My money is on the Ayre being top dog.... but this hobby/obsession is all about personal preference. I personally could never run two or more systems.. seems like cheating on a lover with a bit on the side. Love one system and love it well. Peter
My rack is plenty sturdy, I just need to rearrange it for this totally unexpected gift. Remove a unused turntable and move my JVC into that position. The JVC was my pride and joy, sure hope it doesn't get hard feelings. LOL It's nice to see everyone getting their packages all in one piece. Says a lot about Peters packaging skills. Let's hope that mine arrives the same way. From my conversations with him, I'm confident that it will. BillWojo
Yep...owned an Ayre for years....best phono section I've ever heard....foolishly thought i was getting out of the vinyl thing
I know, right? But I have some gear in my closet, so im going to set it up on a different floor in the house. So you think the Ayre will win out? They both are in about the same price range new. One all tube no cir Boards..the other the complete opposite. The Icon is very organic sounding, I will see if the Ayre is organic. I suspect the Ayre will have a darker back ground because the Icon has tubei in the amp as well as floating tubes in the out board PSU. And teh Icon has a SUT....This will be fun.....this is a great part of being in this hobby! We all love sound! Thank you Peter!
Thanks to Peter, this BP26 is making music with its long lost Bryston brother... Many, many thanks @returnstackerror !! Can't wait to try out the DAC section on this thing soon to see if I can improve upon the Saturn-R.
I feel your pain! back in the day..at the advent of the EVIL CD, I sold all my records...thousands of records......thought I was done with spinning records. Well...you know how that story ends. And Ican tell you.....when you had some great Jazz, blues Rock and soul records in mint condition from back in the day that you paid less than 8$ for back then, its hard to bring yourself to replace all those great records with todays prices for remasters......its hard when you know you had great ones for under 10$.
The problem with the late 70'and especially in ,80's.....I was still in the "chasing" mode, not thinking wife....if you know what I mean!
You must have put all the records in storage? Wish I would have, perhaps if I wasn’t such a hound dog I would have had a wife to stop me.....lol.
Glad to see you, like me, like silver faceplates... and I must say it was a pleasant surprise to see the Bryston power amp hooked onto the and of the BP26. As a betting man, I also predict the DAC in the BP26 will be better than the Rega. Do you run balanced between the pre and power amp? I have been fully balanced (at least with my system... mentally is another story) since the early 2000's. Peter
I've never run balanced. As I understand it's mainly beneficial for longer runs, which I don't have to worry about.
I once, taking a gamble, brought a used Musical Fidelity Trivista SACD Player (see Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista SACD player ) Stunning looking and sounding machine (based on reviews) and the gamble.. some chip in the drive unit would die for no reason.. some units never had the problem some did... and replacement chips didnt exist. So it arrives and the drive draw was hanging out like a dogs tongue.. so had a heavy drop in transit. Got my money back via insurance but it showed that you gotta pack stuff really well, esp heavy units. Peter
THE EAGLE HAS LANDED! Turntable arrived without a scratch late this morning. I have it tentatively setup on my audio rack waiting for the tonearm package. It's beautiful, a work of art! Very massive yet the platter spins effortlessly, a lot of engineering went to the bearing. Can't wait to hear it. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Peter! Still can't believe my eyes. BillWojo
It's fine as long as I don't have to move it often, heavy, very heavy. Being a machinist I can appreciate the way it's built, rather simple but elegant at the same time. That spindle bearing is intriguing, very smooth and friction free but zero play to keep vibration and rumble from being an issue. I'm surprised it's not seen more often. Can't wait to mount up the tonearm. I have a Denon DL-103 in a potted wood body with a fine elliptical stylus that I had Steve at VAS Audio rebuild for me. I've been waiting for something special to mount it in. Think I found it! BillWojo
I will @Slippers-on , just need to figure out how to post them here. I don't use third party host services after Photo****it screwed everyone. I don't think you can post direct to the forum. BillWojo
In time! I've been working (from home, of course) all day. I have some errands to run shortly so it may be later this evening before I can get it hooked up.
Guilty as charged, sir. I’m an audio polygamist, likening experiencing different amp topologies and speaker design to wine-tasting or somesuch activity. You can bet though that I’m smiling as can be with the Bryston DAC in this system. I prefer upsampling half of the time, I think my preference depends on when the track was produced. Some ‘70’s jazz fusion sounds less artificial to me un-upsampled, but newer music like M. Ward, upsampling gives some benefits. Of all the DACs that I have (I’m an “old DAC” kinda guy), the Bryston stands to be the most resolute.
Here's the Lexicon RT-20 in its new home. First up, Roxy Music's Avalon in glorious SACD. Shout out to Peter for such a cool thing he did!
