My System

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I bought this, and the rest of the components mentioned, when I was in high school, with money saved from babysitting jobs. There wasn't much for upgrades through college. Originally, I did not even have speakers but used an old console my parents had. My first DIYing!! (There were also some cassette decks along the way, none of which I can really remember.)

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The Technics, which I had by now had for several years, developed some problem I can't recall, so it got replaced by my first remotely hi-end component, this charming little amp. (I was a few years too late for the legendary 3020.)

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My main reason for getting this table was that it was impervious to footfall and related vibrations. I was living on Prospect St, just north of Inman Square in Somerville, at the time, and trucks would regularly skip the table. You could pound your fist on this thing and it still wouldn't skip.

For anyone who might be looking for a replacement cartridge for this sort of table, Soundsmith makes them.

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A wedding gift from my brothers, in the form of a check and a card. "CD ONLY!" it said.

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My first high-end components were this amp and the B&W Matrix 1s. I bought them as a present for myself after I got my first job, at Harvard. I actually had intended to buy a pair of Magnepans, which I'd heard at the Goodwins Audio store in Cambridge before they moved to Commonwealth Avenue, just across the bridge over the Mass Pike from BU. But I heard these when we were at the store and decided otherwise.

(I seem to remember that there was a fire that forced Goodwins Audio to move. Also, they are a relative of, but not the same as, Goodwins High-End.)

The remainder of the system was what I'd had previously. The 3225 is an integrated amp, but it has a pre-out, so it served as the pre-amp for a bit. The B&O turntable was bought specifically because it was impervious to vibration, and I lived on a street with a lot of truck traffic that caused my previous 'table to skip. The CD player was a present from my brothers when I got my PhD, about the same time. The actual present was money, inside a card that said "CD Only!" At the time, that seemed like the right idea. It would be a few years before I realized the scam that CDs really were.

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Somewhere around this time, I needed some speaker cable and so wandered into a stereo shop—in fact, the Stereo Shop—near where I was then living, on Massachusetts Avenue in Arlington MA. I was shocked to discover that they had speaker cable for $5 a foot or more! I fled in terror but would soon be back, intrigued by some other things I'd seen there.....

I would shortly thereafter buy a bunch of Audioquest Ruby, with which I'd learn to build my own RCA cables (ripped out due to a re-wire the shop was doing), and some Audioquest Forest speaker cable.

Power cords were, and would long remain, generic.

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After a few years, I decided to go for a real pre-amp. I had a owned a few NAD products by then and liked and trusted them. The phono stage was really, really good, too.

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The B&O was not much of a turntable. This one was better and at least made it possible to use a variety of cartridges. It came with the Premier MMT arm, and the Blue Point Special was very highly praised at that time. Bought at the wonderful Q Audio near MIT, since departed.

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My first decent cartridge and first moving-coil. It was Stereophile's Budget Component of the Year in 1993. Wonderfully detailed, it has since gone through a number of updates, and a cartridge by this name can still be bought.

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By this time, I'd realized that the Technics CD player really did not sound like music. It was tiring to listen to it, and vinyl was vastly superior. But vinyl was disappearing fast at this point; much new music was only available on CD. So I needed a decent CD player. The CAL DX-1 was it, and an excellent value. I liked it so much that, some years later, I bought another one for my secondary system.

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At this point, I had pretty much caught the high-end bug, and each new component made me want to upgrade the other ones. The NAD wasn't bad, but by no means was it a truly high-end component, or even up to the rest of what I had at that point. The Classé Thirty came in used—my local shop carried Classé—so I took it home to try it out. It didn't go back.

Like the NAD, it had a really terrific phono stage. And a really transparent sound for the money.

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Now we're talkin'! I've always been a big fan of Adcom and have owned a number of Adcom amps over the years (and even own one now (as of 2020), a GFA-5400 I use to drive Monitor Audio Radius speakers on my patio). But, as good as the Adcoms are for the money, they're...limited (though the ones designed by Nelson Pass are especially good). The KSA-80B is an absolute beast of an amplifier. 100W per channel into 8 ohms capable of 800W per channel into 1 ohm. The Matrix 1s needed a lot of power, and the Krell really made them sing. Amazingly, I ended up selling it for a fair bit more than I paid for it.

