Description

I have been working on this system for over 14 years. For about 5 years i had Wilson Sophia's and a Sony SCD 777ES player and no plans to upgrade. A year ago i added a Thorens turntable and a NAD phono preamp and i liked the vinyl sound right away.

I wanted to replace the Sophia's with Sasha's but when i found a pair of Mission Pilastro (my favorite speaker of all times) i bought them right away. I have been looking for a pair for over 7 years, there were ony 35 pair ever made and now i am lucky enough to own one of them.

The only upgrade plans i have are a new amp and preamp, ML 532 and 32.

Added the Master Reference turntable, a Transparent Powerisolator 8 filter and a Pagode Reference for the new turntable.

Replaced the Transparent power filstration system with a Isotek one, the G2 Nova is definetly better than the Powerisolator 8 but i can't say the same thing about the Titan vs the Powerisolator MM.

Also added a Clearaudio Reference Battery Power Supply for the phono preamp (this one is really good), a Outlet Limit clamp and replaced the Double Matrix with a Audio Desk Systeme record cleaner.
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Components Toggle details

    • DCS Elgar Plus
    Firewire DAC Converter
    • DCS Delius
    Firewire DAC Converter
    • DCS Verdi La Scala
    Upsampling SACD/CD transport
    • DCS Verona Clock
    Master Clock for the DCS system. Makes a huge difference.
    • DCS Purcell
    Firewire Upsampler
    • Clearaudio Master Reference w CMB
    Upgraded the Master Solution.
    • Clearaudio Master TQ-I
    With Clearaudio Sixstream cable.
    • Clearaudio Goldfinger V2
    Great sounding cartridge.
    • van den Hul Colibri
    With gold coils. The Goldfinger is better in every way.
    • Clearaudio da Vinci V2
    I used for 2 months than upgraded to the Goldfinger.This is a very good cartridge. I prefer it to the VDH Colibri.
    • Clearaudio Stradivari V2
    My first MC cartridge, a huge step up from my old Thorens TD 124 mk 5. Got me hooked on Clearaudio.
    • Clearaudio Balanced Reference
    best phono preamp i had, i upgraded from Clearaudio Balance +. Added the battery power supply.
    • Mark Levinson 383
    Integrated amp. never going to sell this on.
    • Mission Loudspeakers Pilastro
    Only 35 ever made. I looked for it for 7 years. Never going to sell them. I had Wilson Sophias and wanted to upgrade to Sasha. They are in a completly different league.
    • Transparent Audio Reference XL
    Unbalanced from DCS to ML and from phono preamp to ML.
    • Transparent Audio Reference XL
    Speaker cable, i upgraded from Reference
    • Finite Elemente Pagode Master Reference
    With Cerabase feet. 2 stands each with Cerabase feet. Under the turntable shelf another 4 ceraballs to handle the weight.
    • Clearaudio Magix2
    16 Isolation Feet for turntable. I moved from Europe 1 year ago, didn't need them in Europe but in the US because of the wooden structure of the home they do a great job.
    • Clearaudio Double Matrix
    Record Cleaning Machine.
    • Clearaudio Titanium v2
    Added the Titanium for the Universal Tonearm.
    • Clearaudio Universal w. VTA
    9' tonearm with the optional VTA base with sixstream cable.
    • Isotek Titan
    Used just for the ML33h amplifiers.
    • Mark Levinson No. 32
    wanted this for years, great preamp
    • Mark Levinson 33H
    Very musical amplifiers, they work great with the speakers. Same amplifiers used by JA in the Stereophile review where i first saw the speakers.
    • Isotek Nova GII
    Replaced the Transparent Powerisolator 8 and it's definetly better.

Comments 16

Showing all comments by tboooe.

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What did you use for PC audio? Did you have a dedicated PC? What format were your music files in? While I still have a CD player I am 95% PC audio and have no complaints. Of course getting to this point required building dedicated music server PC and all the audiophile quality parts and cables but in the end, it was worth it not just for sound quality but convenience. One lesson I learned was that the operating system on the PC can have a huge impact on sound. Other lessons learned from "normal" audio like quality of power, isolation, etc also applies to PC audio.

tboooe

Fantastic system! You've got some top notch gear. I have never heard of Mission Speakers but I bet they are amazing. Have you considered computer based audio yet?

tboooe