The single biggest upgrade to the musicality and quality of my system has been the result of the addition of the Audio Note Kit 1 300B Single-Ended amplifier. I am absolutely thrilled!
A spectacular-sounding 300B, single-ended integrated amp. I loved the experience of building this baby from a kit and the sound is sublime. A huge upgrade over the Manley Mahi/Manley Shrimp combo I had previously.
SOTA Sapphire
Recently upgraded this 'table with new titanium bearing, new, series V springs, new belt and dust cover.
Linn Basik-LVX
It's what I've got. :-)
Ortofon 2M blue
Not much to compare it to but well reviewed at the price.
Bottlehead Seduction
2-tube phono preamp
Music Hall CD 25.2
Beautiful build quality, great sound at the price.
Supra Classic 6.0
Bobby Palkovic of Merlin told me to look for a 9 gauge, stranded copper wire, and this is what I found. It's unique in that each copper strand is plated with tin, to insulate the strand and reduce "skin effect." The result is a cable that is, in Bobby's words, "stupid good," especially at the price. A 3 meter pair with spade connectors cost me $103 with shipping, direct from the distributor, Sjofn HiFi.
Musical Fidelity M1 DAC
Perhaps the single best upgrade I've made to my system, other than my speakers and new Audio Note Kits Kit 1 amp. A steal at the sale price from Needle Doctor, it has lifted the Musical Hall CD player to new heights.
Reference 3A MM De Capo iA
Latest version of this classic monitor. The white Surreal Acoustic Lens in the middle of the main driver is said to improve dispersion and clarity. They sound wonderful. Update, March, 2013: I have upgraded the tweeters to the latest, beryllium tweeters from Reference 3A.
Rebbi- That is a very well thought out system and I'm sure it sounds incredible. And Manley, what more can you say. I spent a couple of hours at the Manley room at CES this year and it never gets old listening to those monsters.
System edited: I recently upgraded the tweeters in the De Capo's to the latest, beryllium tweets from Reference 3A. Still breaking in but so far they sound a bit more transparent and smoother at higher volumes. More to come when they're more settled in.
Rebbi- Shalom, Because you had Steeley Dan at the top why don't you try Radiohead- In Rainbows. It is a well made and thought out album that sounds great. Remember, you have to listen to new music five times to really start to appreciate nuance. Bread- Greatest Hits, you'd be surprised at the musical quality and the studio work is first rate. Tracy Chapman- Talking About Revolution, a standard that never gets old, sounstage is huge. You have to have a little Blues some who else but McKinley Morganfield (Muddy H2O) Folk Singer is the standard but I love "The London Sessions" on CHESS. It transports me there. Oh, and Niel Young, Harvest. God, there is so much great music out there. BTW these are all records that sound great and will show off the best of your system.
Thanks, Jeff225. I am very pleased with it. I think it'd sound even better if I could tame some more of the slap echo in the room, but there's only so much "redecorating" my significant other will tolerate. ;-)
Apdoc, Yes, I had the Dulcet before I upgraded, and you are correct: they are extremely special, little speakers. I absolutely loved them. I would say that the De Capo brings the following additions to the table: 1) More defined and authoritative bass response. 2) The ability to go louder without sounding congested or confused (with the caveat that I really don't tend to play my music very loud and my room is not that big). 3) an even sweeter and more open top-end. Hope that helps.
Hi Rebbi, I used to own (and love) the Dulcets. I see that you have upgraded to the De Capo's. Could you shed some light on the differences between the two speakers? Thanks! apdoc2004
Mapman, Yeah, for the foreseeable future, I'm truly done speaker hunting. The De Capo's continue to get better - more open and musical - as they break in. I'll play a track that I haven't listened to in a couple of months and be struck by stuff I hadn't heard before. The delight is that I'm regularly taken by surprise by how good they are. They are pretty to look at, too. :-) I hope that one of these days you get to hear a well set up, well broken in pair. I would love to hear the top of the line Grand Veena one day... they are supposed to be extraordinary.
Sounds like trial and error will be the only way to sort it out. I will use what I have on hand for now and experiment through bottom fishing as I have time and money. Thanks for taking time to reply.
Tbromgard, Sorry for the tardy response to your post; I just saw it today for the first time. I've generally been quite happy with the cartridge, although I've never had the opportunity to really compare it with something else. The SOTA is a wonderful turntable, which I had sent back to the factory for some refreshing and upgrades (replaced the suspension springs and the main bearing after 20 years of use) and, at the same time, they replaced the rather ancient Audio Quest cartridge that I had originally purchased with the table with the new one. Right now, I'm not so inclined to replace the cartridge because it sounds fine to me, and also for financial reasons. But mainly, I suspect that putting a better cartridge in that crappy old arm would be wasting its potential. I'm not sure what arm I would move up to, in any case. If I was going to go with anything besides a Linn arm, I would have to purchase a new arm-board for the turntable, which would really begin to run into some money. At times, I've even considered selling the SOTA and going with a turnkey solution like one of the Rega turntables, but I doubt that the turntable itself would be as good a piece of equipment as what I have now. Decisions, decisions :-)
Knownothing, Nice to hear from you, and sorry for the tardy response. I switched to the Supra cable back when I had the Merlin monitors, because Bobby at Merlin recommended a stranded, litz type, copper-based cable, 9 gauge, if possible, and the Supra cable was the only product I could find that fit the bill. Each strand is plated with tin, supposedly to eliminate "skin effect." Bobby at Merlin ended up liking it so much that he now recommends it as his go-to "cheapo" alternative to the very expensive Cardas cables that he recommends normally. I think I do remember liking the current cables more than the audio quest that I had before in any case, both of them are very reasonably priced. Now that I have Reference 3A's, they recommend a solid core, cryogenically treated cable, which is apparently what they use for the internal wiring on their speakers. Their own, branded cables are quite expensive, but I have seen a cheaper alternative that seems to fit the bill but haven't yet had the time and money to try it. As far as I can tell, there is a great deal of synergy stuff in matching cables to speakers, including the rest of the system. Sorry my response is not as useful as it might be.
