Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Hey Rjdcan, great to hear from you again! Give me enough years, and I will eventually get around to everything ;-)! Just so no one gets the wrong idea (so many are looking for reasons NOT to try an idler-wheel drive), in any system and with any speakers of whatever sensitivity, the big idlers like the Lencos and Garrards are CLEARLY superior in every way to their belt-drive cousins. It's just that, the more responsive/fast/dynamic the system, the greater the lead the idlers will take, due to their STUNNING dynamics Macro and Micro, and leading-edge transients. So don't take this as an excuse to avoid the Idler!!

Glad to hear you are still getting mileage out of that MC, it is unkillable!! I have a confession to make: faced with the repair cost on my Kiseki (one channel out and likely the stylus to replace), and perusing possibilities, a very good deal came up on an Ortofon Jubilee, and doing the research and reading between the lines (that not only was the detail and so on first-rate, but it was BEAUTIFUL-sounding), I decided to spring for it for Christmas (of course, audio-wise it's ALWAYS Christmas for me) rather than invest in refurbing the Purpleheart Sapphire, which never had quite enough balls for my taste, though plenty of Beauty. Well, the Jubilee has the balls of the Denon DL-103 and the refinement of the Kiseki (and like the Kiseki, FANTASTIC bass), it gets the music RIGHT, and based on this experience - and on the M15E Super which I still love (I should mount it on my RS-A1, but my Denon is still making beautiful music there) - I can certainly highly recommend the newer Ortofons as well.

And to those running Deccas, in experimenting with my various cartridges in order to optimize them/match them to the proper tonearm in the context of my system, I made the following discovery: the Decca improves vastly when mass is added to the tonearm. Add a cartridge weight at the headshell end of a tonearm, and the consequent and added moving back of the counterweight will effectively increase the overall mass. BIG jump in dynamics, detail, clarity.

Have fun all, off to listen to my latest classical score!

Hi Jean,
I may be wrong but as far as I know the Klipsch Heresy is not a horn. It was called Heresy because of this fact!
Peter

The Klipsch Heresy is not fully horn loaded because the 12" woofer operates as a direct radiator but the tweeter and midrange use horn loaded compression drivers resulting in a 97db efficiency.

Hi Jean

Does adding mass to the headshell of the Decca also give an increase in bass and substance?

Paul

Hi Paul: one of the Decca's great strengths (and there are many) is bass power, which even its opponents concede. If you're not getting that now, then I hope anyway more mass will help. One thing for certain, the extra mass increases focus, SLAM/dynamics and clarity in the bass. In my system, with the slightly bass-light Klipsch Heresy's, I can't currently tell if it has increased reach. Try it, you might like it! One thing I didn't expect from a Decca being mounted on a Giant Direct Coupled Idler, is that now it sounds very much like a Grado (except with extra speed): rich and resonant and smoooottthh and organic. Never heard a Decca sound like THIS before! Very easy to live with. On belt-drives it comes across as more speed and detail-oriented, and in your face. Idlers suit it!

Yep Peter, they are horn-loaded as Rjdcan says, except the woofer: maybe this is the heresy! Apparently, PWK named the Cornwalls for the fact they were to be placed in the corn-er, against the wall :-).