I am back, folks. My system was the third most talked about system after Mike Levine's and Albert Porter's.
For some personal reasons I took a break from audio. But I am back with good news and not so thrilling news. The not so thrilling news is that the system is unchanged. And the good news is that it is so hard to improve it, regardless of the price -- I do not know what to upgrade, except may be cables -- as I hit the peak performance from my perspective. The sound thrills me still every time I listen. Still, 140plus tubes, embedded in the finest of amps and pre-amp driving a legendary speaker that can give a good run for money to speakers costing $100k plus, all making heat and magic at the same time. Wow, life is good.
Acknowledgements:
There are several people I wish to acknowledge who have helped me a great deal in building this system:
1. Charlie, who designed one of the finest preamps. Although, TRL Dude is marginally better, the Charlie X-2 will stay with me for ever and will continue to provide listening pleasures
2, Paul Weitzel of Tube Research Labs (TRL) for his helping on tuning the amps and on his feedback on many other technical aspects of the system at the micro and macro level.
3. David Royalty for building nice wooden battery casing for the TRL moded Sony CD player and also for numerous technical feedbacks.
4. Ivan Li of Hong Kong for showing me the insight into planar speaker placement.
5. Steve Dobbins of Xact audio for coming all the way from Idaho to install the tonearm and overall turntable tune up.
6. many visitors who have graced my listening room with their presence.
7. All audio friends who are not mentioned above.
8. Audiogoners who continue to post interesting and thought provoking comments here.
Zephyr24069: Tony Levin is excellent. Not sure if you have seen the videos of some of Peter Gabriel's concert. Tony Levin played some great guitar in there.
Do you have the Best Of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler: Private Investigations (2CD)?
Very nice system and I want one set of your amps! I am a long time TRL owner and still love my Dude! Do you find any particular 6sn7 tube sounds best in your system?
Believe me, I understand the collection being large introducing many challenging times to pick music to recommend to others! Happy Listening....just picked up a relatively new album from Rudess, Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel's amazing bass player) and Minneman. It's alot of fun and sonically very good. It has some great moments on it!
glenhifi, thank you for the kind words. But you know looks can be deceiving (and being active on audio forums can also be deceiving...and the amount of money spent on audio can also be deceiving). It is the listening that is believing.
Not sure where you live but you are cordially welcome for a listen.
HI Zephyr24069, I am gonna shop for Yello's . I have several other Yello albums and like them all and hence can imagine Touch to be as good as you say. will also look for Jordan Rudess' "The Road Home".
I will look at my collection and make some recommendations for you....when the collection is too big, some times it is hard to pick recommendations!!
Gallant_diva: I'm running behind due to work being crazy on sending you a more detailed and longer list but I think you "have" to grab yourself a copy of YELLO's TOUCH album (will probably have to get it out of a seller on Amazon Marketplace who is from Germany); not only is it (IMHO) their best and most fun album ever, it has mid-bass, bass and sub-bass action happening throughout that is a MUST DEMO!!!
Another winner for great arrangements of ELP, Genesis, Gentle Giant and other famous tracks, Jordan Rudess' "The Road Home" has some great full range content from well below 20HZ on up. It's a must demo as well!
Art of Noise...wow(!) haven't heard anyone mention them in a while; I have a few of their albums including that one and frankly agree with your feedback on that album. It's a favorite! There is an excellent SACD or 2 from Propoganda, another great fringe/prog-rock band out of Europe that has proved to be a lot fun over the years; I'm away from my shelves this week (about 6000 miles :-) ) so I'll need to ref the album title later. Sonically and for fun/different music, also check out the DVDA or CD of Legion of Boom/The Crystal Method. That's another recording that is kind of off the wall, musically unique and alot of fun!
Another piece of excellence is Influence album by The Art of Noise. You would think it is another non-musical audiophile crap. Nope, the music is stunningly good while providing all audio glory....love it.
My musical tastes run the gamut (sans hip-hop and rap which are blasphemy to the word music) ....LOL. well said.
I agree with you on the points you made. For me one thing is very important. The piece of music has to be musical, not just good sounding. I have several (100s) of audiophile recordings and while each was carefully purchased, I only like those that have good music, not just good sound (e.g. just a good sounding drum). Those are the ones that I keep coming back to again and again. The difference is like a woman with sexy body and no brain and the woman with sexy body and brain. The latter is better..... well may be not a good analogy because sometimes you just wished sexy body and no brain..oh well...LOL. But you know what I mean.
