dimension (bass nulls/peaks). I could probably tweak by taking measurements to check things out and find more optimal positioning, but hey I'm lazy! The ONE thing I'd like to change is to get a really nice, large rug with a thick pad to damp down the energy off the hardwood floors just a touch.

[Deals]

Here's what looks like a fantastic Audiogon bargain on a SOTA Star, ET linear tracking arm, and a Dynavector Karat MC w/ Ruby cantilever all for $1750. Of course, buying tables is always an extra risk due to shipping. The SOTA alone is an amazing TT that should bring over $1K easy, and that ET arm ain't cheap.

AudiogoN ForSale: Sota- Star/Cherry W/Eminent Technolgy

I dove into vinyl with a SOTA Star (of what looks like a similar vintage to this unit), and it's turned me into the raving vinyl fanboy I am today

[Post the last thing you bought!]

So Mike did you sell your other Tannoys then?

I gotta say the retro look of those cabinets is making me moist. Those are hot!

I'd buy them on looks alone, the fact that they sound so good makes it almost too good to be true.

Many times I've thought about building a retro looking audio console cabinet, and making it fit todays gear. You may have just rekindled that idea.

Not putting the TD10s up for sale yet, honestly not sure what to do with them at this point! I might try to sell the TDC-1 center if possible, since even in a mono application a single TD10 tower would be better (extends deeper). I will NEVER be able to use that TDC-1 properly in an HT application without a microperf projector screen - it's too damn big!

Gotta admit the retro luxury aesthetic really, really does it for me. The Dimension series I like, but it's a bit too "bling" looking. A few modifications to tone down the flair would have made them better looking, IMO. Also the Dimensions, being targeted for home theater too, are voiced just a bit drier than the Prestige series. The Prestige stuff has that midrange sweetness.

I've been interested in consoles too - I love the look! Plus sometimes the old ones come with cool tube amps and goodies inside. My girlfriend knows a guy with a console he's looking to give away, but the problem is transportation. I think it's a great idea and I know we'd all look forward to what you can produce there

[Post the last thing you bought!]

Far more than anything else, the sweet mids of the Kensington reminds me of the R10 mids...every time I sat down to hear them, it was just stunning no matter what source/amp was hooked up (and they rotate things quite a bit at this shop). Fortunately the bass satisfies like the R10 never could, for me. Plus it does that whole imaging/soundstage thing like a top-notch speaker. But, the mids are the real star of the show here, as they should be

Plus, they're easy (if not cheap) to upgrade in the future with an ST100 or ST200 super-tweeter to sit on top

[Post the last thing you bought!]

Tannoy Kensington SE

Soon after sale of the Zana Deux to Deepak (thanks!), I walked on over to my local dealer and made a verbal agreement to buy their speakers

Will wait another week or so to make sure the Qualia, Zana Deux, Duet, and Martin Logan Depth i arrive at their destinations safely, and I'll be selling some more stuff too, but it's a pretty sure thing at this point.

The wood finish in the Tannoy catalog photo is way off base - it looks like the pair in the current audiogon ad (this is not the pair I'm buying; I'll be getting full warranty support through the dealer ):

[The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.]

We haven't had a good snow here in Atlanta for at least a few years, until today. Too lazy to go out much, but took a few pics just outside my door. Wish I had a camera with a working autofocus in its body - my D40 kit lens's AF broke, so I've just been using an older (and better) 100-300 lens. Still, too many come out soft because I don't even have one of those split-viewfinders to aid in focusing. It's a lot easier taking pics of inanimate audio gear.

My gf being a good sport:

View of Kennesaw Mountain from my VERY SLIPPERY roof (wind has picked up considerably by then)

[Powered by McIntosh.]

What kind of speaker would I mate with it? When I acquired all this Mac gear about a decade ago, I regularly spoke to a tube head who built his own single ended triodes. He didn't have much interest in amps that put out more than 13 or so watts, but I recall he referred to the MC-75 as a "big honking pentode." He didn't have much advice for speakers I'm afraid.

