The system has evolved over a 20 year period and will probably continue to evolve. It is in a dedicated room that is approximately 19' by 27' by 10' with oak floors and oriental carpets. I also use a minimal number of diffusers on the wall behind the speakers and eight of the 16" ASC Tube Traps. The room has 5 dedicated circuits for the audio.
There have been a number of evolutionary changes over the last year, primarily with respect to the power cords, speakerwire and interconnect and one rather dramatic change, the replacement of the EMM Labs XDS1 with the Esoteric P-02/ D-02. This yielded lower noise and increased detail and bass control while maintaining the musicality of the EMM Labs. I would consider the Esoteric pieces breakthrough products. Funny how you sometimes deviate from your plans. My system seems to go through extended periods without major changes, then have a number at the same time. I do have my eyes on a new cartridge and perhaps a new preamp.
I purchased an early Sirius from Andy Payor thinking that I had purchased the ultimate turntable, only to spend the next five years updating. The updates have included the air isolation base, a series of different motors and tonearms, an outboard power supply for the motor, a 50# platter, new arm wiring and a variety of different belts culminating in a custom aramid fiber belt. As currently constituted, I think that it combines the high definition of the Sirius II without its tendency toward coldness.
Einstein The Tube Mk II
Similar in many ways to the CTC Blowtorch but harmonically richer and more complex with greater dynamics and significantly better image density. Phenomenal bass, ultra quiet, very extended upper octaves.
Yamaha CT-7000
Ebony with black faceplate. Particularly nice top end coupled with an ability under the best circumstances to recreate a three dimensional soundstage. After owning a number of Magnum Dynalabs, this has been a real eye opener.
Acapella Triolons
The Triolons are an imposing sight. Two woofer towers, each 14" by 28" by 7' tall, each weighing 650# plus a cross piece holding a plasma tweeter attached to the woofers and a sword bearing two horn loaded speakers, one horn 30.5" in diameter, the other 18.5" in diameter. The Triolons can be driven by a single amps of 18 watts or higher power but must be triwired and have an efficiency of 97 db. Each side weighs 850# total. The crossover points are 200, 700 and 5000 hz. The sound from 200 hz up to 40,000 hz emanates as a spherical wavefront. The Campanile Highs are similar but crossover to their woofers at 700 hz, use the plasma tweeter plus a single horn and are much lower in efficiency (92 db). The Triolons are typically a 6 ohm speaker but have an impedance at 30 hz of 28 ohms. The same is true of the Campaniles. Neither is a particularly easy load for an amp to drive; however the greater efficiency of the Triolons does open up the possibility of driving them with the right low power amplifier. Unlike the ribbon tweeter of the Magnepans, the Acapella's tweeter does not over shadow the other drivers. Extremely dynamic.
Jorma Prime
The Jorma Prime, either in balanced or single ended configuration is superb, particularly between amp and preamp but also on other inputs. I still use the balanced 7N Mexcel on the X01 and the Valhalla on the TT but otherwise have switched to the Jorma Prime.
Finite Elemente Pagode Master Reference
5 shelf version installed as well as the amp stands. Again a nice and very audible improvement. Amazing the things that you blame on the equipment until you solve the resonance problems. Basically a no brainer. More improvement than changing a major piece of equipment.
Jorma Prime
I have been mildly dissatisfied for a number of years with my JC-1 amps when used to drive the Acapella speakers but have yet to find something that combined the ability to drive the speakers and give me the other characteristcs that I desired although I have been much taken with some tubed amps (small, single ended or OTL within their power limits. Let's just say that the insertion of a combination of Bi-wire and single wire prime has cused me to re-think the amp question. The Primes are simply the most musical natural top to bottom cables that I have ever encountered.
That sure was some good service Fred, I just enquired about the new digital board and it was a $1200 to me! Any idea what advantages the new board brings?
I had what I thought was a problem with the left channel of my EMM Labs XDS1 which resulted in a trip back to the factory for a thorough check out by the resident technical whiz Devin. Several things are worth mentioning, the entire process was extremely user friendly with my unit returned to me in about two weeks. While the unit was there, the factory replaced one of the digital input boards to bring my unit up to current production and also updated the firmware to the latest iteration. All of this was at no cost other than shipping. Devin assured me that the change to the firmware would probably have no sonic impact on CD's or SACD's; however, early impressions are that the top end of the unit is actually a bit improved. Further listening may tell. The real point of the post is the way that this company treats it customers.
Unfortunately, it is time in use (actual play time) rather than age that determines the wear on the electrodes. I suspect that how high you run the tweeters may also have an impact. With respect to the PL519's, I assumed that they were off or at least in a sleep mode when the speakers are not in use. I have noticed that the amount of heat generated when the plasma is off is significantly less. The general rule of thumb is that the rods and tubes need to be replaced every 5 years; however, if the sound is still good and the plasma is coming on without issues, I would leave well enough alone and just listen. I will separately email you a contact number for Hermann Winters.
