Moving from cone speakers to a set of Apogee Duetta Signature speakers has shown me that there is value to be found in old equipment, for sure. There is certainly more than one way to skin this cat ... I went for the high power SS route with lots of tubes in front of it.
System strengths: natural timbre, musical, transparent with amazing soundstaging, dynamic, good PRAT, no fatigue from CD or vinyl. This is as good as I've heard in many rooms.
Nice setup. I’m getting my Duetta II Signatures completely redone starting with Graz’ newest ribbons in a couple months by Bill Thalman @ Music Technology. I’ve loved these speakers since my dad bought them new and always see myself with full range ribbon speakers. They’re fast and natural sounding gems producing waves of powerful energy!
System edited: Replaced my Transfiguration Temper cartridge with a Lyra Kleos. I still need to tweak the setup a bit, but first impressions are more detail, more bass, more dynamic but perhaps missing a bit of that midrange magic and beautiful soundstage that the Temper brought to the table.
The big room was indeed large, with the speakers well into the room and away from the walls. 4 rows of chairs, the first row being at least 10 feet from the speakers.
The Stella/Naim room was also large. I am not a Naim lover, but these did have lots of slam and nuance. But the bigger speakers did what bigger speakers do, and that was obvious. Still, both were pretty darn great.
And I got to play my music in the big room when it was almost empty, where the Naim room played the moderators music for a larger audience. And there was other noise from the system set up in the hallway right outside the door.
Still, both were some of the best sound at the show. Others I really liked were the Volti room, the Muraudio omni's, MBL (of course), Soundsmith (always good), Wes Bender's room got better as the weekend progressed, and a few others.
Ptmconsulting, I read your posting on Albert's thread in relation to the VAC - Focal combo.
Do you have an idea of what size of room were these in, did you happen to listen to the Stella/Naim combo also? if so care to share what heard comparing the two.
Decided to try repositioning the speakers this weekend. Moved them 6" closer to me and they were indeed too forward sounding and unnatural. Pushed them back 2" (so they are now 4" forward of where they were) and whallah! They now sit about 8'6" from me.
Next I moved them as close to the side boundaries as I could manage, so they are now 6' apart. Of course I checked the lean, and readjusted it, and the precise toe in and distance from the sweet spot using my new Christmas present - a Bosch digital measuring laser accurate to 1/16" (I got them within 1/4").
Holy cow, the space and depth and overall sense of openness and room is huge. Damn, I knew setup was finicky but they are surely locked in now. They just needed that wee bit more room to breathe.
System edited: Added a picture of my quartz crystal tweak to the phono cartridge. Yes, it really does work to add a bit of dimentionality, space, presence to your vinyl playback.
System edited: I was one of the "beta testers" for the Triode Wire Labs "American Speaker Cable", using a 6' bi-wire. A very nice improvement over my Jon Risch 89259 cross connect bi-wire that I have been using for the last 5+ years. More dynamic, smoother and less grainy top end, but equally as transparent and dimentional and extended both top and bottom. Over all a very nice improvement.
System edited: Just picked up the new VPI ceramic platter and bearing. it's basically a smooth sided VPI aluminum Classic platter with a ceramic coating on it. Nice improvement in pace and dynamics.
They are still great speakers. Had mine set up this Spring but as my room is only 13' wide I moved out my 2 REL Stadium subs before setting them up. Had great bass and never felt I needed the subs. My CJ 350 was very good, something like 600 watts into 4 ohms; but my Meridian 605s [150 watts] also did well. My new room is going to be about a foot wider but 13' shorter, 22' vs 35' so I will probably continue with the Spendor SP1s with the RELs.
I was curious when I saw your equipment list. I too have a DNA-500 in my system and was wondering what PC you are now using on your system for the Mac. Regards,
System edited: Upgraded my Apogee Caliper speakers for a mint pair of Duetta Signatures. They are pretty much the same look, but stand about a foot taller than the Calipers.
That extra length of ribbon in the bass panel gives the Duetta's a much bigger and punchier sound overall. The image height is a bit taller too.
Overall, they sound beautiful and detailed and punchy - everything you would expect from a world class speaker. I'm a very happy boy.
Anti-skate on the DP6 is progressive, the way it should be set up. Meaning it changes as the arm moves over the record to compensate for the varying degree of pull on the arm for the different radius being traversed. That's why it is spring loaded.
Anti skate can/should be set by ear. Find a recore with some vocals and some decent dynamics. Then set the force to zero or very low. This works best with someone helping you, but you can do it yourself if you're patient.
Listen to the right channel and you should hear it almost lower in dynamic volume than the left (a bit recessed). Slowly turn the tracking force up, I mean very slowly a wee bit at a time. Eventually you should start to hear the right channel coming up and getting closer to what the left channel is producing dynamically. Then as you get higher you should hear both channels sounding more dynamic and just better and better. Move the anti-skate up very slowly now.
At last you will hear a fairly dramatic drop off in the quality of both channels. You have now gone a wee bit too far. Back it off a notch and you have optomized your anti-skate.
Hi, I've been following your posts about the moerch dp-6 . I just bougth an amazon TT with this arm and would like to understand better how to correctly setting it up. My main issue is the anti-skating: I have not clue about how it works, not the weight or the device that is at the left of the arm and how they help each other. I will really apreciate your comments about this matter. Thanks in advance
System edited: Picked up a beat up pair of Apogee Calipers a few weeks ago. The panels were in good shape so it was worth the effort to restore them. So I revamped the crossover with new boutique parts and refinished the scratchy and banged up cabinets with some wood filler, a lot of sanding and some nice metallic grey paint (ala Wilsons). They are singing pretty nicely now, but it will take a little while to get used to the change and get the true measure of their sound. But I am liking what I'm hearing - quite a bit.
The .1uF Teflons are bypasses run parallel to the main output coupling caps. They significantly opened up the sound, making the soundstage wider and deeper and more transparent.
By doind this I realized that the Multicaps were the run of the mill ones, so on my next parts order I picked up some RTX's and replaced them with the best Multicap made. Some additional smoothness was gained.
The power cord did make a difference. Probably as much as tube rolling did.
I also had a lead footer that fit between the power transformer and the case bottom. I wedget that in there and it all but removed any transformer hum.
I also highly recommend rubbing the wood front and sides with some lemon oil once or twice a year to keep them from cracking.
Hope you enjoy your Trumpet. It's definitely an overlooked gem of a phono stage.
I did have to ask. I just got one. Anxiously waiting its arrival.
Can you describe what your mods did to the sound? The 0.1uF caps are shunts? Did those add (or take away) something? Maybe more transient speed? How about changing the coupling caps? Did that do anything? Given the choke, did the change of power cord make a significant difference?
Nope (you had to ask, right). I have put Russian teflon .1uF caps as bypasses or the outpout coupling caps. I've also replaced those coupling caps with Multicap RTX's, and also replaced the coupling caps between stages with RTX's. There's an upmarket power cord on it as well and some NOS tubes.