Hmm, no doubt that is the trick. I had a huge Tannoy Dimension TDC-1 center channel sitting unused, so I set it with a mono rig (stereo TT, stereo preamp, stereo > mono adapter > mono amp). Most center channel speakers aren't big enough to use full range though, and to be honest I do think an extra single TD10 tower would be better suited for this than the TDC-1. So I suppose your best bet would be to buy new in a model that's available as singles, or wait on audiogon for a mono guy or "perfectly matched front 3" HT guy to unload a nice single speaker.

I'm partial to the upper-range Tannoys, whatever the situation

[What are you listening to Part Two]

Bananarama. My vinyl copy happens to sound surprisingly good.

Hmmm, the recent Iron Maiden postings are tempting me to run though my collection there.

[Monitors for 10 x 13ft room, ~$1500 with stands]

These Tannoy Autograph minis look like a steal:

AudiogoN ForSale: Tannoy Mini Autograph

Haven't heard this particular model (which by far the smallest in the Prestige line and should be suited to a small room), but from what I HAVE heard in the Dimension and Prestige lines, I would heartily & rabidly recommend ANY of the upper-range Tannoy dual-concentric speakers.

Edit: oops, gotta check dates. Not sure if this is still relevant

[Post the last thing you bought!]

Haha

The guy repairs/restores vintage tube amps and McIntosh amps in Chamblee GA...and by all accounts he is competent at that. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was thinking/measuring in preamp land...the 0.4 uF is passable, if not the best choice, into a 50K load (which I confirmed by feeding the SDS into a Gilmore V2 amp - sounds fairly flat that way). Hell, many old Mc amps have a 200K input impedance - should be perfectly fine into that. However, into a 300 ohm load the roll-off is comical. I did google-learn more about coupling caps values and rolloff points thanks to this little issue - yay!

Lesson learned - it's now going to a guy I respect and trust completely over at Audio Atlanta for the simple corrective operation. I'd have to courage to do it myself if I had a few drinks in me, but then I shouldn't be poking around in this amp under those conditions

[Post the last thing you bought!]

I bought a locally-done repair on an SDS that now rolls-off like a high-pass filter starting at 1kHz, thanks to the [orders-of-magnitude too small for the job] 0.4uF output coupling caps that were inexplicably installed. This will be fixed tomorrow by someone ELSE

While at the local hifi shop today, I was tempted to sell most of my headphone gear and go for either the Tannoy Kensington or Glenair speakers all while the sales rep encouraged me on in the fashion of Saruman's henchman Wormtongue.

[Powered by McIntosh.]

Awesome. Now just wait for a nice single speaker to show up on audiogon and setup a killer mono rig

[What are you listening to Part Two]

On vinyl:

I better get this stuff out of my system now, before the girlfriend comes over for the weekend. She won't be having any of this kind of music. No Jethro Tull or most prog rock or metal, either. Forget classical (not that I listen too much)

Fortunately we both enjoy Kiss, 80's, and rock operas together

[MC Phono Stage Review: Rogue Stealth Vs. Benz Lukaschek PP-1 (T8)]

I received my 2nd PP-1 today. It's the newer T9 version that retails for $1750

Got this one off agon for $590 - what a deal! Now the plan is to put the T9 in the main stereo/headphone rig and relegate the T8 to the mono/bedroom rig. The T9 sounded just fabulous today. I'll wait and see what longer-term impressions bring. I also added some Audioquest King Cobra & Jaguar ICs to my system, also sourced cheap off of agon/ebay - nice looking, well built cables. That plus a recent re-arrangement of components, keeping the phono ICs further away from power cords & PSUs, has dropped the noise floor down to negligible levels.

Net result is that both systems are just bangin' - really delicious sonics here. The Gilmore Reference is proving to be a killer preamp for its endless transparency; these days I'm even preferring it to the Zana Deux in that capacity with vinyl as the source (and I usually hate dealing with stepped attenuators). Looking forward to much listening in the upcoming weeks

[Vintage DAC: Sonic Frontiers SFD-2]

The 2910 is one of the more disappointing listens that I've had. I found it to be roughly on part with a piece of crap and it's probably still a bad deal at $140.