Hi Fred, I seem to have some difficulty getting Acapella to answer their emails :) I was wondering if you can answer my questions. My TW-1S is almost 10 years old this year. I would like to know:
- how often the electrodes need to be replaced - whether there is anything else in the tweeter that needs service - how long the PL519's last (have you noticed that they are NEVER turned off!)
I hate to admit it but the power cord and interconnects that are attached to the tuner are worth more than the tuner, but these are necessary to extract the best sound frim the tuner.
Several months ago, I had my vintage Yamaha CT7000 Tuner in the shop for periodic maintenance: replacement of leaking electrolytics caps, replacement of burned out lights, IEC connector instead of attached zipwire cord and better coupling caps. For some reason, I never hooked it back up until this weekend. Listening made me realize that FM can be pretty good given the right station. Unfortunately, Houston has only one decent station playing classical music and jazz. I wish that I were in an area wher there were more high quality stations. Note that I am using an outside antenna.
My friend with the Ypsilon gear got a wild hair this weekend and decided to play with different isolation footers underneathe one of his Weizhi AC distribution boxes. Given that the box is extremely heavy and milled from an aluminum ingot, I really was not expecting much of a change. Well, as usual, my intuition was wrong. The footers made a significant difference. Without going into painful detail, the two areas which seemed most effected were the bass which became tighter with more impact and the top end which could become bright and screechy or a bit soft and ill defined. With some combinations, the midrange was also negatively effected becoming thin and lacking body. What seemed to work the very best in my friend's system was a combination, two hard rubber footers (BEL Labs) and one Acapella composite wood/aluminum footer. The combination was nicely balanced, not the very best in any single area but good in all areas so that the final tesult was well balanced.
Fred, I believe you're referring to the Porter Constant.
The possibility of an outright failure or bad sound is in direct proportion to the number of important people arriving, multiplied by the total miles traveled in bad weather.
Sometimes referred to as the "jelly side up" / "jelly side down" syndrome.
Landing position depends on the value of the object under it and who's there to witness your meltdown.
If there is a "Crowder Constant" it would be that if there is anything that can go wrong with my system, it will be when I have invited guests over to listen or perhaps, the greater the resolving power of the system, the more difficult it is to get everything right. On a good night my system sounds great, more often, only average to good.
Have you ever encountered the law of unexpected consequences? I did some more listening to my system sans the Cabasse subs which had been sitting in the corners behind the main speakers. The high end seems a bit better; however, I now have a resonant peak in the upper bass/lower midrange that was not there before. Even unplugged the 21" cones of the Cabasse woofers were apparently providing some damping in that area.
System edited: The Cabasse subwoofers have found a new home with an audiophile in Alice, Texas who has the space for them. They had been in the room but not hooked up for a period of time and it seemed like a good time to make the change. In all honesty, I never was able to mate them seamlessly with the Triolons. Predictably, getting them out of the room and opening up the space behind the Triolons has resulted in a nice improvement in my sound.
My friend is currently using the smaller Ypsilon hybrid amps which are in my opinion very good. They are a significant improvement over the Edge monoblocks in all areas except bass control where the Edge amps are better.
I visited my friend last night to listen to the Ypsilon phonostage. His system consists of a Rockport Acapella TT, Ypsilon electronics, Esoteric P03/D03/G0S and Avalon Isis speakers. He was kind enough to warm everything up for several hours before our listening session. We began with the Opus 3 Maytan and friends and then listened almost exclsively to classical recording including several sides of the superb DGG Carmen. Again, the wires are not yet optimal and the unit needs further break in; howeevr, this is the best sound that my friend has ever had by a significant margin. I consider myself to be pretty jaded, but I was impressed.
I am using the single ended Einstein phonostage, my friend is using the balanced version which s/b a bit better than mine. I should note that my friend is using the same cartridge as I use, the Ortofon A90 and that the step up transformer is wound specifically for the Ortofon to yield 16 db of gain. Ypsilon has two other transformers, one at 10 db gain, the other at 20. All allow the owner to insert a resistor on each channel to accurately match the cartridge.
Things are a bit slow but a friend just received the Ypsilon step up and phonostage. He is waiting on better cables but has hooked it up with midline Crystal wire. He was previously using the top Einstein phono. He feels that the Ypsilon is better in every way- more extended at the frequency extremes, more air, better stage and more liquid. It still needs to break in but I will get back to you with my assessment. Note that the circuit uses transformers rather than caps and very low parts count and is all tubed including the power supply.
I have recently substituted Shugang Treasure Series (black bottle) for the Western Electric tubes (a late production run) which I had been using for the last year. These tubes require a rather extended break in to reach their peak, in my case about 300 hours. After full break in, the black bottle Shugangs were superior in a number of ways to the WE tubes, better extension at the frequency extremes, lower distortion, lower noise floor, better control of the bass. However, if I had to choose one area where they really shine it would be dimensionality. Depth is improved and image focus is exceptional. All in all a nice improvement to my system.