No doubt! I've picked up a lot over the years from other audio friends...the Nostradamus was one such recording. It's somewhat hard to find but you can generally find one on Amazon or eBay or by emailing your friendly local audio-nut in a pinch :-)
Winston's recordings, particularly his newer 24/100 K2HD, UHD, UDC and later discs are all beyond compare. Tracks 2 and 3 on Super Trio are particularly interesting, great demo material and musically excellent (as is the entire disc itself).
In general also I am a XRCD/derivative fanatic; I have everything I could ever pick up both pre-JVC pulling out of North America and thereafter. If you like Jazz, grab Elusive Disc's AudioWave Blue Note XRCD24 series; I cannot tell the difference between them an vinyl believe it or not. They are beyond compare...
My musical tastes run the gamut (sans hip-hop and rap which are blasphemy to the word music) from all classical of all types particularly large-scale symphonic, pipe organ, through Jazz, vocal, percussion of all types, Taiko drumming & world drumming, all types of guitar & bass solo/ensemble albums, rock, hard rock, prog-rock, new-age, jazz fusion, and a good amount of techno, some 'house', etc....
Zephyr24069: Glad to know of your musical taste, several similarities with mine. I have both He Xun Tian (Paramita) and Dawada. I am a big fan of Yello. Have several Ondekoza works. Will check out Solaris' "Nostradamus.
Winston Ma of FIM himself gave me a good collection of his several K2HD CDs as a gift.
If you want to talk about Chinese music, then be my guest for 3 months and listen to a new master piece everyday :)
I think this discussion of musical tastes is very useful and hopefully also benefit other readers.
Look for music from He Xun Tian from China and also Dadawa. "Tathagata" is perhaps "the" TRULY 'ultimate' demo disc for full range matieral and imaging. Mystical Scent and Paramita by Tian are also amazing. Dadawa's Sister Drum and Seven Days are definite keepers as well. If you remember a group by the name of YELLO, their disc "Touch" is arguably if not the single finest, certainly among their finest. It must be procured out of Germany but it is well worth the price of shipping and the time. Solaris' "Nostradamus; Book of Prophecies" is also another great full range speaker work out. Dean Peer's AIRBORNE is a personal favorite, Ondekoza's various albums cut on K2HD or XRCD2 or XRCD24 are great for straight Taiko Drumming. I could go on and on...:-) The pictures on my virtual system list is a few bookshelf rows behind (like 2x) as I've not taken pictures of the collection since 2009-ish.....I LOVE MUSIC!!!
Zephyr24069: Thanks for the recommendations. I am certainly gonna be looking for The Last Samurai and Tears of the Sun. I am a big admirer of Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerard.
I assume you have the soundtrack of the Gladiator?
Here are some additional recommendations:
1. Hero
2. The Kingdom of Heaven
3. Crimson Tide
4. Poseidon Adventure
5. Bridges of the Madison County
6. The Blade Runner
7. The Last Temptation of Christ
8. Dead Man Walking
9. Natural Born Killers
I also have the soundtrack of New Superman movies (another score by Hans Zimmer). I listened to its once but will listen again before making a judgment although my impression is Dark Night is much better.
Merry Christmas to All! I love the humor in the reply apply Gallant_diva, glad to hear that come back to that shot at your amp pricing; beware rings of any kind that were "previously used" is all I can say :-)
The Dark Knight Rises sound track is amazing; another personal favorite is the soundtrack from The Last Samurai (beautiful melodies, monstrously impactful Taiko drumming & other percussion, etc....) followed closely by the soundtrack from The Lost World (available from Winston Ma), Tears of the Sun (Hans Zimmer with Lisa Gerrard, Andreas Vollenweider & others), Ovo The Millenium Show (Gabriel & others), other Gerrard-involved film soundtracks, (Whale Rider, Ashes and Snow, A Thousand Roads, Samsara) and of course the various Hobbit and LOTR film discs...)
Will put together a list of cool stuff both sonically and musically over the holidays and send it over via Audiogon in-mail.