Well, I wasn't a fan of the DAC2 I compared it directly to either, which was the much bigger disappointment because of its much higher cost (and also minus a transport, minus video circuitry, minus SACD/DVDA...). The 2910 had a very nice DVD video quality via HDMI, for its time IMO. Neither the 2910 nor DAC2 made it into regular source duty for me.

I didn't mean to recommend the 2910 for 2ch audio, so much as to knock on the DAC2 Still that $140 caught my eye for some reason since I remember they were $600-700 when new, while the DAC2 inexplicably still commands fairly high prices used.

[Vintage DAC: Sonic Frontiers SFD-2]

IMO from owning the Bel Canto DAC2, there is nothing special about it. In fact it sounds pretty bad in the same vein as Benchmark DAC1.

Have to agree - I had a DAC2 a few years ago and didn't notice anything special about its sound. Wouldn't pay the current used prices (~$650) for one. Found it to be roughly on par with a stock Denon DVD-2910, which are DIRT cheap now (saw one go for $140 recently).

[MC Phono Stage Review: Rogue Stealth Vs. Benz Lukaschek PP-1 (T8)]

Yep, the PP-1 has a small external wall wart to keep the power transformer far, far away from the low-level phono signals. However, in my case, the 2 halves of its plastic outer shell are held together with a strip of electrical tape. I know you guys appreciate cutting-edge technology like that

[MC Phono Stage Review: Rogue Stealth Vs. Benz Lukaschek PP-1 (T8)]

Associated Equipment:

Sources:

SOTA Star Sapphire Seris III table

Fidelity Research FR64fx arm (Effective mass 20-22 grams)

Benz Micro Glider L2 cartridge (Low output MC, 0.3mV, medium compliance)

Merrill Heiloom table

Eminent Technology ET2 arm

Ortofon MC20 cart (Info on this is lacking, but IIRC I've seen an ad for this same cart in a magazine from the 1970's. What I read is very LOW output, very LOW compliance. I would guess an output less than or equal to 0.15mV, based on comparison to my Glider)

Phono Stages:

Benz Lukaschek PP-1 (pre-dates T9 version)

Rogue Stealth (version 2.0 circuit board, has a pair of AD 797 opamps)

Preamps/Headphone Amps:

Eddie Current Zana Deux

Headamp Gilmore V2

Headamp Gilmore Reference (single-ended version)

Power Amps:

McIntosh MC2100 (Vintage Solid State, recenty restored/re-capped, now hits hits 140 Watts/ch continuous)

Heathkit W4-AM (Vintage tube monoblocks, Williamson circuit, recently restored, 20 Watts, original Tung-Sol 5881 outputs)

Speakers:

Tannoy Dimension TD10 stereo pair

Tannoy Dimension TDC-1 center channel (used in a monoaural setup)

Benz Lukaschek PP-1

I've been using the PP-1 for well over a year now. My unit is an older "T8" version that probably dates back to at least 2000. The most current version is the "T9", which I have not heard. The PP-1 is a pretty little unit. The dimensions are roughly that of a reasonably stout remote control control, except it's in a fairly beefy chassis with a mirror-polished chrome finish. The unit is powered by a small wall wart transformer. That seems cheap, but later it became clear to me that it's a great idea to get that transformer as far from the unit as possible. The wall wart's cable hooks into the side FURTHEST from the input jacks, which also is a very good idea. Metal accents are gold, and the RCA jacks look nicer than average. Gain is fixed at 62db. Input impedance (loading) is fixed at 22,000 ohms. With its fixed gain, the PP-1 is only usable with low-output MC cartridges.

