mulveling
Responses from mulveling
| Silver Speaker Cables Try Vogue Audio 12 awg Pure Silver Speaker Cables, Power Cables, and Interconnects. Isn’t 12 AWG solid silver something like a half-pound of silver per 2m pair? Kind of hard to believe their prices, with such high raw material cost leaving a VE... | |
| Phono Stage Upgrade Reference 3SE does fantastic with your RSP (I have both of these in my collection), so no issues there. It does great with the built-in JFET MC stage (High Gain), and also does great in Low Gain mode coupled with your SUT of choice (~20x being opt... | |
| Preamps can color sound considerably. Surprising? Absolutely. And this shouldn't be too surprising - you can roll single parts like caps and hear a difference, so why wouldn't whole different preamps sound different too? At my home audio playground I have 3 relatively high end (not ultra-fi) pre... | |
| Balance control? @paulgardner You’re welcome! And yes, I agree the Zebrawood L is a solid choice. A really good embodiment and implementation of the "Benz" sound. Also I think it’s a very handsome cartridge! All my Benzes so far have had excellent L/R channel ba... | |
| Balance control? @paulgardner Hi Paul, Here’s a rundown of my thoughts on the wood Benzes I’ve owned: Benz Wood 2M, SM (caramel colored Bruyere wood with swirly grain) - These are now discontinued. They have a lively, pleasing and fun sound with a little war... | |
| Balance control? L/R channel balance is definitely something that can drive me crazy. I’ve obsessed over it before. There are many sources of L/R imbalance in a 2ch audio system: acoustics / room cartridge - even high end MC cartridges are often spec’d at most... | |
| Re-tip Ortofon Cadenza Bronze You should also consider turnaround time for 3rd party retipping versus Ortofon’s rebuild. And I believe SS’s retip-only service is more expensive because of the care required to preserve original cantilever - so the price difference may not be as... | |
| Audio Rack Opinions +2 @lak ! I really enjoy having a rigid, gorgeously engineered & built rack, even if it's over the top. I also have nice platforms for my amps. 3rd party footers was a rabbit hole I quickly punched out of. Like you say, too stressful. What I ... | |
| Silver Speaker Cables @raindog911 I've swapped Fire IC with Colorado (older version of Earth) and yeah the difference is striking! The Fires and that WEL phono cable are fantastic. I've been curious to try William Tell Silver biwire, but sticking with the older large... | |
| Widow needs help: Sennheiser HD650 headphones Seriously, find a buyer who is far less pedantic. You don’t deserve the hassle over a $300 item. I’ve owned many examples of HD650 over almost 20 years, and yes there are slight variations but all are wonderful. 2011-ish is indeed a good year for ... | |
| Where did you buy your first audio gear? Bought my first audiophile gear off of Headroom.com in the fall of 2002: Sennheiser HD580 headphones, Total AirHead portable amp. The AirHead sucked balls. The HD580 were awesome. First speaker gear came a year or 2 later, from a combination of ... | |
| Have a tube that gets really bright when turned on and then dims quickly Very common for vintage Euro and British small tubes. Doesn’t indicate a problem or wear. If it’s a Russian, Chinese, or power tube, then you have cause for concern. I have a particularly wonderful pair of British long plate square getter 12AX7, w... | |
| Change of sound with Deoxit G100 Maybe that's how your cables actually sound, after the tarnish & oxidation & crap is removed. Perfecting system synergy & component matching is certainly a bear. So you DON'T want to have everything voiced around filthy connections wit... | |
| Audio Rack Opinions Not sure I love the idea of a wood frame rack for turntables. But if very well implemented, it could be fine. And the ones you've picked do look quite solid. What worked for me was a rack architecture that’s as rigid as possible, with isolation d... | |
| Silver Speaker Cables I think any differences heard are so miniscule per dollar spent, you’d be better off buying better components than changing a cable. When swapping components in the ~10 - 20K MSRP range, the differences are significant but matching consideratio... |