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My first really high-end turntable. The SME IV arm with which it came was ridiculously good, probably too good for this table. One great thing about the table was that it could be upgraded, and I did that several times over the years.

Thanks to my friend Bart Wise for calling me after he'd seen this table at an audio shop in Brookline! (Can't recall the name of the store.) Bart knew I'd love it, and he was right. And it really was a great deal with the arm, which goes for around $1500 these days. I don't think I paid much more for the whole package.

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A big step up from the B&Ws. My local high-end shop^* carried Thiel, and I lusted after these for a long time before they decided to sell their demos. They threw an enormous soundstage and had wonderful imaging, though they were a little bass shy, due to their size.

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^*I'll refer to this 'shop' several times below. It was on Mass Ave in Arlington Heights and went through several name and ownership changes. Originally, it was The Stereo Shop, then Ensemble (I think), and then maybe something else. The one constant, for me, was Paul Chambers, who worked there and became my personal high-end audio advisor. That store eventually closed, and Paul went to work at Goodwins High End, in Waltham MA. If you need or want audio help in the Boston area, talk to Paul. He'll do you right. And tell him Riki sent you (though he would have known me as Richard).

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The Lapis was my first truly high-end cable, which of course means I had gone way off the deep end. I bought quite a lot of it, used, and re-terminated it, so as to have it both for the long run from the pre-amp to the amp and for the shorter source-to-preamp runs. It came from what was then the Stereo Shop, in Arlington Heights. (I also bought a lot of Audioquest Ruby, which they had used for the in-store runs in the listening rooms, and re-terminated that for my own use, as well.)

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You might get the idea that I became a Krell nut for a while. You'd be right. I was addicted to the clean, crisp sound of the Krell electronics (which were also carried by my local dealer). The KPE phono stage was run from the same power supply as the KRC-2, via an umbilical.

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My local dealer became a Pass Labs dealer when the first Pass amps, the Aleph 0s, came out. I was blown away by how warm and musical the amps were but couldn't afford them until, once again, they took pity upon me and sold me one of their demos. After getting the CS 1.5s, I no longer needed the tremendous power of the Krell and was able to make do with the 60W output of the Aleph 5. I would keep this amp for over a decade, using it in my secondary system after acquiring the Aleph 2s and only selling it when I bought an XA-30.5 for the secondary system.

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I can't quite remember why I decided to upgrade the Blue Point Special. Probably it was just because the rest of the system had improved so much, especially the turntable and tonearm. The Benz had a wonderful midrange and very airy top end and mated very well with the SME IV arm.

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In 1997, Meridian was the company doing amazing things with digital. This was the first CD player I had that made CDs sound like music. It was also the last CD player I had. I never found anything else that was both better and reasonably priced.

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The Aleph 5 set me on a path from which I've barely deviated: My days as a Krell junkie were over, and my days as a Pass junkie had begun. This was the next acquisition: the matching pre-amp. It's hard to describe how wonderful it was, and still is. Musical, quiet...just a great pre-amp.

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The KPE was originally powered off the KRC-2. With that gone, I needed a phono stage, so bought the separate power supply for the KPE. That would not last long.

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My local dealer got the matching Pass phono stage on trade. Now all the electronics in my system were Pass, except for the CD player. Pass never made one of those, or I'm sure I would have had it, too.

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Somewhere along the way I got a better power conditioner for the VPI and did the Mk IV upgrade. I used the leftover parts to build another HW-19, roughly a Mk III, to use in my secondary system.

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Careful observers will note that the picture is the same as for the Aleph 5. That is because the 2s and 5 are built in exactly the same case. The 2s are just mono amps (so you want a pair), whereas the 5 is a stereo amp. The 5 does 60W into 8 ohms, whereas the 2s do 100W. Many fans of these amps think the 2s are the best of the Aleph amps: the place that the circuit performs its best. I haven't heard the Aleph 1.2s, except a couple times at my local dealer, but I've heard most of the rest, and I'd be hard-pressed to disagree. I'll be buried with these.

