This unlikely blend of equipment is a result of working as an electronics salesperson for a couple of years, and finding whatever deals I could find. The centerpiece of this system is the VPI Scoutmaster with the JMW9 Memorial tone arm. The Scoutmaster started its life as the more humble Scout, but after months of waiting and negotiation, VPI sent the parts necessary to upgrade the original table to full Scoutmaster Status. I m still in the process of running it in, and I’m already noticing an improvement in sound quality. The naming system of VPI turntables has always amused me since I spent part of my foolish youth lighting fires, playing with knives, pitching tents, and other antisocial activities on my way to making the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts.

The Cartridge I am using is the Sumiko Blackbird. I love this thing. It looks cool in an industrial kind of way. Its austere functionality would make a Soviet machine gun designer proud. It is favorable reviewed, and apparently it’s one of the best sounding cartridges in its price range. To be perfectly honest; I don’t have a very large frame of reference, so I can’t say how this cartridge stacks up against other models. I can however say that I think it has an enormous sound stage, I think it has substantial dynamic range, it navigates the hazardous terrain of dubious quality used records very well, and it makes me very, very happy. “And ‘The Blackbird’ broke the silence, as you whistled it so sweet, and in Brendan Behan's footsteps, I danced up and down the street.”

So far the system is all Stereophile’s list of recommended components B quality equipment. This is the point at which the hodgepodge starts. All of the cables I am using are Z series from Monster Cable. Monster cables are reviewed mostly in house as far as I can tell, so I’m taking the designers word for it. If the sophistication of the explanation is an indicator of a cable’s sonic merits, then I’m using some of the most fancifully described cables on the market. They weren’t my first choice, but they get the job done and they were affordable and available at my old place of employment. The cables connecting the turntable to the preamp are Z200i Monster cables, the preamp to the amps are 15 foot Z200i-x balanced interconnects and the speaker cables are Z2 bi-wire.

The CD player is a Denon DVD2910. I don’t think I have ever hooked it up to an HDTV, but I hear the picture is incredible. It spends most of its time playing humble redbook CDs with the video output, front display and digital sections turned off. I bought it because I got a good deal on it (surprise) and it played HDCD, SACD and DVD audio. All of these formats sound incredible, but I don’t have very many albums. I just can’t find a lot of artists that I’m interested in.

The preamp is a Sunfire Classic. The Sunfire Classic is an all vacuum tube model. I enjoy the benefits and hassles of tubes, and owning this preamp gives me some of those characteristics while using solid state amps. The preamp is one of the biggest steals in my system. I bought a demo unit for well below half price, but paid the price for my hubris after I found out the volume control motor was burned out and had to be sent back to the manufacturer for repair. The five year warranty covered the repairs and it was worth the wait. The preamp I was using before this one was like a brick wall. Whatever went in sounded the same on the way out. I didn’t discover the weakness of my old preamp until I upgraded my phono preamp. A substantially better pre-preamp had made absolutely no difference on the sound quality.

The amps are somewhat of a dark horse. I have heard rumors that they have been reviewed, but I still have not found a review. They are the MPA2500SS’s, and they are also manufactured by Monster. Adding one to my system was a revelation. I never knew what separates could accomplish until I hooked the amp up. I was suspicious at first. I wanted to believe that all this audiophile crap was malarkey, but as soon as the music started to play, I was flabbergasted. The music just poured effortlessly from the speakers. All my old CD’s and records had a new unforced and natural sound.

A couple of months after the addition the first amplifier, I finally read the manual and discovered that they could be bridged down to mono. Bridging was a nebulous concept to me. I’m still a little surprised that after all the research I had done, I never paid attention to the subject. It would boost the output from 250 watts to two channels up to 650 watts for a single channel. Once again, I proceeded rather incredulously. More audiophile shenanigans I boldly predicted. Unfortunately, there was a very noticeable improvement in going to mono amplifiers. More of an improvement then I was expecting. I had been told that less crosstalk would result in a better sound stage, but I didn’t really believe that separating the chain so close to the very end could make a noticeable difference. What I previously thought was a sound stage, was a blurry compact center image. With two amps, each instrument had a distinct location within the room. The effect was fantastic.

The signal continues its journey to the speakers via bi-wire cables. The speakers are Paradigm Studio 100 version 3’s. The entire chain starts with B quality components way back at the beginning, where the stylus hits the groove and ends at the very end with the speakers. They replaced a set of Infinity Beta 50s. I got the Beta 50s practically for free, so they were economically welcome house guests, but they had to move out as soon as I was legally allowed to sell them. They were a fantastic set of speakers for under $1000 a pair, but the Paradigms really do sound like they cost more than twice as much.

They are frequently listed as a full range speaker. I’m not sure if that’s true but they reproduce a surprising amount of bass. I never realized that all of my earlier speakers had one note bass. Thuds suddenly turned into thuwhumps. Thuwumps are a beautiful thing. The new tweeters are also an improvement. They don’t call as much attention to themselves at higher frequencies. Violins and cymbals don’t sound like they have been glued to the tweeters anymore.

There are various miscellaneous tweaks. I have a monster power conditioner for all the front end pieces. It’s a component piece and looks kind of snappy on the rack. The amps have their own monster power strip. From what I can gather on the Audiogon forums, I’m making a huge mistake using a power conditioner with my amps. Monster says it is a high current design. I have not gotten around to experimenting with a direct connection to the wall or a Shunyata or PS Audio high current outlet. I’m a pretty firm believer in power conditioning and would not necessarily even consider them a “tweak” so much as an additional component. I have Vibrapod pucks and cones under my preamp and I will eventually have them under my CD player as well. The outlets are PS Audio Power Ports. Not too sure about those, but they look cool and they weren’t too expensive. My favorite one is the home made isolation platter under the turn table. It was made out of MDF and racquet balls. You might be able to guess who I stole the design from. The damn thing is amazing. Apparently the real model “was a bigger upgrade than going from an $800 cartridge to a $2500 cartridge”. I don’t know what a $2500 cartridge would sound like in my system, but what this thing does for the soundstage and noise floor is unbelievable. The record clamp on the Scoutmaster is the upgraded stainless steal clamp. I didn’t buy that to improve the sound. I just liked the way it feels when I give it a quick spin and the extra mass provides enough momentum to spin the clamp up the spindle. It’s like twisting the cap off a bottle of cognac. The record cleaning machine is a VPI 16.5. Ugly, noisy (scares the hell out of the cats) and super effective. Considering my addiction to Goodwill vinyl, I don’t know how I would live without it. The hideous looking acoustic treatments on either wall are Target brand “Comfy Foam”. They act as diffusers and absorbers and make a basement room walled with paneling listenable. Eventually I would like to put in some purpose built walls and some real acoustic products. I ran two twenty amp lines to the listening room. One provides power for the source gear and the other is dedicated to the power amps.

The cobbled together nature of my system belies how much I enjoy listening to it. There are tons of other tweaks and upgrades I would like to jam into all the nooks and crannies; however I’m pretty happy for the time being.