Dear Peter,
If I were to shell out the dough for a Vibraplane, I might first of all put one under one or another of my turntables. Maybe the preamp/phono stage would come next. THEN the two monoblocks. But I am sure all of the gear could benefit to one degree or another. I do know that the amps sound much better when they are up on their Walker Audio tiptoes than when not. They sit on Sound Anchor stands, which themselves are up on Audio Physics tiptoes. On top of that there are butcher board slabs. Then the amps sit on very large Walker Audio tiptoes, as mentioned. I originally thought that was a good idea mostly to allow air circulation around them. However, I have found that they do improve the sound. Much more musical "air" when the amps are up in the air.

lewm April 10, 2013 05:16

Thanks, Islandman. I should be listening more and posting less.

lewm November 05, 2012 16:07

Dear Voaratc, Sorry for the long delay in resounding to your question. If I had to describe the difference I would say that the Mk3 has tremendous "drive" and is most lacking in any artifact attributable to the table itself, while the L07D (with TI Shield over the motor) might be said to have less drive but to be a shade more "musical", more relaxed sounding. I know these are typical audio cliché's. One must also keep in mind that my opinion of the L07D is based on its sound with the stock Kenwood tonearm, which uses 30-year-old Litz wire, a detachable headshell, and a massive physical connector in the signal path (a non-DIN type plug at the base of the tonearm). Whereas my opinion of the Mk3 is with the Reed tonearm, which uses cryo-treated silver wires and a straight uninterrupted path from the cartridge pins to the phono inputs.

lewm November 02, 2012 18:38

System edited: Finally was able to edit my virtual system. See above.

lewm May 12, 2012 18:53

Guys, I am having trouble editing my system page, which is to say I cannot get in to the page at all. Even though I am using the correct username and password, which work fine to allow me to post, etc, I am blocked from editing. I sent an inquiry to the Audiogon administration, got a new password, which once again works fine EXCEPT when I try to edit this page.

Suffice to say that the Sound Lab M1 speakers have been replaced with Sound Lab 845PX speakers. The input to the 845s was then highly modified in that a foreign treble transformer was substituted for the Sound Lab treble transformer. This permitted removal of all crossover components. All I can say is that this makes a huge difference in the right direction.
Also,
(1) Denon DP80 has a place of honor in storage but is not in use. Turntables in use include Kenwood L07D, Technics SP10 Mk3, Lenco.
(2) Sold the Colibri cartridge long ago.
(3) Main cartridges are now Grace Ruby and Stanton 980LZS, and I have several more MM or MI cartridges yet to audition.
(4) In the latest modification to my MA240 amplifiers, 6C33C output tubes were replaced with 7241 output tubes, plus many other mods.
(5) Using a Silvaweld SWH550 phono stage for MM cartridges; it feeds the line stage section of the MP1. All low output cartridges go thru the MP1 phono stage.

lewm May 10, 2012 21:27

Sorry. Have not been here for a while. As to Rugyboogie's question, the slate is from Pennsylvania, a company called "Structural Slate" in Pen Argyl. They cut and honed the slab(s) to my specs. For each plinth I made (for Denon DP80, Lenco L75, SP10 Mk2 and Mk3), I used a single piece of slate, 2 inches thick, except the Mk3 got a 2.5 inch thick slab. I also located a water-jet cutter in York, PA, who cut the holes in the slates, for each particular turntable.

I have had a major breakthrough with the help of others. We have made a modification to the input circuit of the Majestic 845PXs such that there is no longer any crossover. This is made possible by using a superb audio step-up transformer that runs full range in parallel with the standard Sound Lab bass transformer. (The new "treble" transformer replaces the Sound Lab toroidal one.) So, no resistors or capacitors in series or in parallel with the audio signal. This results in (1) much higher measurable impedance, making the speakers a very easy load for my Atma-sphere OTLs, (2) an increase in efficiency, and (3) coupled with the large size of the 845s, I get dynamics I would not have believed possible from an ESL. This is all just fantastic. I do not exaggerate when I say that a little tear rolled down my cheek when I first fired up the modified 845s.

lewm February 29, 2012 21:07

Dear Banquo, No. The Mk3 was not that cheap, not nearly. I paid $6500, then gave it to Bill Thalmann for a complete evaluation and ad lib parts replacement. Bill found that several of the (NOS) electrolytic caps had become leaky, and he replaced them all with new Panasonics. This is not surprising. Electrolytics left on the shelf will degrade faster than those in regular use.

lewm August 08, 2011 03:58

My wife has a very wide "acceptance factor". Most wives would not tolerate what I have done to our living room. But we have a very large family room as well and no kids at home any more, so it is easy for her to avoid looking at the mess in an otherwise beautiful and well furnished room. I keep cleaning it up and then making another, different kind of mess. (Cartridges, headshells, CDs overflowing shelves, tonearms that look like a gaggle of petrified dinosaurs, arrayed on top of a nice cabiinet.) I now have a pair of Sound Lab Majestic 845s on order, which of course are even more humongous than the M1s.