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I'd seen and heard the update to the 1.5s at my dealer, and my wife Nancy somehow managed to arrange for me to review them for a magazine in (I think) New Zealand. They were every bit as good as I'd hoped they would be, and I bought the review pair. One of the things I really loved about them was how extended and natural the top end was. They also had pretty good bass for their size (and cost).

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FMS was a legendary interconnect, epsecially in New England. It was built by Alex Gibson, who was responsible for many of the early Audioquest designs. The Nexus 2 was their top of the line cable at the time. I found the Zero used, in quantity, and (as usual) chopped it up according to my needs.

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A relatively minor upgrade, mostly because I'd gotten tired of walking across the room to change the volume. This version also had a more sophisticated volume control generally and incorporated some tweaks to the circuitry that made it just that little bit quieter and more delicate. (The newer Pass pre-amps of this period, the X series, were not my cup of tea. Or, as far as I can tell, many people's. They do not command the same sums on the used market.)

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I loved the SME arm, but I found it very difficult to set VTA with it. As a result, I wanted to get an arm that allowed you to adjust VTA on the fly. I'd also heard and read wonderful things about this arm, so I looked for one at a decent price for a long time. That finally happened. It may not have had as good bass as the SME, but the midrange and top end were much better. Fifteen years later (as of this writing), and I've still got this arm.

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When I moved to Canton MA in the summer of 2005, the cantilever got snapped off the Benz. I was not a happy camper. But it did lead me to try out the Shelter 501, which I'd been reading about as a 'giant killer' for some time, while the Benz was off at Soundsmith getting retipped. I did compare it to the Benz when that came back, but it didn't take long to decide what I was keeping and what was going to be sold. The Shelter just had it all over the Benz in the midrange—not a huge surprise given that it was about twice the money.

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It wasn't that I was unhappy with the Ono. But the Shelter seemed to want more gain than the Ono was giving it, and the XOno was a lot more adjustable, as well as quieter, or so Wayne Colburn—the guy who designed it—assured me. He was right. It was also just generally better. (It is two boxes because the power supply is completely separate.)

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This was a big change: the move to streaming digital music from a centralized server. I don't remember how I got into that. I'm a computer geek, so that was part of it. But how I discovered the Transporter, I'm not sure. It still is an amazing piece of equipment. The jitter is very low, or so I've been told by people who've measured it. Sadly, though, while you can still get 'new' units on EBay, these aren't being made any longer. Still, Logitech (or someone) has kept updating the Logitech Media Server, which is the software that runs on the server and, uh, serves content to the streamers. The Transporter will handle Tidal and Qobuz and such (and Roon will emulate LMS, so you can use Squeezebox clients with it). Conversely, software like max2play, which you can run on single-board computers like the ODroid or Raspberry Pi to create a super-cheap music server, runs a software client, Squeezelite, that emulates a Squeezebox. So the software, at least, isn't obsolete, though it's starting to seem like the hardware will get there soon enough. I've recently had some reliability issues, having two Transporters die on me in the last year, though my very first one is still going strong.... I hope. The Pass Digital 1 was an obvious choice for a DAC. I think I may have used an Adcom GFA-600 for a little while before coming by the D1: They had long-since been out of production at this point, but I'd heard them, and definitely wanted one. I was blown away by it when I finally found one, so much so that I ended up buuying a second one (the 48kHz version) for my second system. I checked out alternatives every once in a while, but it's a testament to how good the D1 was (and is!) that it remained in my reference system for more than a decade. For a digital component to do that is, well, kind of amazing.

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Around this time, I discovered Gotham Audio cables. After poking around a bit, I got to know Lew Frisch, then the Gotham distributor, and he offered to send me a bunch of different models with the agreement that I'd write up a review of them for him—and see for myself what all the fuss was about on the DIY boards. At the time, I was using FMS, a very boutique cable that was much sought after, especially in New England. Well, it was just no contest, and I re-wired the entire system with Gotham cable.

