jp11801

I've not counted in a while but I have about 1200 cds in storage and over 1000 lps, I should do an accurate count of these days

yes but that buys you a much better diamond profile and cantilever, I am skeptical of just how far you can take the 103 . Personally I'd buy used and enjoy a 103 for what it is.

The Zu is an aluminium shell (I think) and they test the cart for L/R output and sell/price them accordingly. I really like the Zu folks but think Peter Lederman of Sound-Smith may be the better way to go.

not so shocking that I am the only one that prefers the HD800 to the HE90 (ducks, but thinks it is too soft in presentation)

I scoured the web and I found the DL-S1 on audio asylum for $500 looks like the clearaudio is sold, the DL160 has an offer I am waiting to hear back on the ZYX has a guy in Europe with a buddy in the states that I could ship to (these types of transactions alway make me nervous) and the Denon 103 has few nibbles so hopefully I can afford the SUT in the next few days.

the ZYXs is fuller and the Denon is thinner but slightly faster, this may be due to the silver coils in the ZYX. I may be going full hog on the Denon, I am looking at the matching SUT for it. The cart that was the sleeper was the re-tipped clearaudio. I got barraged with emails after placing it on audiogon.

after functioning fine for a day or two the motor belt is acting up I am taking down to my local TT guy for an arm transport refresh one my replacement belts come in. The few LPs I played sounded as good as or better than the ps-x555. I also picked up a Denon DL-S1 the other day as well, really nice I may pick up a spare if one comes around on the cheap.

not sure why I am buying new music with 20+ LPs still is their wrapper and who knows how many unlistened to cds on my hard drive but I picked a best of Bruford on EG records Japan pressing of Return to Forever, the one with Spain Arturo Sandoval Trumpet Evolution and guilty pleasure Best of Wings GEMA pressing LP, hey it was $2.99

to me the number one benefit of these is getting great sound in ridiculous places. I got a chance to listen to Toe and Electric Masada while hiking yesterday in the Oakland Redwoods. Yeah they scale like crazy but to get high midfi/low high end in a forest in pretty cool as well as high end listening at home.

the primary issue with the Englander is the revenue they seek is from food and beverage in the room as we are displaying in that room the revenue is an issue. The charge for the room is a pretty reasonable $400 though. The other option is to take a second room and have the food an beverage served their. Has anyone run a meet that had a single outlet per wall for say 4 rigs per wall? So that would be say 2 amps and 2 sources on a single outlet fed to a powerstrip. Not sure that we had much more than that at the meet we did at the coffee shop in San Leandro though. It would be really important though that all food and beverage be consumed in the second room as the room charge = crap we consume - $400 per room Guess I'll have to take one for the team and have lunch and a pliny there today.

I am also open to it being a brain trick since the evaluation was sighted

itunes prior to amarra, after I converted them all I have not checked again, I probably should though.

also check out XLD for ripping cds on a mac it takes longer but does a thorough job of error checking. It would be a PITA for someone digitizing their cd collection for the first time but it does ensure an accurate rip. I know this is heresy but I run AIFF and when I A/B'ed between that and ALAC I swear it made a difference. I know that a modern computer should be able to uncompress an ALAC file on the fly and feed it to a firewire port without using really any processor power. In my very unscientific listening it made a difference and with hard drive space being cheap it seemed like a no brainer.

crazy as it is I so think the previous version was slightly better but admittedly I have not gone back and A/B'ed them. Yeah the usb cable rolling is insane, there was a guy there that insisted on a $1000 usb cable for his QB9 which to me is just crazy talk.

When you guys listen to these take a moment and check for low level details. I was enjoying the overall presentation at the Florida meet but the overall feeling was that they were really diffused sounding and were missing low level detail. Overall tonality was great but it felt like I was listening through a mist. Al pointed this out to me when I was listening to them through the spud amp and while they were enjoyable I had to agree with him.

Ric, Happy Birthday hope to get together soon to buy you a pint

Greg pm I can help

dude as stated get TRS to RCA adapters then plug them into the 1/4 jacks located in the center of the unit labeled line/monitor out then get a firewire 400/800 cable then open bottle of wine and rock the fuck out

Greg I am a jealous man the MH uln-8 is a nice step up from the 2, not that the uln2 is a slouch at all and I still would put it up against all comers in the $2500 and under category but hot dam the 8 is just amazingly clean.

Axis Bold as Love Mono is a great listen! yes you did and I turned around and bought another cart also bought several records Pearl Jam ( the new one on vinyl) and a bunch of old shitty jazz records

Al, was nice enough to loan me the Amarra 4 (uln- over the weekend and top to bottom it clearly bests the sonic studio 302 (uln-2). IT was better to the degree that I now have to find a way to get one. From the moment it went in the system it was apparent, while the differences were there at Al's you really need to hear sources in your system to get a complete feel for them. I have rationalized the $6k purchase as not bad for a dac/phono pre and preamp.

Don Byas Anthropology, great record done in 1963 with a then 17 year old Niels Pedersen.

Canman welcome to Headcase!

Mods can you please change the year in the title thread as usual I am living in the past! Steve hope to see you there, yes it will be at an SFO area hotel

I really wish the Englander would have worked out but between the electricity, drunks wandering in to the rooms, limited parking it was a no go.