A legendary turntable worthy of its acclaim which has been in my system since 1998- 27 years!  Though may not be the very best by current standards, yet still provides incredible heights of musical satisfaction. In many ways my most satisfying source component. Given a good recording, a deep black background, startling dynamics, and organic 3D soundstage are all present. This is a final purchase! Outfitted with an Ekos 2 arm, Kandid cartridge, Karousel bearing, Keel subchassis, Trampoline 2 base and Radikal 2 power supply, in a fluted walnut plinth. What remains from my original purchase in 1998 is the plinth, top plate, outer platter and dust cover. Phono stage for this turntable is a Pass XP15.

Fully overhauled mechanically and refurbished cosmetically vintage turntable using both a belt and an idler wheel to turn the heavy cast iron platter. Equipped with an SME 3009 S2 arm, unimproved, early split weight. All is mounted in a layered birch plinth with a walnut veneer. The cartridge is the delightfully good Goldring E4. Very old school table and arm and still, quite musical and compelling. Phono stage for this table is a Simaudio 110LP V2.

Legendary tuner that lives up to the hype and made better with Richard Modaferri's current updates. Very sensitive, but not just for DX'ers. Very musical and quiet when fed a good signal and very flexible to boot. Hard not to be thoroughly satisfied with this classic vintage tuner. I can see why this is considered one of the 3 greatest tuners.

Auralic's user interface, using Lightning DS is fine, but not the ultimate in flexibility and more significantly, has proven to be buggy. Now that Qobuz Connect is live, that's what I'm using.   This streamer and any streamer is the golden ticket to the discovery of new music. I still love my LPs and the sound of vinyl, but I would not begrudge anyone who decides a streaming platform  with a good streamer/DAC combination is the way to go. Makes me wonder what an Auralic Aries G2.2 is capable of.

Nicely made CD player/transport which I use solely as a transport. The internal DAC, which I’ve tried a few times, is also quite capable, producing both detail and warmth without being bright or harsh. Offers a lot of versatility but admittedly, nowadays, I don't use this component much. Connected to my DAC via an Audioquest Carbon SPDIF cable. I wish Simaudio had provided a BNC audio output (a common omission among CD players).

An astonishingly good DAC, updated with Bricasti's MDX board and latest firmware. While I am not going to say it  sounds "analog" I will say it just sounds like music with no need to add a qualifier such as "it sounds good for digital"- it sounds great- period! This DAC never disappoints and since its introduction many DACs have come along, but for someone looking for a great DAC that does complete justice to the music, this is a final destination. Bricasti offers excellent customer support to boot.

Quiet, flexible and dynamic. Does the job very well, and surpasses my prior phono preamp, a Pass Aleph Ono. Cartridge load and gain settings on the back are inconvenient but in all fairness, it is a "set it once and forget it" thing.

Dedicated for use with the Thorens table/SME arm/Goldring MM cartridge combination. It's close to (but not quite) as quiet as my Pass phono stage but this dimunative phono stage throws an impressive soundstage and is satisfying. I have found it is sensitive to placement as where I had it situated first, I was noting it picked up a line frequency hum. A minor rearrangement later, and it's quite quiet. 

Simply the best preamp I've ever owned- I like this preamp better than a Conrad Johnson Premier 17LS2 I owned in the past, and that was a great preamp. Very flexible, quiet, dynamic, and has enough inputs for a typical stereo setup. It really is true- a great preamp can make or break a system.  Yet another final purchase.

Power and subtlety- says it all. I ran tube amps for many years (Conrad Johnson and Rogue)- with the Pass gear I don't miss the tubes. On a side note- this amp has the best binding posts I've ever seen. Solid connection, impossible to over tighten and never loose. Only one caveat- won't readily accept spades over 14mm wide (I filed the outer edges of my spades a bit to get them to fit properly). Best get someone to help you move this amp around as it's very heavy. It may sound tiring to hear- another final purchase.

Beautiful full range speakers. Solid, delicate, full range and great imaging. Really does not need a subwoofer, but a friend gave me a subwoofer (McIntosh PS112), so of course I'm running a subwoofer. Never tried bi-wiring the speakers. I know some people knock Revel speakers for not having much 'character'. Good! I prefer a speaker that speaks the truth and does not editorialize and these speakers do not suffer from any dynamic compression at any realistic listening levels. Offers great microdynamics as well.

Old school sub gifted to me by a friend, lacking any auto setup features; new high performance subs are better, but this does the trick for me, and the price was right. Dialed in just right, this gives my Studio 2's the illusion of an even firmer grip on the bass. I don't think my Revel Studio 2's need a sub, but adding this sub has made a very good speaker system that much better. Plus it's fun.

OCC copper cables are to my ear the most natural sounding cable material available. If your system is very resolving, it's worth it. My interconnects between sources, preamp, power amp and headphone amp and speaker cables are  exclusively OCC, from Audience, Acoustic Zen and most recently, Neotech. I use non-OCC analog cables (DH Labs cables) to my subwoofer. I am not convinced OCC cabling to my subwoofer would make a difference as I've never noticed the performance advantages of OCC interconnects are at the lower frequencies.

I run an AES/EBU cable from my Aries G1 to my DAC and a SPDIF cable from my Neo 260D to my DAC; both are Audioquest Carbon cables. These are satisfying cables. Some time back I owned an Audioquest Coffee digital cable and found that bright for my tastes.

I have two Solid Steel racks, and one Sound Organisation rack all from the 1990's plus a recent Solid Steel amp stand. They have served me well for decades and come from an era predating 4 and 5 figure racks. My amp sits on a nice Solid Steel amp stand which is perfect for what I need.

Based on the many favorable comments I have read I decided to buy a set of 4 to give them a try, and with a generous return policy, there was no down side. Well, these really work in my application. I experimented using them under my streaming transport and my DAC, and I found that the results were highly positive under the streaming transport, but ambiguous under the DAC. What did they do? Increased focus and seemingly, provided greater low frequency dynamics that are readily palpable.

I've taken my Bottlehead headphone amp out of the system (it's used elsewhere) and replaced it with a HeadAmp GS-X Mini headphone amplifier, as it's been many years since I have driven my headphones with solid state electronics. The GS-X Mini fits the bill due to power output, size, versatility, and I was drawn by the design which essentially uses the supersymmetry topology employed by Nelson Pass. I have the DACT stepped volume pot. The GS-X Mini does sound different than the Bottlehead- both are good. I am using a balanced cable for my Hifiman headphones to take advantage of the higher output via the balanced output, which its useful with my low sensitivity headphones. So far what I am hearing is a very compelling headphone amplifier, that easily draws me in. This is to the point that headphone listening could be a viable choice and not merely a requirement when others are sleeping. My last solid state headphone amp was a Bryston BHA 1 and while audio memory is unreliable, I know that when I sold my Bryston (and I already owned the Bottlehead for a while) I felt that was a step forward in listening pleasure- perhaps it's because I'm drawn to amps with some warmth which the GS-X has and the Bryston did not. What I might do is reintroduce another Bottlehead amp into my system, a Crack (that was my first Bottlehead build), for when I might want to listen through a pair of HD600's I have and reserve the GS-X Mini for my Hifiman headphones.

I've had my VPI record cleaning machine many years now, and I always find it effective.