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With my new turntable, I decided it was time to upgrade the phono stage. As with the previous upgrade, it wasn't that I was unhappy, but when I asked Wayne Colburn, again, what he thought, he assured me that the XP-15 was a significant step up from the XOno, and he was right again. As the webpage says, "Each new design...has brought a steady improvement in measured metrics and flexibility [and] more importantly the evolution has contributed to a more robust sonic image presented with improved resolution and additional sonic ease." Couldn't have said it better myself!

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After re-wiring the entire system with Gotham cable, I found out that the harshness in the upper midrange and lower treble on which some reviewers of the Thiel CS 1.6s had commented really was there. So it was time for new speakers, and I eventually settled on these (in Wenge, as in the picture), which I bought as demos from the distributor, who was in Connecticutt. I liked them so much that I later bought their little brothers, the ACT A2s, for the second system. They are quite sensitive (91.5 dB), have a tremendous midrange and top end, and do pretty well in the bass, too (-3dB at 39 Hz). What they don't have—what no speakers, so far as I've been able to tell, in this price range have—is real dynamic range and power, i.e., the ability to play (even if only for the brief moment when the stick hits the drum) really loud without distortion.

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It wasn't moving this time. It was our cleaners, whom I'd told to stay away from the stereo equipment. The usual people who cleaned the house were great about it. But they weren't always who showed up. And, this time, someone seems to have decided to dust the turntable and goodbye cantilever! So off the Shelter went to Soundsmith to be re-tipped. And, while it was gone, I figured I'd try something very different: A low output moving magnet cartridge from Grado. (I also thought about the Soundsmith moving iron cartridges but read that they do not always play well with VPI platters.) Oh my! I'd heard that moving magnets had gorgeous midrange, and that was definitely true of this one.

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After the Aleph 2s got re-capped (see nearby) , it seemed only logical that the Aleph P should get the same treatment. While it went back to see Daddy, I'd be needing a pre-amp to tide me over (as I'd needed power amps while the 2s were away).

I thought about trying a tube pre-amp, but I'd learned during my amp experiments that I needed a pre-amp with balanced outputs (and an amp with balanced inputs). The cables from pre-amp to amp were 30 feet long (and are now 45 feet long). When using single-ended cables, we were getting some horrific noise in the evenings, noise that disappeared when I went back to balanced cables. (It appears that this part of Providence has some pretty bad RF noise. But it's impressive proof of the value of balanced connections.) But most of the tube pre-amps I was seeing, and could afford, had only single-ended outputs. Most Pass gear, by contrast, has balanced inputs and outputs, so it only seemed natural to check out a newer-model Pass preamp. I eventually found an XP-20—one generation old, but in perfect condition—and so bought it from a fellow audiofool up in Massachusetts.

Now having gotten the Aleph P back, I'm not surprised that the XP-20 really is a lot better than the P. But not as much better as you might think. They are clearly members of the same family, so it's mostly that the XP-20 is just a better Aleph P: What the P does well, it does well, but better. They're both very tubey, but without the high-end roll-off that you often get with tubes. And they're both much quieter.

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The Aleph 2 manual says:

While the design is conservative, this is a hard running amplifier, as single ended Class A operation is the least efficient operating mode.^* In fifteen years the electrolytic power supply capacitors will get old. Depending on usage, you will begin to have semiconductor and other failures between 10 and 50 years after date of manufacture. Later, the sun will cool to a white dwarf, and after that the universe will experience heat death.

By 2019, my Aleph 2s were about 20 years old. I hadn't noticed any significant degradation, but it seemed like time to get the power caps replaced. While they were gone, I was going to need something else to drive my speakers. My first thought was to try some newer Pass amps, specifically, the XA-60.5s. (I'd had an XA-30.5 for a while, which I mostly used in my secondary system but had sold after we moved to Providence.) I bought a pair from a scammer on EBay that, unfortunately, turned out not to exist—it was a scam—but, fortunately, I got my money back from EBay. So it took a while.

