I'm having to wrestle with a very difficult listening area in my new house - an oddly-shaped room, with too much tile and glass everywhere. I'm still working with room and placement issues to optimize the sound. But even at less than its potential best, the sound can be captivating -- chameleon-like in its ability to portray different recordings, good tonality, very solid soundstaging, toe-tappingly rhythmic. I'm rediscovering music I haven't listened to in ages, pulling record after record from the shelves deep into the night.
The only CD player I've heard in my system that gives me a large slice of the musical enjoyment I get from vinyl.
VPI Industries HW-19 Mk III
Removed springs and replaced them with Navcom Silencers, Mapleshade brass footers instead of the original feet, custom Tiffany termination box made by A.J. Conti.
Syrinx PU-3 Mk II
Overall a great tonearm, competitive with today's fave raves.
Proac Response 2
A gem from the mind of Stewart Tyler. The Target Response 2 stands are a necessity. The 8 watt LadyDay amps are enough to drive these to satisfying levels.
Conrad Johnson PV-9a
Classic tube preamp, finesse and testicular capacity. Updated to "a" status by Bill Thalmann at Music Technology.
Antique Sound Labs 1006 845DT monoblocks
Beefy single-ended triode amps, using the mighty 845 tube.
Spectral DMA-50
A beautiful 80 watter, with a sweet yet highly accurate sound.
Koetsu Rosewood Signature MC
A little bit Technicolor, but what a glorious sound!
Denon 103R MC
Usually a back-up for the Koetsu and Clearaudio carts, I've come to appreciate the 103R on its own merits. Next step, a wood body from Uwe.
H. H. Scott LT-110B tube
Tube tuner from the glory days of Scott, with a smooth sound that makes it listenable for hours.
Sony Playstation 1 SCPH-1001
The little engine that could...sound very, very good.
Philips SA-963 DVD/SACD
Heavily modded.
Pioneer Elite CLD-97 Laserdisc
Great video, and quite good as a seedie player, too.
Audio Note AN-V
Silver cable that let's the music through with little damage.
47 Labs OTA IC and
Single strand solid core cables, useable for ICs and speaker wires. One of the biggest bargains in high-end audio.
Alpha-Core Goertz Micropurl silver
Silver cables do so much that is right...
Alpha-Core Goertz Triode Quartz silver
Still more silver.
Alpha Core Goertz MI 2 Veracity copper foil
Heavy 10 gauge OFC copper foil speaker cables, low L but high capacitance. Can drive wide-bandwidth amps into oscillation, so be careful!
MIT Digital Reference
The best I've heard so far.
MIT Shotgun S-3
Switchable impedence.
MIT Z-Stabilizer power conditioner
High-current power conditioner, for power amplifier
MIT Z-Iso-Strip power conditioner
Ten outlet power conditioner.
MIT Shotgun AC-1 power cable
Does a lot to clean up the system.
MIT Z-Cord II power cable
The AC-1 is definitely better; used in various spots, these are due for upgrading soon.
Tandberg Model 12 RTR
Current rehab project.
Allen Wright Silver Foil 'Supercables'
Built from the Allen Wright silver foil cable kit, these are quite nice.
Monster HTS-1500 Power Conditioner
Used as an extension cord from the MIT Z-Iso-Strip.
VPI Industries HW-16.5 Record Cleaning Machine
Noisy, slow, yet still one of the best there is.
Townshend Audio Seismic Sink Isolation Platform
Adding the Sink under my DVD player added an increased sense of three-dimensionality to video, as well as enhanced low level dialogue intelligibility.
Arcici Delta Tower
Revised model, with round legs and Simply Physics Tone Cones.
Salamander Designs Archetype
I have a few of these in various heights; was going to build my own Flexy-Racks, but the Salamander racks are reasonably priced, and finished well above my limited tooling capability.
Very close to getting off the upgrade trail. If my apartment were larger I'd definitely go for speakers that can push more air at the bottom, but for now the Avatars 'fit' well into a nicely balanced system. Major gaping hole is digital audio playback; I really need a digital source that can play music, not just sounds. Never having had a dedicated CD player (still c. 99% analogue), I find it ironic that I'd start thinking about getting a good one just as there are hints on the horizon that physical digital media may soon enough expire. So now, toying with the possibilities of either of two paths: 1) a stand-alone player, used, such as Wadia, Burmester, Spectral, or Audio Note...or 2) a computer-based digital system (sort of a cobbled together, home-brew Nova player. Any comments or suggestions?
