shaizada

Deepak, I sincerely doubt that most turntables hold their value though. My main concern is to basically buy once and be done with the turntable side of things. My gut tells me though that the Clearaudio would be a better choice for the long run. It is beautiful, compact and allows for an extra arm. I could technically get another tone arm down the line and add a mono cartridge to it or something like that. I'd be tapped out financially if I go with the Clearaudio so I have to really get a good performing low cost cartridge for now I guess. I'll probably be picking up Craigs new phono stage as it sounded amazing at CanJam.

I've been talking to another person and I've been offered the following: VPI TNT HR-V with JMW 12.5 Arm, SDS Speed Controller Some $2400 Clearaudio Cartridge ( don't know exactly which one) VPI Turntable Rack (as the turntable is very wide and will not fit in my stillpoints rack) All this for $4500 plus shipping from NY. Probably a couple hunded. What do you guys think about this? Should I stick with the beauty and class of the Clearaudio, or pick up this more practical and definitely fine sounding rig? God, I'm very confused! I'll probably be getting pictures tonight. With the Clearaudio, it fits right into my rack, but I still need to get a cartridge (probably an UWE Denon 103R, or the Zyx bloom in the FS forum). ----Update---- Just got the following email and pictures while I was typing this up: Vpi TNT-5 Hot Rod Turntable JMW Memorial 12. 5 Tonearm TNT V, and SDS Synchronous Drive System. This is a very late TNT-5 HOT ROD which has the incomparable HRX drive system! The table is in as new condition. $4895. Please do not mistake this for the lesser standard TNT-5. This sale is for the TNT complete turntable; JMW arm and SDS Synchronous Drive System. Exceedingly little use and appears as new. Note: The C5001 TNT Stand and custom made top is available seperately. It works wonderfully and looks great with the TNT table. In 2002 Hi-Fi Magazine choose it as the “Product of the Year and Editors Choice”, the following year Stereophile named the TNT-5 HR the “product of the year” and Absolute Sound honored the JMW 12.5 tonearm with their Golden Ear Award.

I'm not really the kind of person who likes to turn around gear and just recycle. I try to buy few things, but for the long haul. If I find something much superior and it works out financially, then I upgrade. Otherwise I try to make more permanent decisions. I went ahead and talked to a local dealer who is willing to come out to my house for a $200 fee to help setup that whole table. I figured I would take him up on that as it would be a difficult affair and with my lack of experience, I don't want to mess anything up. Hey Deepak (my best buddy in India, his name is Deepak as well), Acutally, what I mean is that in a linear tracking arm, the arm is tangential in one place (moves in just one axis) and just the cartridge moves across the LP. In a pivotal arm, the cartridge and whole tone arm assembly moves along the vinyl grooves effectively traveling with the grove angularly. I'm having a tough time explaining in words, but it's quite clear in my mind (hehe that doesn't really help does it? ). In my very limited understanding about vinyl, the actual stylus contact point (the tip) should probably be perfect vertical to the groove correct? I understand it to be misaligned if the stylus tip makes contact with the groove at an angle. I imagine that would bring about distortion in the signal. Again, I'm no vinyl expert by any means...I'm just imagining the situation and gaining knowledge along the way.

Thanks for the reply swt. Basically, after you had put up yours for sale, I just lusted after a vinyl setup. Spoke with my wife and convinced her that I needed one for the "complete" experience. She has a box or two full of old "Hindi" songs on LP's made my the Gramaphone company of India. I told her how she could play them and enjoy them! That sealed the deal. So I came across a turntable with that linear tracking arm and it just feels right. I know 909 has something like that on his biotracer, so I thought I would run it by you guys to see if there were any major deficiencies with that design. Your vote of confidence in that arm really helps....so thank you. Hopefully the logistics of the purchase work out. Here is the table I am looking at:

Ohhhhh...thanks for clearing that up I was thinking to myself, Al was so nice in person (hec you let me borrow the PS1 to hear in my own system), how can he be so mean on the forum! Sorry bout the confusion! I feel so embarrassed now. So did Neil end up picking up his ES2 soon after? I talked to him and he was totally missing it! hehe. It was funny how he had David open up the room for him so that he could pack it up Saturday night itself...then he came right back up to the party by the pool. Good times!