I eventually decided to take the opportunity to play with tube amps and, having long been blown away by my friend and collaborator Robert May's VTL Signature MB-450s, figured I might as well try some VTLs. I bought a pair of VTL MB-125s (in the original chassis) and, quite impressed by those but wanting some more power, bought these MB-185s (again, Series I, in the original chassis). They are really good amps, surprisingly similar in sound to the Alephs (though those are often compared to tube amps, so maybe it isn't all that surprising).

For those who are interested, I'm using new Tungsol 6550 power tubes, some old Sylvania 6350s for the input stage, and NOS Mullard CV 4024s (= 12AT7s) for the drivers. (I buy my tubes from Upscale Audio and Viva Tubes, which is in western Massachusetts.) The amps came with Svetlana 6550s, a mix of Winged Cs and newer models, but one of those cracked in transit. (The guy who sold them to me thought it was a good idea to put foam over the tubes and leave them in place.) I was able to get a new Svetlana easily enough, but have not had time to do a real comparision. But Robert, who has done a lot of comparing, tells me that the Tungsols are the best current-production 6550s. Which is why I bought them. I've also got some Brimar 4024s and some new production (Russian) TungSol 12AT7s, and I've got some RCA 6350s on the way that I found on EBay. I've not really sat down to do a serious comparison, though.

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^* The Aleph 2s draw 300W each whenever they are on, and whether they are playing music or not. So, if they're not playing music, almost all of that power gets dissipated as heat. So they double as space heaters. OK in the winter, not so good in the summer. All that amounts to a lot of stress on the parts, especially the power transistors. (Then again, these things produce nothing like the heat the the KSA-80B did!)

^**The folks at Pass didn't just re-cap them. They upgraded parts and, most impressively, changed out parts so as to make the two amps, which have very different serial numbers and were built at very different times, 'identical'. (Fortunately, that does not mean that the amps went through fusion so that I was left with just one.) They even replaced the dimming LED that indicates "power on" in one of the amps. And here's the really amazing thing: They charged me for the cost of the new power caps, and for shipping, but nothing else. Try getting that kind of service on some mass-market product.

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Not a huge upgrade from the XP-15, but I'd had that one for ten years, and Reno HiFi was running a good deal on these. And it is better, just not hugely so. The real question is whether I should, at some point, try an XP-25 or XP-27. If I ever get (or build) a turntable with two tonearms, then that will be the time, since those have two inputs.

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Many years ago—it must have been around 1995 or so—I had the opportunity to hear the Pass Aleph 1.2 monoblocks at my local stereo store in Arlington MA. They were amazing. Ever since then, I've wanted to own a pair, but back then that was totally out of the question, for the obvious financial reasons. Sadly, by the time I was able to consider such purchase, they were all but unobtainable. I've kept my eyes open for years and thought I'd found a pair last year, but the seller wanted to sell them with something else I didn't need. I thought I'd found another pair earlier this year, but that seems to have been a scam, basically. Finally, in mid-September, a mint pair went on sale on Audiogon. I hemmed and hawed about whether I really wanted to spend that kind of money, having recently made so many other upgrades. But life is short, and that seems all the more true these days.

These are truly huge amps: about 17"x17"x11" and over 100lbs each. And they are worth every penny. The overall sound is, unsurprisingly, similar to the other (two-stage) Aleph amps, of which I've now owned all but the Aleph 4, which really is unobtainable. (The Aleph 0s were a somewhat different, three-stage design, as were the Aleph 1s.) But the additional power, at least with the Contour 60s, makes a huge difference. Bass is so much more robust than with the Aleph 2s, and transients are just amazing (certainly a result of improved dynamics). And I don't feel like I've lost much, if anything, in the midrange. Just fantastic amps.

