Question for Mr. Humorem: your reference system for qualifying better records

Re: Re: Question for Mr. Humorem: your reference system for qualifying better records

I also have Aries with VPI JWM. I have tried the combination of BrightStar sandbox with plint cut-out for the motor on top of Aurios and like it a lot. When replacing the Aurios with Vibraplane, it's a whole different ball-game. Better bass, more details, more relaxing sound. But I have not tried the Aurios under the motor.
Seems like a good idea. I think without a good stand, you can throw vibration control tweaks out of the window.

 

Blame yourself or someone like you

Added 3/6, if I may. Triplanar arm coming to replace the JMW in a month or two, as soon as I have enough money to justify a $3200 tonearm!

BTW: I spent easily 20 hours dialing in all the adjustments for that arm and my old Benz cartridge. You know what records are the hardest to reproduce? Old Mercury and RCA and London classical recordings. They have dynamics and soundstage and brass transients and the like that make remasters and anything from the last 25 years pale in comparison. Get some and try to play them. It's hard!

A bit of theory here too.

When a record doesn't sound "right", for any reason, in any way, the first impulse is to blame the record for whatever fault you hear.

This is an unproductive approach, IMO.

Blame yourself first. (Blame your stereo anyway.)

Why? If the record is at fault, it can't be fixed. If the stereo is not doing its job right in reproducing that record, that's another story. One leads to progress and the other doesn't. IMO.

Of course there are bad records. (I went around and around with someone on the forum over a similiar issue and won't belabor the point much further.)

Over the years, literally hundreds of records that seemed to have many faults and shortcomings have shown themselves to be in reality wonderful recordings with few shortcomings. The faults were in the stereo, because the records sure didn't change!

Blaming the record lets you off the hook. Blaming the stereo makes you work harder to address the problems you encounter. One leads to better sound and the other doesn't. (One sings and the other doesn't.)

"I have adopted this and made it my own.
Cut back on weakness, reinforce what is strong.
Watch me work..."

Anybody care to name that lyric?

(Why is Patricia Barber popular with audiophiles? Easy to reproduce. Five times too much echo (digital echo at that, ugh) so that if you can get half of it off the record you think you really accomplished something, erroneously of course.

But try making Bing Crosby sound like a living breathing person in front of you. That's hard. For those of you without tubes I believe it's impossible. Argue all you want, that's what I believe. I haven't heard any transistors do it for five years and don't expect to in the next five either.)

Anyway, that's enough lecturing for today.

Signing off,
TP

 

Re: Re: Re: Question for Mr. Humorem: your reference system for qualifying better records

What did you pay for that bad boy by the way?
TP

 

Re: Blame yourself or someone like you

I can't stand listening to vocals, strings, pianos with Krell. On the other hand, I do miss the bass power that Krell delivers. It kinda punches me in the stomach and for some music, it's a must. Eventually, I settled with all analog system, LP + tubes electronics + tube power amp.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Question for Mr. Humorem: your reference system for qualifying better records

I bought it used and got a deal that I could not refuse. Total was $700.00 including shipping (and that boy weights 150 lbs).

 

Aurios, Tiptoes and Tigers, oh my!

If by stand you mean the thing that goes between the turntable and the floor, this is very wrong. IMO.

You can put your table on Aurios and set it on the floor and get much better sound than having it on any stand I ever heard without Aurios(or their equivalent.)

The vibration control works to get the vibrations OUT of the turntable, not to keep them from coming IN. The motor spins, the platter spins--these are vibrating like crazy, not the world. (The world is vibrating but that is maybe 10% of the problem IMO.)

With Aurios you don't use tiptoes. Why? Tiptoes act as a barrier for vibration. Why isn't that good? Because the vibrations are barred from leaving, not arriving, by the action of the tiptoes!

Anyone with tiptoes under your table, try this cheap experiment:

Take them off and replace them with an appropriately sized (whatever that means) piece of wood. You may find the sound is "more natural". I did.

Tiptoes have a sound, a coloration if I may. It may be good or bad in your system. But you won't know what it is if you don't hear your turntable without it, now will you?

This is also axiomatic in audio. IMO.

TP

 

Re: Re: Blame yourself or someone like you

LPCD2001,

Funny you should mention Krell! I used to be the West Coast Showroom for Legacy. (Big deal.)

A guy brought over his $12K Krell preamp and amp, and we unhooked my Macs and solid state bass amp from the Whispers and let the games begin.

He brought with him the usual audiophile trash (!) like Dire Straits and Diane Krall, music with zero breath of life, phony studio sound up the ying yang, and worse. (I won't have that kind of stuff in the house so if you don't bring it with you, you out a luck.)

Then I played for him one of my all time favorite demo discs: Frankie Laine, The Mercury Years, with tracks recorded in 1948, mono, three ribbon mikes, all tube of course, excellent transfer, a CD to die for if there ever was one. Whispers recreate those live musicians standing in that room better than any other speaker in my experience. (That's why I own them, duh.)

It sounded so bad, so dead, so bereft of life, he actually turned to me and said "I'll bet this sounds better on your Macs."

Then we played more audiophile trash and he went on his happy way.

The moral of this story?

Bass slam? You can have it.

Breath of life? That's for me.

TP

 

you're right... KRELL preamps were poor! I had the dual-mono preamp in my system a couple years ago, and I have replaced the KRELL thru a JEFF ROWLAND Coherence II. What a difference... and the ROWLAND delivered the breath of life!

Unfortunately I have never heard a tube poweramp, who played right in my ears... and I heard Jadis, Manley, VTL and others. But the Macs are really good, BUT I don't like the design!

 

Re: Re: Question for Mr. Humorem: your reference system for qualifying better records

Thank you Enid Lumley j/k

 

Re: Aurios, Tiptoes and Tigers, oh my!

Due to pets and small kids, I have not tried the floor as my stand but I think you are right. Vibraplane recommends that it's best to place the Vibraplane on a slab of marble on the floor. HW of VPI also recommends putting VPI on sandbox to absorb vibrations from the TT and motor. Talking about the vibrations, I have not tried removing the tip-toes of VPI Aries. But I did cut off the plint so that the tiptoes and the motors rest on INDEPENDENT pieces. It's kind of independent suspensions . I recalled this trick clears up the sound quite a bit. I also placed Sorbothane underneath the tiptoes but after a day, this layer of Sorbothane was squashed underneath the weight of VPI.

 

Try it without the tiptoes. You might really like it.

And Enid was too mainstream for me.

TP

 

Re: Aurios, Tiptoes and Tigers, oh my!

Oh, one more tweak and I have a love-hate relationship with this tweak.

It does *not* seem to me that the phono cables of the JMW tonearm are well protected from EFI or EMI. Unfortunately, my house and my neighborhood in Silicon Valley would be the capitol of EFI or EMI.

So I bought MuMetal sheets, used the coat hanger to build a frame of three planes, and then attached the Mu-Metal to the frame. I then attached the frame to the sandbox, covering the bare phono cables.

Voila, a lot and I meant lots of lots details are now audible. The sound is warmer and fuller and has more presence. But I suspect the MuMetal does alter the sound, depending on how close it is to the wire. I asked earlier in this forum if the voice of Roby Orbinson in DCC re-issue is colored. It has the zzzzz (my vocabulary escaped me) and it bothered me to no end. No body seems to complain and thus it could be just my system. But I did not hear this colorization with Nat King Cole The Very Thought of You DCC re-issue. Anyway, I live with this tweak because I like the outcome overall. Someday, I will unplug 4 computers and 2 teevees and microwares and dimmers to see if the sound improves .

 

Amish approved reference system?

Instead of unplugging everything in the house just get one of these. Need a needle, file down a 6 penny finishing nail or whittle one out of a toothpick. It doesn't get any more analog than this folks...

 

Interesting.

 

Tom

i'm interested in this theory about getting the vibrations out of the turntable because it makes sense but what if there is vibration feed back coming from the speakers through my wooden floors. when i put tiptoes (i guess thats what i have) under my turntable the bass tightened up considerably but this i reckon was getting the vibration feed back out how do i achieve both aims.

 

You need much more mass under your table (100+ pounds) and Aurios, my friend.
TP

 

Double cream or fudge aurios?

My wife was really pi#*ed at the mess I made trying it with the regular ones......