This was refurbished by STS Classic Turntables. After owning a Linn LP12 for over 30 years (upgrading along the way), I thought I'd try out a more contemporary turntable. Instead, I went backwards - but I went forwards, too.

Since I was going backwards on my turntable, I wanted an arm that would handle SPU cartridges. These are hand-built by a lovely man in Washington State. Every parameter can be adjusted, many on the fly. When I wanted to be able to put the back of the arm down a little lower, so he built me a two level arm board to accomplish that task. I think the arm sounds beautiful, warm and graceful, compared to my good arms from Rega, Linn and Funk Firm.

These are the SPU's in my stable. I would live with the the Synergy G if I had to choose just one, but I enjoy them all for the different way they present the music. I've fantasized about having a house where I could have a different speaker style in each room - horns in one, dynamic drivers in another, panel speakers in a third. in reality, I can't afford the space or the money to realize this. But I can change out the other playback transducer, and appreciate the more subtle changes in that way.

I also keep a small collection of more affordable cartridges all mounted up and ready to install. A Linn K-18ll, a Denon D103r, and a Shure V-15 Type IV MR are among the cartridges that I occasionally listen to for maybe a week at a time, and then go back to the SPU Synergy G.

My turntable has two tonearms mounted, and most of the time I use the Jelco for an Ortofon 2M Mono cartridge. I have many 1950's mono jazz albums, and to me, they always sound better using a mono cartridge than even a much more expensive stereo cartridge. I love how bold and present a mono record can feel.

This phono stage has built in SUT's (originally made by Jensen, upgraded at the factory to CineMag), and I like how a low-output MC sounds with a SUT. Despite being all tube, it has a certain incision that I like to balance out its slight warmth. I rolled in some Mullard's, and that gave me even more of what I like.

This music server replaced my Mac Mini as part of my streaming set up. It is quieter and faster at its job. And the ripping function is fast and easy. I have about 1,000 CDs and I have probably ripped a little less than half of them to this server.

This music player has galvanic isolation, using optical cabling to keep the noise down.

I had the QB-9 DSD for a few years before I got it updated to the Twenty. They pretty much replace the whole thing, and it does sound like a very advanced version of the QB-9, which I liked.

I can play pretty much any disc on this universal player. But I rarely use it, as I like the Ayre DAC playing the ripped CDs more than I like the CDs played straight from this player. Nonetheless, this versatile player can do many things, all of them at least fairly well.

This was a heavily modified tuner sold by Mapleshade. Now that Pierre is gone, I'm not sure they offer these anymore. This is one of my favorite components! I live in the Boston area, and we are blessed with many good stations that play a variety of wonderful music, curated by somebody other than me. This is by far the best sounding tuner I have owned, and I have owned many.

I dipped my toes into tape, purchasing this machine from a certified Revox technician. I now own about 50 or so 7.5 ips 4-track tapes, and really enjoy the way that many of them sound on this machine. This is a "high speed" model, playing 15 and 7.5 ips in both 2 and 4 track. I have lucked into a couple high quality 2-track 15 ips tapes, and they sound great.

I have a Zesto phono stage, and stereo amplifier, and decided to try to find a Zesto Leto 1 Preamp. I wanted that older Zesto preamp because it was the only one that had a balance control in the Zesto lineup. I found that I can't live comfortably without a balance control in the preamp. Anyway, I had the power supply upgraded to Zesto's new "ESP" power supply, so the preamp is now both old, and kind of new. 

For awhile, I used the PS Audio BHK 250 power amp with my former speakers. It helped them produce a lot of high quality bass - the amp really gripped the four 15" woofers. But I didn't love the mid-range or treble quality. So, I moved to this all-tube Zesto 60 watt per channel amp. It does not (cannot) give as much high quality bass, but I have never loved recorded music more. The quality of the mid-range and treble is what I have been longing for for many years. It was a worthy trade. The new horn speakers love this amp.

I found these affordable, and good sounding cables, and enjoy them. I've never tried out the really high end cabling, but these sure bettered my Linn and Naim cables.

I use these on my three most favored sources - the record playing system, the DAC, and the tuner. Again, I know there are more expensive and likely better sounding interconnects, but I think these work well.

Getting the Volti's allowed me to try out low powered tube amps. This 8 WPC SET amp is big sounding with those speakers. I thought that calling them "Dynamo" and being only 8 watts was a little playful irony. Turns out to be the right name after all.

Over my audio life, I have been taking a tour through different types of speakers. Before the Volti's, I had the open baffle Emerald Physics 2.8's for eight years. And before that, the Magnepan 3.6's for a dozen. And before that the skinny tower Audio Physic Tempo 3i. And before that...

While I was trying to solve the summertime overheating caused by my large Class A tube amp (my AC doesn't cool my listening room that well), I decided on a whim to see how cheap and low-powered I could get - I now had efficient horns, after all. So, I bought a 10 wpc Schiit Gjallahorn brand new for $299. And it was pretty good all by itself! But relative to the nice tube amps, it seemed a bit gray, and without any dimensionality. So, I remembered that I had a Jolida Fosgate SSX tube buffer/soundstage expander. When I added that to the Gjallahorn, I was shocked at how full and fun I could make the sound by using the bass control on the SSX. And it produces almost no heat for the listening room.

A small footprint but a pretty powerful sub. It uses twin woofers in what KEF's calls a "force-cancelling" configuration. Each woofer has 500 watts attached to it. My speakers probably have enough bass, but I found this "sharpened" the bass - made the low sounds just a bit more articulate. It also added that surprising sense of space that subwoofers can bring to the music. My room's bass can be problematic, but the KEF has these DSP presets - one for "Wall," one for "Corner," one for "Room" and so on. I was able to dial it in pretty well using these settings.

This might be the MVP of my system. We live in a place that loses power many times per year, and I think the patches and fixes compromise the power we get. This device took out the noise and especially sibilance, plosives and fricatives that it used to suffer before it was installed. I assume that something around 8 khz was being emphasized, or carried in some junk with it. It sounds much better with this machine than without.