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It's obvious from the foregoing that I've been privileged to own some really great equipment over the years, and the changes made over the last two years, especially, have taken the entire system to another level. But it occurred to me a while ago that, while I've owned some very good cartridges, I've never really owned a great cartridge. And, honeslty, I've probably skimped on cartridges and spent my money elsewhere. Partly that's because I've never felt comfortable buying used cartridges—they're the one thing I've always bought new—and partly because (okay, I'll admit it) it always seemed a bit crazy to spend a huge amount of money on something that would wear out as quickly as a cartridge (or, at least, the stylus).

But (a) cartridges can be re-tipped (in fact, I've had quite a few re-tipped and even re-built after accidents) and (b) expensive cartridges tend to be taken care of by their owners and can last for a very long time. So I've been looking for a while for a really great used cartridge. It has turned out to be surprisingly difficult to find one, or at least to settle upon one. My first inclination was to try a better Grado, as I've been really happy with the Statement Master. But no luck there. I also kept looking at Soundsmith cartridges. I'd had some experience with them, since they'd re-tipped or rebuilt two cartridges for me, and I was impressed by the way they talk about cartridges on their website. I looked at some Zephyrs and Pauas but eventually stumbled upon this one. It had many advantages: (i) It had 39 (!) hours on it and was examined through a jeweler's loupe after every record; (ii) It can be re-tipped or rebuilt for just over 10% of the original list price; (iii) It was just a tad over half the original list price. That's still a lot of money, but I figured this could well be the last cartridge I ever buy. So I went for it.

I've not had it long enough yet to have formed much of an impression other than WOW!! But there is a delicacy, a realism, to the music that is extremely impressive. I'll guess that much of it has to do with micro-dynamics and what Soundsmith claims is some of the best shielding in the business. Given my experience with the importance of shielding with cables, that might well be.

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My friend and frequent collaborator Robert May has had one of these for a while, and I've been impressed when I've heard it in his (totally amazing) system. But I've been very happy with the Pass Digital 1. I'd never found anything that was at all reasonably priced (e.g., under $5K) and at all better (let alone significantly better), even though I'd compared it to a lot of highly praised DACs over the years (e.g., the Berkeley Alpha DAC). So I was happy where I was.

But, recently, I bought a Benchmark DAC-1 USB for use in my second system and decided to compare it, just for fun, to the Digital 1. The result? A total toss-up. Once I'd equalized the levels (easy, since both have volume controls), I simply could not reliably hear a difference between them. And that made me really wonder what a 'giant killer' like the Yggdrasil might do. I'm reluctant to draw any strong conclusions yet, as I've only got 20 hours or so of listening in so far. But the difference is suprisingly subtle, and yet very noticeable. The most obvious place it manifests is in soundstage depth, but there's delicacy to the instruments that's equally impressive. One way to put it might be to say that the Yggy makes the D1 sound analytical, which is weird, since the D1 is not at all analytical, compared to most digital gear. (That's why I've loved it for so long.) Or, to put it differently, the Yggy sounds more analog.

I still think Pass should make another DAC. It'd be a killer. But, for now, the Yggy will do.

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When I bought the XP-20, I went to the seller's house in Massachusetts to pick it up (so as to save the shipping costs). While there, I had a chance to listen to his system: I'm not sure what the digital source was, but he had a Pass XP-22 preamp (the updated version of the XP-20); Pass XA-160.8 amps (insanely powerful amps based on roughly the same circuit as the XA-30.5 I'd had before); and Magico S3 speakers (a current rave review by many outlets, listing for roughly $25K a pair). I was totally blown away by the realism. For weeks, I couldn't get it out of my mind and kept trying to figure out what exactly was missing in my system. I slowly came to the conclusion that it was dynamic range—and that it was time for new speakers. As I put it to my partner, Nancy, we've long had really good speakers, but we've never had great speakers, or even (to be honest) speakers that were up to the level of the rest of the system. We have a great space now in which to have big, powerful speakers. So, if we're ever going to do it, now is the time.

It's worth adding that, while not much high-end audio gear counts as an investment, it does tend to hold its value reasonably well. I have actually made money on components, such as the Krell KSA-80B and a 'bonus' pair of Aleph 2s (long story). I've broken even on much more. And even if I don't break even, the actual cost of ownereship is often miminal. Take the XOno for example. I don't remember the details exactly, but I paid something like $2000 for it and sold it for something like $1500 nine years later, so it cost me less than about $50 a year to own (plus inflation). A pretty damn good deal if you ask me.