A few months ago, I bought a Silvaweld SWH550 phono stage off eBay, just to scratch an itch and because it was so cheap. Silvaweld is defunct, was made in Korea by Mr. Park now of Allnic. The SWH550 was his top of line phono stage, does NOT use LCR RIAA equalization, as is the case with Allnic products. I have now been listening to it for a few days, in place of the Ayre, receiving the input from an Acutex MM cartridge riding in the Dynavector DV505 on my Lenco. This thing is divine! Tube rectification and voltage regulation, as well as amplification, really makes it go.

lewm June 01, 2011 16:42

Ct0517, Define "midfield setup". Do you refer to positioning the speakers so they are about half way from the back wall to the front wall, or do you mean moving my listening position? In any case, the Sound Labs are so large that there is not much flexibility re positioning them in my listening room, which is also our living room. They are about 5 feet from the rear wall, at an angle to it. I made some sound-absorbent panels that are bolted to the blank wall behind them, two panels per side. I also use some very dense rosewood chairs, one behind each speaker, to tame the low bass response.

lewm May 24, 2011 16:59

System edited: I just added a photo of my SP10 Mk3, now finally making tunes in my system. The heading explains a lot, but I will also answer any questions. When I write that I "made" the plinth, that is an oversimplification. I had the assistance of skilled professionals, but it was built to my specs. The SP10 Mk2A was sold, and the Denon DP80 now resides on a shelf in my basement, having been replaced by the Kenwood L07D. Reed seems like a great tonearm, but it's all new stuff, so hard to tell.

lewm May 21, 2011 18:28

System edited: Just deleted Technics SP10 MkII because will be replaced by Mk3. Added several cartridges. I have also got a couple of tonearms not listed here yet. I am having fun.

lewm January 12, 2011 06:13

This is a belated response to JLoveys: I don't know where you saw mention of my owning a VPI SDS, but I don't and have not. I do own a Walker Audio Precision Motor Controller, which I originally purchased for use with my then one and only turntable - a Nottingham Analog Hyperspace. The Walker did wonders for the Notts, way beyond my wildest dreams. I am now using the Walker on my Lenco. I am told by Mark Kelly that the Walker (and most conventional single-phase motor controllers on the commercial market) is not optimal for the Lenco motor. In any case, I cannot hear as much of a benefit with the Walker/Lenco as I heard with the Walker/Notts. I am on the list for a Mark Kelly motor controller specifically dedicated to the Garrard motor, but Mark says it will work well for the Lenco too. The wait for the final product is lengthy, to say the least. Hope this hellps. Currently doing some further upgrades to my MP1. Paul Dang made me a baltic birch base for my Mk3, but it is still not up and running. I will need a tonearm for it that does not cost more than $3K, used or new. Any suggestions are welcome.

lewm July 09, 2010 16:30

Dear Kmccarty, et al,
Since last fall, I sold my Lenco with Jean Nantais wood plinth (in favor of the Lenco in slate) and I also sold the Garrard 301, for lack of energy to do anything with it. I also picked up a mint NOS Technics SP10 Mk3. Just two days ago I finally picked up the slate plinth I had made for it. The plinth for the Mk3 will be a composite of slate and baltic birch, using also the iron block that Albert Porter employs to sink vibrations from the bearing. Someone asked for a comparison of the DP80 vs SP10 Mk2. I have yet to hear them with the same tonearm and cartridge, but my impression is that the DP80 is every bit as good as the Mk2; however, this is after damping the outer hollow ring around the platter and replacing all electrolytic caps, transistors, and the one IC in the electronics. With this work done, the DP80 in slate is a gem.

I have been listening to the Kenwood L07D, not shown above, for about two weeks. This tt is fan-freakin-tastic, is all I can say. Even with the original archaic tonearm wiring and all its connectors in the signal path, this tt pulls sounds out of familiar LPs that I had never heard before. It also makes the Urushi a killer cartridge; I can't wait to try it with the Colibri and with some of the MMs. Mainly I think the L07D achieves these qualities by being incredibly quiet and incredibly in control of spurious vibrations. Also, it is a stone cold bargain, even though not "cheap" in the usual sense of that word. For the one price, you get a done sota plinth that no amateur could ever build and a very good tonearm, plus a motor with an advanced and flexible drive system. Meantime, the Lenco can hang with the big boys, too.

