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Hopstretch

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Here's a breath of fresh air for those of us who've been pissed off by poor vinyl pressings recently:

http://www.tomwaits.com/news/article/139/Tom_Waits_Rhino_Repress_Vinyl_Exchange/

I wrote Rhino a couple of years ago to complain about my bad pressing of Heaven and Hell - The Devil You Know. They didn't respond. It's nice to see that Mr. Waits cares enough to raise a stink and make them notice.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some brief impressions of the Choir Audio Hashimoto HM-7 based SUT.

IMG_5268.JPG

Lifted this pic off their website, and it is actually of my unit.

The fit and finish is top notch.

I opted for the Cardas Silver outputs, since John at Choir Audio mentioned that he prefers them, and that the WBT connectors have been having quality problems.

I burned the SUT in for 100 hours using the Granite Audio MC burn-in CD track.

Disconnected the CD player, reconnected the phono cable, and voila, time to listen.

My previous SUT was the Bobs Devices Cinemag, a well respected and reviewed unit, and rightly so.

I noticed right off, a more refined sound with more resolution/transparency and detail in the treble and mids, especially low level details. A bit wider and deeper soundstage. Plenty of deep bass and dynamics, but no bloat, and no bass roll off that I can detect, or treble roll off for that matter. Plenty of color and musicality and super quiet. A nice step up from the Cinemag.

Truly an audio bargain at $1500. Not sure what I could get that would better it by any margin for any price. My search for phono stage components is over.

I built myself a phono cable to go from the SUT to my phono stage. At first I tried some normal RCA ICs I had, and they killed the sound, lost frequency extension and dynamics and transparency. So I got some OHNO UPOCC Silver 28g teflon cryoed wire from Take Five Audio, along with some silver braid shield and Eichmann bullets. Turned out very nice sounding, comparable sounding to my Grover phono cable I am using from the SME V tonearm to the SUT. I burned the cable in along with the SUT and CJ phono stage for the 100 hours. The CJ got a teflon cap upgrade and only had about 200 hours on it, and I hear that those caps need about 400 hours break in, so I figured an extra hundred hours of wear on the tubes was worth it.

Anyway really enjoying my system now. I would heartily recommend the Hashimoto HM-7 SUT in conjunction with the MM inputs to your favorite phono stage for a fantastic sonic experience.

Cheers

Pete

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Just saw this on the Zu Audio blog.

http://zuaudio.blogspot.com/2011/03/zu-sl-1200-turntable.html?ref=nf

Stuff looks cool, no clue how those prices stack up though.

Yeah, I just noticed that too the other day. I knew that they built a a modified Denon cartridges for some time but not the entire turntable. It is very cool, but it pretty damn expensive @ roughly $4500. Granted, I really like the sound of stock Denon tables and Zu tends to do a really good job with getting the right tonality in their equipment...so you never know. I have a pair of Zu Soul Superfly which I absolutely love...they might not be the end all be all for bass extensions, soundstage, etc. but they sound so right with just about any music I throw at them. With that in mind, I might someday consider one of those turntables :)

Btw, I love this image the insid of the platter:

platterMk2.jpg

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Some brief impressions of the Choir Audio Hashimoto HM-7 based SUT.

IMG_5268.JPG

Lifted this pic off their website, and it is actually of my unit.

The fit and finish is top notch.

I opted for the Cardas Silver outputs, since John at Choir Audio mentioned that he prefers them, and that the WBT connectors have been having quality problems.

I burned the SUT in for 100 hours using the Granite Audio MC burn-in CD track.

Disconnected the CD player, reconnected the phono cable, and voila, time to listen.

My previous SUT was the Bobs Devices Cinemag, a well respected and reviewed unit, and rightly so.

I noticed right off, a more refined sound with more resolution/transparency and detail in the treble and mids, especially low level details. A bit wider and deeper soundstage. Plenty of deep bass and dynamics, but no bloat, and no bass roll off that I can detect, or treble roll off for that matter. Plenty of color and musicality and super quiet. A nice step up from the Cinemag.

Truly an audio bargain at $1500. Not sure what I could get that would better it by any margin for any price. My search for phono stage components is over.

I built myself a phono cable to go from the SUT to my phono stage. At first I tried some normal RCA ICs I had, and they killed the sound, lost frequency extension and dynamics and transparency. So I got some OHNO UPOCC Silver 28g teflon cryoed wire from Take Five Audio, along with some silver braid shield and Eichmann bullets. Turned out very nice sounding, comparable sounding to my Grover phono cable I am using from the SME V tonearm to the SUT. I burned the cable in along with the SUT and CJ phono stage for the 100 hours. The CJ got a teflon cap upgrade and only had about 200 hours on it, and I hear that those caps need about 400 hours break in, so I figured an extra hundred hours of wear on the tubes was worth it.

Anyway really enjoying my system now. I would heartily recommend the Hashimoto HM-7 SUT in conjunction with the MM inputs to your favorite phono stage for a fantastic sonic experience.

Cheers

Pete

Coincident MC SUT though it's $2500

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  • 1 month later...

My house has horribly leveled floors. I moved the rack about 10 feet from its original position and now need 3/4" thick pieces of wood underneath the two front rack footers to make it level :palm:

Without the wood and starring at the table plinth at eye level I can see the back of the plinth.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Found and downloaded the manual for a similar model turntable to mine, finally got the "start/stop" automatic adjustment set correctly, tone arm balance point, and confirmed my cart was aligned correctly. Now listening to the Cowboy Junkies on vinyl.

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  • 3 weeks later...

With the help of RJM, I abolished the hum coming from my phono stage and now on clean records, my setup is darn near silent.

Also has anyone had any experience with a Spin Clean? I'm looking for a fairly inexpensive say to get a good, deep clean.

Edited by Emooze
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great to hear about the hum being abolished as I was really concerned about this post sale.

As crazy as it sounds there is a great thread on audiogon regarding steam cleaning for records. You need to be careful but it is a godsend for really dirty vinyl

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