Anyway, I looked for quite a long time for new speakers. I find it difficult to buy speakers without hearing them, as they have such a huge effect on the sound. I looked, online, at a number of options: Dynaudio, Focal, Sonus Faber (a favorite for a while), DeVore, and Zu Audio. I'm not entirely sure why I chose Dynaudio. I'd been impressed with their speakers when I'd heard them in stores, and the reviews were impressive too. But, to some extent, it was a matter of what seemed to be available on the used market for a reasonable price. I found some used Contour 60s, a current model, in very good condition, and in the gorgeous rosewood finish, so I went for it.

The speakers shipped freight: They weigh 115 pounds each, and the packaging weighs 77 pounds, for a total of 192 lbs per speaker. (The BC Acoustique ACT A2.5s weigh about 90 lbs each, actually.) It took a long time to unpack them, and Nancy got a painful 115 lb speaker sliding out of a box and onto her toe along the way. But once we'd gotten the speakers set up, we were both utterly astonished at how good they are. The dynamic range, as I've intimated, is just ridiculous, and it gives good recordings a sense of realism I've only heard in the very best systems.

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Pandemic-land brought changes, which included a need to do some headphone listening. I'd for some time been using Grado SR-60s, which are perfectly decent headphones, driven through the headphone output of the Tascam recorder. But the more such listening I did, the more it seemed like time for an upgrade. So I bought some Focal Elear headphones and, to tide me over, a Schiit Magni headphone amp. My intention, all along, was to build one of Wayne Colburn's WHAMMY headphone amps, which turns out to be wonderful!

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If you look above at the comments on the XP-17, it talks about wanting to try this one, especially if I should ever get a 'table with two tonearms. Well, I'm planning to build such a beast this summer. And, what do you know, but I should find this lovely little unit on US Audio Mart the day it was advertised, and at a very reasonable price. And wow, is it worth it! As great as the XP-17 is, this is even better.

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My original intention was to swap armtubes for the stereo and mono cartridges. But this turns out to be a bit of a pain, too much of a pain, basically. So I decided to get a second arm and, at some point, build a new turntable that will have two tonearms. I looked around a bit before settling on this one: a Koetsu arm to match the Koetsu mono cartridge. Gorgeous, isn't it?

Honestly, I'm not sure how long I'll keep it. It does not seem to have effective anti-skating, which leads to the mono image being offset to the left (which is the inner groove). But it is very good otherwise.

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Many of the greatest records of all time, especially jazz records, were recorded before the advent of stereo recording. Other records, although later, are much better in the mono versions. The early Beatles records are the best, and best known, example: The monos were mixed by George Martin; the stereos were mixed by who knows who.

I've been wanting for a long time, therefore, to try a good mono cartridge. I've heard very good things about them, especially, how timbrally pure they are. But two things held me back: (i) It is a royal pain in the ass to change cartridges if you are going to set them up properly; (ii) Finding a mono cartridge that is both good and (reasonably) affordable is not that easy.

The Graham 2.2 tonearm has interchangable armtubes so, in principle, (i) could be overcome. But finding another armtube was also very difficult. By luck, though, I stumbled across one several months ago. Of course, not everything can work out right, ever. This one was designed, I'm pretty sure, for the Nightingale cartridge, and it is not possible to adjust the alignment of the cartridge in the headshell. (It may also have been intended for the 2.2s that had the so-called 'SME mount'.) But, on the other hand, I have a DIY turntable, so I can build a new armboard that will set the alignment properly.

On a third hand, though, shortly thereafter, I bought the Hyperion. And that made finding a mono cartridge that would be anything like comparable (and not insanely expensive) even harder I mean, the Hyperion is going to sound a lot better, I would think, than any $1500 mono cartridge. But, luck being on my side again, I managed to find a Rosewood Signature Platinum for 'just' $1550. (It lists for $9000!) The guy who had it was a collector, but he'd never used it, and figured that a mono cartridge would be hard to sell. In any event, I could not let the opportunity pass.