Sound Labs should go back to Utah for new diaphragms, but I cannot bear the thought of living without them for several months.

lewm April 08, 2010 07:37

Correction. Naz can be found on TubeDIY Asylum, not Vinyl Asylum.

lewm October 29, 2009 04:44

Grateful, I did all the mods but in consultation with two very smart guys who know more than I do - Naz from VA and Allen Wright. It would be an exaggeration to say that AW did anything directly; I learned from his Tube Preamp Cookbook, and at the final decision point he did communicate his opinions to me directly. One reason I modified my MP1 was because it was a very early version and came to me in pretty limp condition. (I bought it used.) I had to rebuild the entire power supply before I could even listen to it. In so doing I incorporated a regulated DC filament circuit that had been designed by Mark Gilmore, who was then associated with Atma-sphere. The HV supply is now regulated by a pair of SuperRegulators from Vacuum State Technology. All rectification is by hexfreds. The LV supply to the circlotron output stage uses low DCR, low Henry inductors in both the pos and neg legs and is filtered by the latest Panasonic TS-ED caps, which are bypassed on the audio chassis by film caps. I raised the current supply to both the phono and linestages. I created CCSs for all active gain stages using ECC99 triodes in cascode topology. The phono input now uses a hybrid cascode constructed from an MAT02 bipolar transistor on the bottom and an ECC99 on top (idea copied from AW's RTP3C preamp). This gives a huge amount of gain, more than enough for my Ortofon that puts out 0.12mV. The output of the phono stage now uses another ECC99, which gives a much lower output impedance compared to the stock 12AT7. There is a resulting sacrifice in phono output stage gain, but I don't feel it because of the huge gain at the front end of the phono. There's lots of expensive parts, teflon caps, bypass caps all over the place, etc. There's more, but my fingers are tired. If you have a specific question, let me know.

lewm October 29, 2009 04:43

I have been heavily pre-occupied with set-up of a rig that will allow me to audition all the MM and MI cartridges I bought as a direct result of Raul's thread. It did not seem practical to modify the MP1 preamp in order to suit MMs. That is, I would need to be able to reduce the gain of its phono section such that I could quickly switch back to MCs. This can be done, but when I tried it, the dynamics of the sound were noticeably reduced along with gain. Therefore, I came to the odious conclusion that I needed to have a separate dedicated MM phono stage. I finally selected an Ayre p5xe, which I was able to buy used at a good price. The Lenco in slate with PTP3 top plate (photos soon to be added) will serve as the MM test bed, with a Dynavector DV505 tonearm. I also recently bought a Kenwood L07D turntable. What can I say? I could not resist at the very fair price asked. Now I am really motivated to thin out my turntable "collection". One of the SP10 MkIIs and my Garrard 301 grease-bearing must go, along with my other Lenco in wood plinth. More anon.

lewm October 08, 2009 17:38

Dgob, As I think I told you privately, my preliminary impression is that overall I prefer the Denon/Triplanar/Urushi combo to the SP10/RS-A1/Ortofon combo. Certainly the Ortofon does not blow away the Urushi at all, although one obvious factor is the difference in tonearms, which I will eventually address. Also, I assure you that I favor "accurate" reproduction vs euphonic. My many mods to the MP1 and MA240s have all been in that direction. But I generally believe that any OTL amplifier, when it is happy with its speaker load, is going to be more accurate or certainly not more colored than a transformer-coupled amp. If the speaker load is not right, i.e., if the impedance is too low, then OTLs do fall apart.

lewm August 12, 2009 19:52

Thanks, Dgob. I don't know why I listed only my Ortofon cartridge. I would have to say that the cartridge I have been listening to for a few years is the Koetsu Urushi. I recently acquired the Orto and have a couple of hours of listening to it on the RS-A1, whereas I am accustomed to the Urushi on the Triplanar. I just bought a vdH Colibri but have not heard it yet, and thanks to Raul and his thread, I have also acquired two B&O MI cartridges, the MMC1 and MMC20CL, an AKG P8E, an Ortofon MF20L Super (or whatever it's called), and I dug up my old Grado TLZ. Listening to all these guys on all three tt's should give me plenty to do come wintertime. Meantime, one of my Millenium 1s has developed a chronic whistling sound; I will have to trouble-shoot it. It seems to go away during music play.

lewm August 03, 2009 21:47