On my SOTA table the PP-1 provides the kind of sound I crave, in spades: liquid, smooth, dynamic and resolving, with holographic imaging, all in one. This setup still draws me in to the music more than any digital source I've ever heard - by a significant margin compared to redbook or digital files, and by a smaller margin compared to SACD. I originally bought the PP-1 because it seemed wise to pair my Glider cart with its matching Benz phono stage. Indeed, this is a lovely partnership. Last year, the PP-1 beat out a Dynavector P75 (mk I version) in my setup. The P75 sounded quite good, but the PP-1 provided a slightly smoother, grain-free listening experience. This may be a consequence of the opamps used in the P75, but that's purely speculation. The PP-1 has provided me with solid, trouble free operation and gorgeous sound quality since it arrived. The current MSRP ($1750) on these things is IMO ridiculous for such a small, simple box. Fortunately the older T8 versions are often heavily discounted and can be had used for a very reasonable prices (~$600). That brings it into striking range of the so-called "bargain" stages with MSRPs < $1000 (like the P75 and Rogue Stealth), which are usually only lightly discounted on the used market due to the buzz/hype surrounding these units.

The only problem I've had with the PP-1 is its lack of loading options. Benz's spiel is that this was done to keep the signal path clean: "This elimination of unneeded circuit junction points preserves the low noise/high performance characteristics of this superb phono preamp". The PP-1 input/loading impedance has been fixed at 22,000 ohms - this is much higher than optimal for many non-Benz low MC carts. In fact, the loose rule of thumb is that you should be loading your MC cart with 20x-30x the coil impedance. Since most low MCs have a coil on the order of 5-15 ohms, you're usually looking at a loading of 100-450 ohms. When you load an MC cart too low, you can get treble rolloff. When you load too high, you can (though not always) get a nasty resonance spike in the treble. It must be that Benz low MC carts are designed in a way such that a high loading impedance doesn't bother them.

At the time I acquired my Merrill/Ortofon MC20 setup, I didn't have a 2nd phono stage - this necessitated sharing the PP-1 between two turntables. As the MC20 has a coil impedance of only 5 ohms, the PP-1's fixed loading became a pressing issue. Indeed, the MC20 at 22K loading sounded very clean and detailed, however there was a slight hardness to the treble, the bass was too low in proportion to the spectrum, and the overall sound could be a bit fatiguing over time. Armed with a cheap soldering iron, some nice parts (Vishay resistors, DH Labs hookup wire, nice RCA jacks), a few Radio Shack plastic project boxes, and a crudely untrained hand, I set out to make a few different resistor boxes to achieve lower loading settings with my PP-1. Each box was a simple setup: 2 pairs of RCA jacks, signal-to-signal and ground-to-ground with the hookup wire, and a single metal film resistor shunt from signal-to-ground. The box would be placed between the turntable and phono stage, necessitating an extra pair of RCA interconnects. The resistor acts in parallel to the PP-1's 22K impedance, and by Ohm's Law: 1/Rc=1/R1+1/R2, where Rc is the acting cumulative resistance and R1,R2 are the paralleled resistances. Since 22K is much higher than the resistors I'd be using, its effect on the cumulative is small enough to be inconsequential (hence the load is determined by the value of the resistor I choose). I tried various resistors for 1K, 470, 100, and 50 ohm loads. To my ears, the 100 ohm load struck the best balance. The 50 had too much treble roll-off, and the 470 load sounded closer to 22K than to 100.

Later, I returned to the local hifi dealer (Audio Atlanta) where I had bought and auditioned the Merrill/MC20 setup. It had sounded truly sublime then, though to be fair it was driving the $14K Tannoy Kensington speakers. I asked the shop owner what phono stage & loading he'd used during my audition - to which he replied: "the [Rogue] Stealth @ 100 ohms, those old Ortofons like 100 ohms". It was nice to verify that my ears were right about the 100 ohm loading! I looked up the specs of the Stealth - it was an opamp based design but it had 3db more gain than the PP-1 (65db gain vs 62) and load settings for 100, 300, and 1.1K ohms. I though the extra 3db would be nice since the old MC20 has such a LOW output - it sounds MUCH lower than my 0.3mv Glider. It must be lower than 0.2mV, but might even be lower than 0.15mV (it sounds at least 6db lower, which would put it below 0.15). I also liked having the flexible load settings - my resistor box worked, but it required an extra set of interconnects and another go at the soldering iron if I wished to change from 100 ohms. I figured a total solution like the Stealth might be better and would grant easy flexibility down the road. Hence, I found a local Stealth for sale and arranged to pick it up last week.