And it really is wonderful. Yes, you lose the obvious things with mono. But damn if instruments don't sound a whole lot more real than they do even with the Hyperion.

And it is a stunningly beautiful cartridge, to boot.

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I loved the Elears so much that, when I found a good deal on a pair of Utopias (the top of Focal's line), I jumped. Part of why they were such a good deal is that they didn't come with the standard Utopia cable as the previous owner used them for 'portable' listening. But I can make my own cable, right? The only trick there is that some fairly obscure Lemo connectors are used to, uhh, connect the cable to the Utopias. (The Elears just use standard 2.5mm mono plugs on that end.) But I was able to identify the connectors thanks to the internet, and they can be had from Mouser, though they do not come cheap (about $30 each, so $60 for a set of headphone cables)!

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We sold the VTLs, sensibly. We really just do not need two such great amps, especially when they are so big!

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As said above, I wasn't thrilled with the Koetsu because of the lack of anti-skate adjustment. So once the new table was built, I started looking for a new arm. Why this one? I'm not sure, other than that (a) I've been impressed with Origin Live for a while and (b) this one has gotten some really fantastic reviews. So, well, we'll see!

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I was so impressed with the Koetsu mono cartridge that I had to try a stereo one as well. This is not quite as extreme as that one, being the Rosewood Signature, but not with the platinum magent. But it is glorious. I haven't really compared it directly to the Hyperion ES, but my overall sense is that it is every bit as good, if different.

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The Logitech Transporter finally died. I tried another one, but then it died within about six months. So I'm now doing what my friend Robert May has been doing for a while: Using a single-board computer as a music renderer. In my case, that's a Raspberry Pi that's running the Max2Play operating system. That allows the Pi to appear as a Squeezebox, so I can continue to use the Squeezecenter software on the music server.

I used the USB output from the Pi for a while but am now using the Pi2AES 'hat', which provides an AES/EBU three-pin output (as well as Toslink and BNC). This is no longer made, but there's a replacement now.

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When I was a kid, I was just amazed by reel-to-reel tape decks, and I always wanted one. And after I became aware of the high-quality tapes of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and Ballads that have been made available by Analogue Productions, I knew I had to hear them. So I bought a lovingly restored Technics RS-1500US, which was very likely one of the decks that had caught my eye back in the day. Tapes are not easy to come by, but I have some good ones, mostly classical, and am looking forward to eventually hearing the Coltrane. Unfortunately, it turned out that the equalization used on the Technics (NAB) is not the same as what was used on those tapes (IEC), so I've had to build a kind of converter. I'm hoping (as of March 2024) to be able to check it out soon!

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My wife Nancy found the phone-based controller for the Logitech Media Center devices to be hard to use, so I picked up something simpler: A Bluesound Node. The sound is perfectly fine, though not, I think, as good as with the Raspberry Pi, but I haven't compared them that closely. Still, there's no denying the convenience of the Node, with its full integration of various streaming services and internet radio. And the app is easy to use.

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I did some comparisons between the Hyperion ES and the Rosewood Signature. I found that I much preferred the Hyperion. So I decided I should try something else. The guy from whom I'd purchased the Koetsu always has a lot of cartridges for sale on US Audio Mart, so I wrote him for advice. We ended up working out a trade (plus some cash) for this cartridge: the top of the line from the Dutch cartridge builder A.J. van den Hul. This one is special, even by the lofty standards of the Colibri: It has a platinum magnet, hence the XPW. There appear not to have been many of these made.

How does it sound? Incredible, as you might expect for a cartridge that retails at over $10,000. What's most striking is how pure and natural the top end is. I've never heard anything like it. In some ways, it almost sounds as if it would be bright, but it's not: It's just a lot more high-end detail. And yet, when I threw on my worst treble torture tests, it more than passed. Somehow, it manages to be smooth and detailed at the same time.

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