I love the simple clean elegance of the Concept. The wood & black go so well together and the splash of red from your cartridge on that field of black looks so nice. I had ordered a CA Concept Active with a built-in phono preamp stage. I opted for the black plinth since I felt the wood plinth, while beautiful, would stand out too much in the sea of black around it. Ironically when the Concept Active was still unavailable after 10 months, I ended up with my EAT C-Sharp with a white plinth. The $500 savings over the black plinth helped make up for the price difference. But so much for not standing out. Appearance is subjective, for me looking at your turntable when it comes to appearances I must say: While I like the appearance of the C-Sharp a lot, I think I like the appearance of the Concept best of all the TT's I have seen.
Thanks for commenting on my picture/turntable. Yes, I agree. The Concept is really an absolutely clean concept. Its design is interesting, modern and classical at the same time. I didn't know your EAT C-Sharp and just looked it up. Yes, a really nice TT, but if you want me to be honest, I also like the Clearaudio Concept more. Clearaudio and Cleardesign But I'm sure they are both fun!
Thanks tyinkc. Congrats to you as well! I couldn't be happier with the performance of the turntable. I never knew vinyl could sound this good and this quiet. I am curious which cartridge you are using with your C-Sharp? I thought I was getting the Ortofon Quintet Black and I was a bit disappointed when I saw it came with EAT's first cartridge offering, the Joe No. 5. Despite my initial misgivings, it turns out this is an excellent cart. too. Very quiet and nicely detailed.
Nice table and cartridge, but didn't anyone tell you to clean that big dustball dragging from the stylus before snapping the beauty shot?
I noticed it later, but I was too lazy to take another shot and too excited I discovered imgur! Now that I know how to post pics, expect more from me
I am auditioning a Dynavector XV-1s cartridge at home on my Clearaudio Ovation with Universal tonearm. It's a gently used (couple hundred hours) trade-in at my dealer. I am considering it to upgrade from my Clearaudio Concerto V2. I really, really like what I hear so far. Yesterday I played some jazz, folk and rock after installing and setting it up. Today I'm playing some orchestral music. It's very impressive. I am running it through my Herron phonostage set to 60db gain and 47KΩ loading. The cartridge output is .3 mV, so I'm going to ask Keith Herron what he thinks about reconfiguring the phonostage for 68 db gain. He told me earlier it should work just fine for .3 mV that way it is, but I'm curious if going to the higher gain might make a positive difference.
Keith Herron designs his phonostage to run wide open (no loading) or at 47KΩ (minimal loading) for low LOMC cartridges. I've been running my Concerto V2 like that (i.e. 47KΩ) for years. If I run with more loading (e.g. 470Ω or 300Ω) it sounds dull and unmusical by comparison. At 47KΩ it is not too bright, as might suspect it would be with a SS phonostage. In fact, in the manual for my Concerto, Clearaudio recommends 300Ω loading for a SS phonostage and 47KΩ for a tube phonostage. If I were using a SS phonostage, I would probably try loading in the range of 200-500Ω. Here are the specifications for the cartridge if you're interested.
Yes, the more I listen the more I can't believe what he's accomplished with these. If you have a Gyro or Orbe with the standard suspension it is being pretty severely handicapped relative to the performance you'll get with these.
You can contact Peter Newby through the Art of Sound forum. I don't like putting out personal email addresses online so I will PM you. B
Is that a record weight on the outside of the record? Or a 10 inch record? Never seen that. Very nice set up by the way.