My objective is to duplicate the sound of a good jazz venue as best I can. I'll never match it but getting close is fine. I've had various audio components through the years and tubes particularly DHT tubes/ASSET have gotten me the closest. So this is where I will settle down and appreciate.
Balanced AC power is fantastic !! 1800va balanced isolation transformer/conditioner. All aspects of music reproduction are improved for every single component.
Tripoint Tripoint Troy.
A wonderful grounding box component. When added to my system it increased the sense of natural sound quality and emotional engagement. The Troy has a humanistic and “soulful “ quality to it.
Coincident Speaker Tech Total eclipse 2
This wonderful speaker is transparent,open and involving. It`s large yet completely disappears as the source of sound within the room. Very easy to drive,94db and 14 0hm impedance (Minimum 10 ohm). I replaced the stock Solens capacitor with the Duelund CAST in the crossover.
Coincident Statement linestage
Superb performance. In my opinion , a masterpiece by Israel Blume. As would be expected, a wonderful match with its sibling the Frankenstein MK II.
Coincident Speaker Tech Frankenstein mark 2
A terrific 300b SET amplifier that is the foundation of my system. The EML XLS 300b tubes are a superb match with this amplifier.
Acquiring these 300b SET mono blocks changed the course of my music listening experience. They elevated the emotional engagement, tactility and “breath of life “ realism.
Yamamoto YDA-01
Wonderful music lover's DAC that has a very natural/organic sound quality. Duelund CAST addition(output coupling capacitors) makes it sound even better. It has a very minimalist circuit/design that was implemented well.
Ocellia Silver Reference IC
Very natural and pure sounding with excellent tone and timbre preservation.
Ocellia Silver Reference Speaker Cable
Same qualities/ comments as the IC.
Star Sound Technologies Sistrum Apprentice component platforms..
These Star Sound platforms are mandatory in my system. Effectively managing resonance and vibration leads to a very noticeable sound improvement with every component and especially the speakers. Excellent product.
High Fidelity CT1 Ultimate Digital cable
A highly impressive digital cable that mates beautifully into my system. Contributes to the natural sound presentation.
Pro-Ject Audio Systems CD Box RS2T
This is a superb Redbook CD playback transport. It’s both high resolution and impressively natural.
. I’m using the excellent Fidelizer Nikola II LPS. Splendid pairing.
Lavricables Grand and Master series Power Cables.
Pure silver wire and unshielded power cables. These are used with all of my audio components. They are very open, transparent, high resolution with beautiful natural tone and timbre presentation.
Abbas Esoteric Audio 3.2SE
Built by renown Ukrainian Abbas Zulfugarov. NOS DAC utilizing the classic Phillips TDA 1541 multi bit chip. Two 6080 tubes in the analog stage. 5 various rectifier tubes in the power supplies.
3 separate toroidal transformers (And 2 chokes ) for the power supplies.A very serious and successful upper tier DAC implementation. Using with the Abbas SPDIF and power cable.
I didn't read every post, but I noticed you were considering the Star stands. When I had my Partial Eclipses, I found they sounded better with the spikes from the outriggers screwed directly into the cabinet rather than using the outriggers, which IMO, allowed a bit of play. I realize that the footers' effect on the sound is totally room dependant, but I only mention it as you might want to try this free solution before spending extra money.
Just a thought - When I had my Coincident Partial Eclipse, which I thought were wonderful, I thought the speaker sounded better without the outrigger spikes, As I recall, I used the big spikes from the outriggers, but just screwed them into the bottom of the cabinet itself. Obviously, the result will be room and taste dependant, but it does tune the response to some degree. The PEs were great, but I felt I had to sit too close to them to allow the sound to fully blossom, whereas some other speakers allow coherence at closer distances.
No doubt that good digital can be very involving. I recently had the opportunity to listen to a fairly expensive system using the Linn CD12 and I was truly impressed with the ease and musicality. Then again, when I had my Naim CDX2/XPS2, a $10K+ player, I was amazed at how good even a $700 Music Hall record player sounded. I'm not going to carry on about this past this point, but I'm just curious - when did you give up analog? Enjoy your system. You obviously have very good taste.
