jafox
Responses from jafox
| Review: Aria WV5 XL (Line Stage only) Tube preamp Hi Bob,It's been several months since I had the stock SA-2 in the system. With the latest round of system tweaks, tubes and cables, I will go back to comparing this to the rebuilt SA-2.I have since replaced the 20+ year-old MIT330 IC from the SA-2... | |
| Review: Aria WV5 XL (Line Stage only) Tube preamp Hello Bob,Shortly after my last posting here, another Aria owner informed me to try another tube in the line stage. He was spot on. I'd share which tube this is but I need to buy 100 first before my recommendation here causes these to triple in pr... | |
| VAC Signature Preamplifier mkII The Eclipse models came out because the Io and Callisto signature products were rapidly falling behind the new models by the competition and not because $500 in new parts in the Saturn products put them just behind the Jupiter products. I have see... | |
| VAC Signature Preamplifier mkII Twin cities here. | |
| VAC Signature Preamplifier mkII The new [janus] signature is a whole different animal. They sound just as good as the IO.As some parts updates in the new Janus will no doubt improve the performance, no matter what is done here, the Janus will NEVER have the magic of an Io or Cal... | |
| CAT JL-3 Sig Mk2s direct from Wadia 781i? As a CAT JL-3 owner and an APL Denon player with built-in volume control, I much preferred using an Aesthetix Callisto Signature line stage in the chain. With the Callisto, there was significantly more body and texture to the instruments that show... | |
| Tubelike SS Power amp A tube preamp used with a solid state amp will not produce the same magic.As what, a solid state preamp with a tube amp? My experience with ss and tube preamps and ss and tube power amps indicate a very different conclusion here. My focus has alwa... | |
| USPS Priority Mail One thing for sure: USPS will respect your package far more than Fedex or UPS. Over and over I have seen careless and obvious intentional damage by workers of these companies. And then you have to deal with the games to get insurance claims. USPS ... | |
| Why are European Amps more expensive than Domestic There is often another "middleman" (distributor) in the loop with foreign products in either direction. And this typically reflects a 50-100% increase. | |
| Garrott P77 MM Cartridge What a great contribution here. So much valuable content and a history to put it all into perspective. Thanks much.I too am looking to once again try a MM cartridge and remove that additional MC gain stage in the system. It's nice to have a 2-arm ... | |
| CounterPoint SA -5.1 Tubes... I see the same kind of result in the Counterpoint SA-2 and Aria WV preamp that use the 5651. The 5651 resembles a vacuum tube and yet it really is not. It is simply a voltage reference filled with gas and acts more like a zener diode than a vacuum... | |
| Elrod Statement Gold PC compared to old Statement Great write-up here. When I read about your APL player and the Pure Power device, I thought you were another A'gon member that I have had much correspondence. I own an APL 3910 player with all the bells and whistles and discovered some magic last ... | |
| Audio Research amps - balanced & non Thank you Martykl, yes I am a big advocate of the "simple signal path". As mentioned above, I tried a Rives PARC, against the advice of two A'gon members I highly respect. Yes it did what it was supposed to do, but the "side effects" that they tol... | |
| Audio Research amps - balanced & non Sorry Eldartford, it's not ignorance, but rather observations with my system. I have played the game with trying to use transformers to achieve balanced signals out of DACs. And the result was a loss of low-level detail and truncation of harmonic ... | |
| $20 XLR cables that sound good How do you know for sure that $100 or $1000 or $10,000 is enough to spend on IC's.Is this not true for every link in the system? The progress that many people here continue to make is to add another level of refinement to their system with each ch... |