Description

This system is used for design work. Not usually available for demonstration without appointment.

Upgrades are always considered, but any piece auditioned is always difficult to justify when it fails to beat this gear by only a small margin.
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Components Toggle details

    • CEC TL-5100Z
    Used as belt-drive transport only.
    • Birdland Audio Odeon Lite
    Modified by Birdland Audio
    • Sony CDR-W33
    Semi-pro recorder used to bring in analog sources to CD, via its Super-Bit-Mapping A/D converter (24-bit input). Used as playback transport also.
    • Microseiki BL-91
    Belt-drive, heavy platter. With Micro MA505-II tonearm. Photo taken from internet. Veneer and lacquer on it are not so good... Unknown tonearm in this picture.
    • Microseiki MA-505 II
    S-shaped, of stainless steel plus aluminum. Medium moving-mass, but can handle high-compliance carts because it is very, very low in friction. It is also very low in mechanical arm resonances that a cartridge usually excites-- because of that steel and that there is absolutely no play to its bearings, torsional or otherwise. We use its original magnesium headshell or an ADCOM carbon-fiber minimalist shell, depending on cartridge. Aligned with Arc-protractor template (Baerwald as I remember). With very careful work to fit the Arc template exactly, the resulting sound was like master tape, because we immediately no longer heard the drag of a stylus in the groove. At all. Amazing.
    • Technics SL-110
    Direct drive in a damped cast-aluminum base. This was their second model to appear after their SL-10 super-duper direct drive. Shown here with its stock tonearm. I fit ours with a Grace 707 arm to run ADC XLMs, Sonus Blue Golds, and lately my trusty Empire ZE/X 1000- all very-high-compliance cartridges.
    • Grace 707
    Very low-mass arm, mounted currently on Technics SL-110. Picture swiped from e-bay. As with Micro arm, very low friction bearings, yet having no play to them.
    • Nagaoka MP-50II
    Induced magnet (moving iron) high compliance top model. Current version is called MP-500. Highly recommended for well-balanced systems. Shibata-type fine line stylus on boron-aluminum 2-step cantilever.
    • Panasonic EPC-450C-II
    Modified by Garrot Bros, with vdH stylus on boron cantilever. Runs into Jeff Rowland Strain Gauge preamp. No RIAA EQ required.
    • Empire 1000 ZE/X
    Induced-magnet (moving iron) design. Very high compliance. Empire's top model, hand calibrated, from early 1970's, two years before ADC's XLM appeared.
    • Signet MK 110E
    High-compliance, very low moving mass, medium-output dual moving-coils. Nice, with the usual Signet tone balance.
    • Croft Vita
    Tube preamp with phono section. Four SN7 tubes, no circuit boards, almost zero wiring.
    • Jeff Rowland Original preamp
    Three-piece unit: Separate four-transformer power supply, line-stage section, strain-gauge cartridge phono section.
    • Edge Electronics NL-12i
    Not quite this model- more like a custom NL-15i if there ever was one. Something Edge made just for us. 350Watts/channel.
    • Marigo MR-34 Signature
    I think that is the correct model number. 1.5 meters long.
    • Marigo V-38 Signature
    12-foot pair
    • Audio Magic Clairvoyant
    Wide, treated-silver ribbons.
    • Audio Magic Illusion
    Digital cable
    • Green Mountain Audio Usually a prototype
    to be revealed this Spring!

Comments 1

Pics Roy! We want pics!!!

Shakey

shakeydeal

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