Rogue Stealth

The Rogue Stealth is housed in a more traditional hifi component-sized box, though it's less deep than usual. Nothing particularly stands out about the chassis design, but it sports a look and feel that gives the impression of a higher-than-average quality. I've noticed Rogue always gets this aspect right with their gear. No frills, reassuringly heavy/solid, quality fit & finish with a decent overall aesthetic. The Stealth I've acquired should be a fairly recent version. The circuit board lists "Version 2.0" and uses a pair of nice AD797 opamps.

At first listen, the Stealth had a very clean, pleasant sound quality. However, further listening revealed certain issues. At first, I noticed a moderate noise floor of the "ground loop hum" variety. The hum increases with the preamp/headamp volume knob and becomes noticeable right around the range of my "loud" listening levels, during silence or very quiet passages in music. Not a big issue, but the PP-1 is clearly quieter. It MUST be because they put that damn power transformer in the same box. The box is fairly long, but still not long enough to truly get it out of the way. This was not an issue with my placement of the phono interconnects near power cords, because I'd discovered that issue earlier and now make sure my low-level phono ICs are kept as far away from power sources as possible.

The second issue was more insidious. At higher volumes on headphones, I noticed a distortion during certain dynamic peaks. It sounded somewhat like a soft clipping, sort of like when an output tube is over-driven into a low impedance headphone (toaster SDS w/ full 6sn7 complement into Grado hp2, in my experience - well, maybe not quite THAT soft a clip ). I first noticed it consistently on the drum thwacks on the track "Kimberly" from the Patti Smith "Horses" reissue vinyl. Then more of the same on A-ha's "Hunting High and Low", again on drum thwacks. I was using the HD650 and Headamp Gilmore Reference. I noticed the distortion suddenly appeared at a particular volume step (moderately high level) and then rapidly worsened at steps past that. This would be consistent with amplifier hitting its power limits, however I KNOW the Gilmore designes can push FAR beyond these levels with clean power. More of the same was observed on the Gilmore V2, in fact with no music playing I could hear that the hum noise itself started to distort and break up at the last 1/4th turn of the volume knob!

I swapped in the Zana Deux, and the distortion was gone, even at high levels! So next I put the Gilmore back in, and swapped the PP-1 phono in place of the Stealth. Distortion...completely gone! All I can guess/speculate is that the high noise level, and possibly the nature of said noise, is not playing nice with the fully DC-soupled design of the Gilmores. The Zana Deux with its capacitor-coupled outputs was immune (again, pure speculation).

By now, it was the end of the Stealth's time in my system. Even ignoring the noise & distortion issues, the PP-1 is sonically superior. It's bit more liquid, a bit more unrestrained. Better 3D imaging, and better at presenting a lifelike realism & energy with superior dynamics and a palpable weightiness to the sound. This finding holds for BOTH of my turntable setups (assuming the 100 ohm resistor box was used with the MC20). I hopped on audiogon that night, found a PP-1 ready for the taking at a nice price, and snatched it up! Actually I'm not even sure if it's going to be a T8 or T9, but I'm just fine with another T8. I'll have a PP-1 to drive each setup, now. At used prices, it's a phono stage I can highly recommend for low-output Benz cartridges, or for other brand cartridges WITH the caveat that you may need some resistors to bring down the loading from 22K.

Benz Lukaschek PP-1 Pictures:

PP-1 solo - it's hard to keep clean:

PP-1 all hooked up, yes my shelf has scratches

PP-1 internals:

PP-1 in SOTA/MC2100/TD10 system - to the victor goes a SHELF (...I really need to dust under the SOTA):

Rogue Stealth Pictures:

Stealth front:

Stealth front closeup:

Stealth back:

Stealth inputs/outputs closeup:

Stealth internals: