Rauliruegas - Thanks for the VDH info.
Dear owners Koetsu RS Platinum, Van Den Hul Colibri (XGW or otherwise), Miyabi/47 Labs and Allaerts MC2 Finish - Please share your tonearm preferences and what you found to be most synergistic with your fine cartridges. Many thanks. |
sirspeedy70680 - Thanks for the tip on the AR and Steve Huntley and Great Northern Sound. A colleague has used them and is very happy with their expertise and the results. Best regards! |
Nsgarch - Great points! Yes ease of VTA/SRA adjustment are desireable tonearm features and as is a TT that can accomodate multiple arms.
If I only had to choose between the Tri-Planar or the Graham, then the former would more likely get the nod. I have heard all three tonearms you recommended. In most instances, the Graham was "clinical/mechanical" and not as involving.
Can't wait to hear from Raul. Anyone have experience with the Helius or Schroeder arm (don't know of its adjustable features) with any of these cartridges? |
Raul - Thanks for the detailed and varied response. I know this may be a longshot, but please keep me in mind if you ever want to part with one of your GST 801s or AS tt.
I invite others to add to the above suggestions. Thanks in advance. |
Nsgarch - Just curious what cartridge have you found to work best with the Tri-Planar?
Vincentkkho - Thanks for responding. Please tell us what tt you are using?
Raul - Please detail if you have any experience with the Tri-Planar. If so, was it in your system and what cartridge was used? Does its performance reach the level of those you recommended above? |
Nsgarch - Thanks for the reference on an experienced TP user.
Raul - Please further elaborate as to why the TP does not do it for you relative to the arms that do knock you out (no pun intended).
I completely agree on the importance of the phonostage. My MCP-1 is a dual mono all tube, MC amp with a 6922 and 6072 gain stages in series with RCA loading plugs and external tube regulated PS. Electron Images is/was Canada based and had two highly regarded phono stages (with the top of the line model having more user selectability than the MCP-1). Both units were desiged by a former Sonic Frontiers guy and who later was a consultant to Audio Note UK, but he is no longer with them and cannot be contacted at the moment.
The MCP-1 was always a champ in my system when it comes to dimensionality, transparency and resolution. Thanks to the help of a superb circuit designer, it has gone through extensive and necessary mods to address inherent design issues having to do with power regulation. It was somewhat lean when it first arrived from its original owner. This person did not have a tube tester so the unit also badly required retubing. Consequently, equally involved was the tube rolling required to dial in that balance between tonality and dynamics while retaining the above attributes.
The above adventures have led me to the discovery of how sonically influencial are output coupling and other signal carrying capacitors. Boy was I floored when a capacitor change (at $18 to $35 each) impacted the sonic signature significantly more than an IC, PC and tube change. To add to this madness, the sound changed over a period of 2-3 days and at even a week or two, to the point that what I preferred sonically at the outset is different once voltage and signals have passed through the new caps. Although the power regulation issues and tube/tonality have been addressed, the caps experimentation is what is currently keeping me preoccupied.
Many other units have come and gone and yet the analog is just not yet at the "reaching out and grabbing me" stage. I've had opportunity to hear the BAT VKP10SE, Air Tight ATE-2, Steelhead, Hagerman Trumpet, Groove, Basis Exclusive, Art Audio Vinyl One, and now the Whest and Ear 88pb. In my system and as you might guess, I prefered the tube units, especially the Steelhead followed by the BAT and ATE-2 (the rest were not close), but their prices were a bit steep for me at the time. Only one other unit was able to handily compete with the above preferred trio. It is also a tube based design; a MM phonostage with a cathode follower circuit and an overbuilt external PS that required the use of my Bent Audio step up device for the MCs I use. Unfortunately, it was a prototype/work in progress/experiment by a designer/solo operator who was swamped with many other higher priority orders that I simply could no longer wait. The MCP-1 came during my evaluation of the above units and was REALLY good for the price. It was flexible with its RCA loading plugs and it had ample gain for MCs with outputs as low as 1.5mV all the way up to about 0.8mV, thanks for the headroom allowed by the gain of my linestage and the input sensitivity of my amps.
I will soon receive the Wavestream Kinetics phono stage and I cannot wait! Others have suggested the Doshi full function pre but, as always, one step at a time. The VPI Aries and convenient arm wand interchangeability has allowed me to hone in on the cartridges I like. It would be great if I can complete the arm and tt upgrade before I really focus on the phono stage. Or should I do that now before I decide on the table or arm? TIA and best regards. |
Nsgarch and all - In my prevous post aboout the Tri-Planar and the Graham, I mistakenly referred to the Graham when I really meant the Brinkman tt, arm & cartridge. So this brings me to...
sirspeedy70680@'s comments - A few of our audio club members recently got together for a phono stage shootout. We began this task by deciding which tt/arm/cart we want to use. We preferred the Graham Phantom with a Shelter 90x vs. the all Brinkman setup, which was more analytical and not as involving. I forget the tt used with Phantom and 90x for now and will provide this info when I recall or when one of the shootout attendees either email me or chime in.
Surely this was not an apples to apples comparison, but it certainly gave me a taste of the Brinkman sound.
Thanks for your continued suggestions and follow-up. |
With repect to my previous post, I just remembered (one of the great benefits of getting some sleep) that the Phatom/90x was mounted as a second arm on the Brinkman tt. Also as an FYI, the rest of the equipment used for the phono stage shootout were all current production versions and includes the Avalon Opus Ceramiques, Air Tight pre and Rowland amps. |
Vetterone - Thanks for chiming in. No doubt about the quality of the Brinkman and if their tt comes up for sale with a quality arm in the $5-10k range I will certainly give it serious consideration. As mentioned in a previous post, we uninanmously preferred the Graham Phantom/Shelter 90x vs. Brinkman's arm/cartridge and both were mounted on a LaGrange. We will soon revisit this and keep the cartridge the same to get a better sense of the the Phanton vs. Brinkman sound.
Nice to know you have good experience using the TP arm with the Dynavector and the Zyx. I have not heard the XV-1s and look forward to the opportunity when it presents itself. Thanks to a fellow local audio club member, I have heard the UNIverse in my system and it is a remarkable cartridge. It was impressive relative to the Colibri and KRSP. It did not have the speed and resolution and dynamics of the Colibri and leaned more toward the sonic signature of the KRSP, but with a little more refined transparency and focussed dimensionality; smooth and musical overall. It was so impressive that I seriously considered it relative to the MC2 Finish at nearly the same pricepoint. However, because IMHO I felt my KRSP's performance was close enough to that of the UNIverse, I decided on trying the Allearts. |
sirspeedy70680@ & Rauliruegas - Yes I agree that the audiophile merry-go-round process of buying and trying equipment, can be tedious and costly. The assistance and expertise of seasoned hobbyists like yourselves can help relatively newcomers like me to be more efficient as we search. In the end when the latest and greated piece of equipment is introduced into our system, it is our own evaluation of its performance that dictates whether it stays or goes.
I also agree with the importance you place on the phonostage. I hesitated when deciding on the title of this thread, trying to decide whether or not to include it. I am aware that the performance potential of my cartridges surpass those of my arms, tt or phonostage. I purposefully left out the phonostage in the title so that I can focus on the tt and arm with the intent on searching the archives for highly recommended phonostages. Admittedly my current analog setup, despite being made up of quality gear is, in the grand scheme of things, midfi and no where near reference level. As you can see from one of my previous posts my search for a phonostage has already been fairly extensive. I am lucky that I did not have to pay for the chance to listen to many of these units as they were brought over by local audio club members. The ones that came with a price tag were acquired with the option to return the unit if it did not work out in my system.
Rauliruegas - It can also be concluded from my previous post, that I prefer the sound of a tube phonostage. I have heard one old and one new generation Rowland in my system and along with my Threshold FET10HL, Groove and more recently, my Whest and ASR Basis Exclusive experiences, none of them did for me what the top performing tube-based gear has done. I will look forward to an in-my-system chance of evaluating an Ayre, FM Acoustics, Connoisseur, Boulder, etc. and see if they can reach out and grab me. Unfortunately, the latter three are simply too costly.
So as tempting as it is to want to qualify my statement about output coupling capacitors relative to your stance on the merits of DC coupled designs, I will bow out for many reasons, the most important among them are: 1) I am not an engineer so am in no position to prefer one design over another based on technical/theoretical knowledge, 2) it has the potential to lead to a ss vs. tube discussions, which is a non-issue for me as I am open to trying all types of phonostages, and 3) the design (whether right or wrong) of an audio gear is of less importance to me than how it ultimately performs/sounds in my system.
What does this all mean? I have to face the possibility that if I cannot find a tube unit to work with the MC2, then I may have to settle on the need to have two phonostages. I also realize that this can occur before or after deciding on a tonearm to ideally mate with my cartridges on a quality tt. So it is possible that I will have to settle for a solid state unit (DC coupled or otherwise) for the MC2 and whatever tube phonostage I end up liking for the other MC cartridges with higher outputs.
I look forward to receiving your TP comments offline. Feel free to recommend either here or offline your top choices of DC coupled phonostages in the $4-7k range. Also curious if you and your colleague(s) manufacture your custom full function preamp? If so what is the cost to have one made? If you do manufacture it, do you have adequate inventory of these units available for someone like me to try? |
Rauliruegas - Let's please take the phonostage topic offline shall we? You are also welcome to open a new thread.
All - Thanks for contributing to this thread. Lots of great info! It would be great to hear specifically from owners of the Koetsu RS Platinum, Van Den Hul Colibri XGW, Miyabi/47 Labs and Allaerts MC2 Finish to see what tonearm they've found to be most synergistic. TIA & regards. |
Dear Vetterone - We recently revisited the question of the sonic characteristics of the Phantom vs. the Brinkman arms. If you recall last time we compared the Brinkman arm/cartridge combo vs the Phantom/90x on the La Grange. This time we used two cartridges - the Dyna XV-1S and the Shelter 90X, evaluating them one at a time mounting/aligning each one on both arms on the fabulous Brinkman tt.
Consistent with our suspicions that began when we first visited this topic, it was unanimous among the members of our local audio club who were present that the Brinkman arm tends to be more analytical and tonally thinner than the Phantom, at least across these two cartridges. The owner was so convinced that he ended up selling his Brinkman arm to fund his next tonearm to audition (a Morsiani, Helius, Da Vinci, Pluto or Tri-Planar). Interestingly, he is bypassing the Schroeder as he feels the TP can at least equal its performance. |
Ebarker2 - I have no direct experience with the MC2 Finish. I just missed the chance to try it with the Wavestream Kinetics and I am kicking myself for not prioritizing it.
However, I thought it would be worthwhile to mention that an MC2 Finish owner, who has tried many arms, does not recommend the Schroeder or any wood tonearms with this cartridge. It just happens that the Allaerts distributor also represents Schroeder. However, this does not necessarily mean that this is the best arm to use. If you have extensively listened with other arms and settled on the Schroeder, then please detail your findings.
As to DC kickback, please pardon the following rookie-like questions. Exactly how does one know or measure if they have this or not? Besides melting the coils on the cartridge, how does it manifest itself through the system? In other words what early symptoms, subtle or otherwise, should one be looking for? |
Brizonbiovizier - We used two phonostages when we evaluated the Brink cartridge (and arm). First was the ASR Basis Exclusive and the other is the EAR 88pb. With the ASR we preferred a loading of 350 Ohms and with the EAR we liked 500 Ohms.
The the amps were Rowland 302 and speakers were the mid line Avalons with ceramic drivers. |
Ebarker2 - Thanks for the detailed and insightful response. I'll just let my friend chime in about the Schroeder/Allaerts when he has time. I'll email him offline to prompt him to do so.
As to DC kickback, is it generally safer to turn on the phonostage first before connecting the ICs (or tonearm wire to the RCA junction box)? As a general precaution I often mute the preamp when turning on/off the tt motor or when cueing/lifting the cartridge. From your explanation I assume the risk to connecting the ICs (or tonearm wire for the VPI JMW arms) to a phonostage that has been on for a considerable amount of time, is far less than having the IC connected when first turning on the phonostage. Is this summary correct? |
Thomasheisig - Too bad there is not a Hong Kong version of the DaVinci Arm. In fact, it would be great to have a Chinese version of the Schroeder, Triplanar, Helius, etc. Oh well time to wake up now. |