Hey Guys, Anyone have any thoughts to share on Linear Tracking tone arms such as this Clearaudio Master TQ-I: I'm thinking of going in for a vinyl setup and one of those setups would have this tone arm. From an engineering stand point, it seems to me that a cartridge would find it easier to track in a linear tone arm as opposed to "traveling" with the grooves in a pivotal tone arm. Thats just my initial thought, but I would love to hear some opinions before I make any plunge Thanks!

Hey there Al, Was the Apple Cinema Display that much of a distraction to you?

The P1 seemed to be fantastic on many cans: GS1000, R1, HD-600, HF2, PS1000 during CanJam. However, I wasn't too pleased with it with the HD800. Anyhow, thats just my personal opinion

^ Wow, thats a fantastic picture. One of my favorites so far just because of its purity and beauty. A small glimpse at the spirit of head-case.

Glad you got it sorted out Now starts the crazy burn in. These caps really smoothen out and settle in quite well after about 5~6 days of continuous burn in. I just plugged in some headphones and let the amp play....worked out very well.

I had an absolute frikkin blast meeting all the people I did. I really wished I had gotten a little more time to get to know many of you, but the little time I did get was extremely worthy.

Very true. I actually got the phone number of a local audiologist that Jerry fly's out to various places where bands are touring and need impressions done. She has done impressions for Aerosmith, Van halen and most of the exclusive clientele that Jerry values personally. She's in LA, so I figured I would get mine done from her despite getting the free ones at CanJam. If she's so good that Jerry will fly her out when needed, she's good for me.

Heya, I might be going for a pair as well. They did sound very nice to me and Jerry is just a real stand up guy. He answered all my questions and we really hit it off. The 13 is definitely the best IEM I've heard to date. Still, I don't think it's a replacement for a proper home can. As long as one recognizes that, the 13 is king of the IEM hill as far as I'm concerned.

Honestly, it was very dependent on the recording. Some recordings with hard left / right channel instrument locations seemed to benefit the most for me. I could change it to a very natural sounding soundstage with a few clicks in. Another use would be if someone had some listening imbalance in his/her ears. He could use the PiC feature to correct for that in the digital domain itself. How awesome is that? I loved the sound of the DA10 and I don't hear an iota of difference in the sound signature of the DA11. It's just a fantastic performer and my first choice in that price category.

More than listening to gear, I just had a great time meeting HF and HC members The organization of the meet was absolutely top notch and the community presence was ming boggling. The HD800 were very unique in that they could sound so different in so many setups. I thoroughly enjoyed them in a balanced configuration on my B52 and look forward to ordering a pair in the future. The balanced R10 out of Andy's SDS-XLR, the HE90 out of Neils ES2 were absolutely amazing and I had ample opportunities to listen to them as my setup was in the same Catalina D room. I was almost ready to completely go offline as when I powered up my rig, I tripped the breaker and everyone in the room lost power. This happened three times before I finally was able to have the hotel services daisy chain 2 extension cords to power off a completely different circuit. Edips Reks stopped by and mentioned the extra gain on the setup. Switched the 12ax7 pairs (Mullard CV4004) for a pair of 12AU7 Telefunken smooth plates and he was much happier. I just had the extra gain to mitigate some of the meet conditions. Great guy to talk to and we exchanged some of our audio philosophies...a very pleasurable personality and he really had some great audio insight...always fun to hear! Anyhow, the HD800 and the JH13's are probably on the plate for me as I think they were some of the best sounding units at the show. One of the best I heard the HD800 was when Neil and I went up to Jude's room Saturday night. He had the Lavry DA11, a Raptor, the new top of the line Cardas cables and a power plant premier all hooked up. Absolutely amazing. Jude likes most of his headphones through the Luxman amp he owns, but the HD800 were best to his ears on the Raptor and he didn't know what was the real reason here. Maybe the OTL design, but the HD800 were just spectacular here. Neil and I both were taken aback by how nice this was sounding. Maybe because the pair was broken in so well for the past 3 months that Jude owned it. Also, there were no meet conditions here....so whatever it was, the sound was heavenly with some Cowboy Junkies, Damien Rice and some MFSL tracks...all lossless through iTunes. The digital crossfeed on the Lavry DA11 was a total trip. Absolutely brilliant! I loved every tiring minute of CanJam and hated the Monday morning blues. Oh one more thing, the Ultrasone Edition 8's sounded so much better than the 9s. I did an AB through Rudi's RPX 33 which was right there next to the Ultrasone table. Putting on the Edition 9 brought back memories and reminded me why I had sold them. Edition 8 were a totally different story though...a more refined headphone to my ears. My good friend ServingEquador won the Ed. 8 in the Raffle and I was so happy for him. Couldn't imagine a better person to have those! He had absolutely no clue they were $1500 headphones! He found out later when he checked at home and almost fell out of his chair. hehee Here was my setup/table:

