dgarretson
Responses from dgarretson
| Which Caig? Deoxit #D100L-25c. This is the 25mL squeeze bottle with a long needle that gets inside connectors and deposits a controlled drop or two. Clean male XLR pins with a pointed Q-tip from the beauty section of the pharmacy. For female XLR and tube sock... | |
| Who needs a MM cartridge type when we have MC? I don't buy it. Raul trammeling Hispanics is an immolation of his heritage. Raul is the Ambrose Bierce of audio, a lost rebel for a lost cause, Viva Zapata! | |
| What's the greatest bargain in DAC's these days? Ait, thanks. Amazing the various approaches taken by DIYers with the Twisted Pear kit.I'm also using a transformer output from a battery-powered BIIISE, a 1:2 Audio Consulting Silver Rock transformer into balanced SS buffers. I may try a balanced ... | |
| What's the greatest bargain in DAC's these days? If into DIY, the Twisted Pear Buffalo DAC is a relatively easy kit to build-- requiring, however, a customer-supplied chassis. I've built several iterations from Buffalo II through Buffalo IIISE, in stereo and dual mono. The latest Placid 2.1 and ... | |
| Buying a used cartridge...tell us your tale. Just finished dialing in an Ortofon MC2000 eBayed by seller Ortofonman for $350. The stylus looks good under digital magnification and the performance is superb. I'll just have to make do with this one until somebody decides to build a new .05mV MC. | |
| Does the MAPLESHADE STATIC DRAINING BRUSH work? My experience with the occasional shedding of a tiny wire strand mirrors Stringreen's. As a result I don't use the Mapleshade brush preemptively-- rather only on occasions when static is an identified condition. On the positive side, this brush is... | |
| Buying a used cartridge...tell us your tale. I've purchased a dozen or so vintage MM/MI used or NOS on eBay, with remarkably few issues. I'm keeping my fingers crossed about an Ortofon MC2000 currently en route. If that classic shows excessive wear it will certainly be worth the cost of a re... | |
| Best Rock Album of 2014 Summing up, there were quite a few keepers, plus one great retrospective (David Bowie's Nothing Has Changed, skimmed to the cream for the excellent vinyl version).In no particular order except for Rosanne on top:Rosanne Cash- The River and the Thr... | |
| Best Tributes, Covers, Dedications Cover- Bill Frisell: Guitar Space Age(2014)Possibly the best-ever coverage of rock by a jazzman. | |
| LCR phono stages we know about Lew, the Vida Aurorasound has received a bit of attention in Asian markets. Reportedly around $5K. I have not seen or heard it at the shows. | |
| Best Bat out of Hell recording Unfortunately at the end of the day Meatloaf is Meatloaf. | |
| Trans Fi Salvation direct rim drive turntable On Kenwood L07D and VPI TNT I've tried a DIY 4 lb. brass weight and a 1 lb. 6 oz. Stillpoints LPI on top of Resomat. The LPI has just enough weight to couple the full circumference of the LP to the Resomat points-- increasing foundation without st... | |
| Would silver cables beat UP-OCC copper? Several OEMs and DIYers have shared that soft silver is important to avoid the etched or bright quality sometimes attributed to silver. Annealing may be more significant than diminishing returns of 5-7 nines purity.The better factory sources offer... | |
| Would silver cables beat UP-OCC copper? To reduce the variables I compared short segments of 12 awg Neotech OCC copper to dead soft three-nines fine silver from Rio Grande as jumpers in Merlin VSM speakers. No spades, solder, or twist geometries to influence the evaluation.For me high p... | |
| Comparing the Pass Labs XA30.5 to the XA 30.8 My sense of Srajan's thorough if exhausting review is that he never got around to the relevant short strokes of trying the 30.8 with speakers that present a more difficult load than optimal for a flea amp. I've not had a .5 series amp in my system... |