Nice. How do you like the 2M Blue. I have been listening to mine in a origin Live TT for several months. I am amazed at the level of musicality it brings, but after 6 mopnths or so, I want more detail and air. How does it sound in your Sota? Have you tried other cartridges?
Nice system. I see you are using Supra speaker cables now. I recall a distant thread where you were using Audioquest GBC cables. What do you like better about the Supra's compared to the GBC's? Or, what do you see as the deficiancies of the GBC's? Thanks in advance for any feedback.
I think I am with you regarding priorities and compromises.
I am of the opinion that most of the music occurs in the midrange and that is where our ears are most sensitive, so it pays to get that right first and go from there as needed.
I can vouch both the Triangles and OHMs both do this exceptionally well as it would seem do the Dulcets.
The Triangles "cross over" at ~5K or so, the OHMs at 7K, well beyond where most traditional 2 or 3 way designs do.
One need look only at this nifty little audio frequency chart I found recently Here to understand why this is a good thing!
You have to hear that kind of sound done well (omni/Walsh or otherwise) to appreciate it and be affected by it's absence.
Okay, this is really dumb! In the picture, what I have under the Dulcet's is a sheet of paper towel on each stand. The reason is that they have this gorgeous, shiny "piano black" finish, and I was afraid of scratching up the bottoms. Reference 3a recommends coupling the speakers to the stands with "blue tack," which I haven't yet had the heart to do But I will, soon. ;-)
Thanks for posting again. Yes, I think you nailed it. There really is something to be said, I think, for the "crossover-less" approach that Reference 3a takes. That, along with the slanted, "time-aligned" front baffle, gives the speakers and immediacy and spatial coherence that is quite addictive. I once read a review where the reviewer said that if you have unlimited funds, you can spend many tens of thousands of dollars and find a speaker that "does everything," or nearly everything. But if you are like most people and have a limited budget, then you have to know what is important to you in a speaker and what you value the most. Some people, the reviewer said, put midrange purity highest. Other people want a robust bottom end and so forth. Some people demand neutrality and "ruler flat" response. For me, I think I have figured out that I will sacrifice some other, desirable qualities if I can get the kind of spatial presentation that makes the music feel "real" to me. A really nice thing about the Dulcet is that it gives you that spatial and ambient coherence along with a shockingly meaty bottom end. This is something I missed, although I didn't know how much,with the Merlins, as stunning as they were in other respects. It's why I think I could probably never live with something like the "baby" Harbeths -- they are only rated down to 75 Hz. Yes, it may very well be that the Ohm 100's were just too much for my room. I suspect that the acoustics of the room were just too lively for anything omnidirectional. The sound staging of the Ohm's was expansive and "swimmy" but image specificity always felt vague in a way that I found frustrating in the long-term.
Thanks for your reply. One more thing what do you have under your speakers? What did you use under the Merlins on the Osiris stands? Thanks for any info.
Reading some more about the Dulcets, I can easily see how they could well be the perfect fit for you and your room.
I read an article by a reviewer who was enamored with the Triangle Titus years ago for many of the same reasons he liked the Dulcets, but it sounded like the Dulcets years later have refined the principles of the Triangle Titus type design further. There is a lot to be said for any speaker that can function like a highly coherent point source, which both Titus and Dulcet appear to do (as do OHMs except in the more omni sense). He also compared to the Dynaudio Contour 1.3mkIIs that I also still run so that helps me understand the sound even better. THey are very good monitors, probably closest in design to MErlin TSM that I have, but they are a more traditional 2-way crossover type design that has some disadvantage when it comes to absolute coherency through the midrange.
Those might be the perfect upgrade for my wife's sun room someday if needed from what I read.
In hindsight, I'm thinking that in your room upgrading from Microwalsh to 100s might have been a mistake and I wish I might have cautioned against it somewhat perhaps. I would expect the MWTs to perhaps fit better in your room. They would seem to be the closest thing in the OHM omni line to the point source coherent sound you have been zeroing in on and right-sizing to your room. You never know!
The Merlins are terrific speakers oodles of detail and resolution. Plus,you get time and attention from Bobby P, who is surely one of the finest people in the audio business.
But (usual disclaimers, "in my room, with my equipment, to my ears ")the Dulcets have more satisfying bass, "disappear" much more completely and are spatially coherent in a way that's pretty breathtaking. They paint a sonic picture of a performance event in a way that's hard to describe, but is so immediate and energetic that listening becomes "fun" in a way that makes me want to keep pulling out old recordings to see how they sound. Hope this helps.