She actually doesn't have a preference as she is only relying on me for good sound. I think the only concern she expressed was that her apartment is furnished in dark wood, so something that would match/enhance her decor In that budget with my concern with only sound quality, I would replicate my buddy's setup (Mackie 824 and a lavry DA10 Dac). However, that is a very pro audio look that would probably not be a good match for her. I've heard a Peachtree Decco and it sounded very nice for the price. The Nova is an upgrade so that is why I thought about it. Grahame, the AVI speakers look amazing. Though, it would be hard to recommend them without hearing them. I have a very good idea about the sound quality that can be had with Single Driver high efficiency speakers, so I'm thinking about starting with that. I really wish she would up the budget to about $3000 so I can really get the creative juices flowing. She could with the salary she makes....Harvard Business grad working for a hedge fund AND still holding on to her job so well in this market! hehe If I had my way, it would be a nice DAC, integrated tube amp and some high efficiency horns or single driver speakers. I figured it would be best to bounce ideas off this forum

Hey, I had the Auricaps in there while I was waiting for the Ampohm caps. I just happen to take the pictures for you while I was in there changing to the Auricaps. You will see the stock caps when you open the amp up. There is just one cap that is coupled between the two tube sockets. You CANNOT miss it. One from 12ax7 tube socket to the right el84 tube socket and another from 12ax7 socket to the left el84 socket. There is no way you can miss it. Keep me posted how it goes I still can't believe we have the exact same speaker and integrated amp. LoL I was asking you about the Leben in an earlier post. If you can share some experience with that, it would be great.

Folks, My cousin is looking for some advice to build a computer based system for around $2000. Thats going to be some sort of DAC/Preamp/Amp, cables/wires and speakers. I'm thinking of: 1) Peachtree Nova: Signal Path International - Era Speakers & Peachtree Audio - Introducing Nova 2) Used speakers with minimum 91db efficiency. 3) Bluejean cables or Signal cables. Any thoughts?

That is an absolutely amazing disc. However, the recorded volume is actually very low and you really have to push the dial to get decent volume. I have almost all of Ry Cooders discs. If you want my absolute favourite one, get this and you'll be in guitar maestro heaven: Talking Timbuktu Ali Farka Toure, Ry Cooder [url=http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Timbuktu-Ali-Farka-Tour

Yes, the ACDC SHM Mini LP discography was all done very poorly. They get a shot at remastering it and they just made it louder....numb nuts.

Supertramp - Crime of the Century (MFSL) Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here [CBS/Sony Japan 2 Track 1982 Remaster]

You might get a different sound if you keep the amp plugged in while you're changing the caps. Do report back and post your shockingly different findings Tell me though, how does the Leben sound compare with the Almarro? I've been really thinking about the Leben CS300 but the Almarro is keeping me at bay for that low wattage goodness.

Read "Ampohm Capacitor Upgrade" Ampohm is the name of the Capacitor manufacturer. http://thetubestore.com/ampohmpiotin.html I've been updating my resume with Microsoft SharePoint skills and I think that subconsciously trickled in when I was posting...hehe Its "SharePoint" and not "Sharepoint".

Sorry for the delay in pictures ) These are pictures before the Ampohm caps came in. These show a 0.47uF Auricap in place. But I have the AmpOhm oil caps in there now, the 0.22uF value as suggested by Jon. With no cap in place: Right one in place: Left one in place: JimP, you gotta do the AmpOhm upgrade. What an amazingly warm and inviting sound without losing any details. Anyhow, let me know if you have any other questions. ~G

Now this.....this just might be the first amp that might just tide me over and give in to the awesomeness of electrostats. Hmmm.