jafox
Responses from jafox
| 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... | |
| $20 XLR cables that sound good As Atmasphere has cited, the balanced configuration is insensitive to the kinds of wire characteristics which lead some audiophiles to pay mega-bucks for interconnects.I have great respect for Ralph and his products. And his amps easily have the a... | |
| Moving Up the ARC Chain: Some Observations Great write up. I went through similar changes with ARC gear in the 80s and 90s. My observation was that ARC was never consistent with a "house" sound. The next generation was often not a refinement of the last but rather a completely different sh... | |
| Audio Research amps - balanced & non With a single ended input through an XLR adaptor the VT -130 SE will produce less than half the power output that it will produce with a true balanced input signal ...Really? That seems kinda odd. What does power out put have to do with it? The in... | |
| Audio Research amps - balanced & non By adding all this junk to the signal path, you significantly defeat the major strengths of the SP-10 and the VT-130.....and this is portrayal of space. These both were at the top of their class in this key area. Keep things simple and you will be... | |
| DAC with the best midrange ever..... Lots of good comments here. From the Krell products I have heard, the sound has always been rather sterile, dimensionally flat, but very resolving. I can say the same about Ayre, Spectral, Levinson(Madrigal), Klyne, etc.I have heard some of Rapoge... |