tom_nice
Responses from tom_nice
| Updating my preamp.Frustrating..You Bet Blue Circle Galatea has a splendid volume control using Shallco ladder attenuators. CAT SL-1 Signture and Ultimate preamps use a series stepped attenuator whose lack of transparency I finally couldn't stand. (Their signal is put through many, many... | |
| Need suggestions for a TURNTABLE MAT... Oracle was very proud of their mat for the Premier Mark IV, which I have. But a Ringmat made a major improvement. With a Rega, you should get the thinnest Ringmat, unless you add a VTA adjuster. At least with some cartridges, the thicker Ringmat(s... | |
| My new dedicated room sound like crap,please help. For a (good) start, buy F. Alton Everest's "Sound Studio Construction on a Budget" (covers all kinds of listening rooms) or his 4th edition of "The Master Handbook of Acoustics". You'll learn how to anyalyze your room's resonant modes and what to ... | |
| Bottom Rung Koetsu.. In its time--a long while ago--Koetsu Black and Denon DL 103D were considered roughly equal. You can buy a new 103D for $229, which I see as a great bargain. I got a second one, 20 odd years after my first, and enjoy it as much as my Koetsu Rosewo... | |
| Views on the Use of Argent Room Lens I've used them with Dunlavy SC-II (tall, slender) speakers and also Quad ESL 63's, and they helped the sound a lot with both. At first I had them flanking the speakers, toed in more than the speakers, touching the speakers. Then I moved them 10" f... | |
| Resistor value for interconnect With no volume control in your CD player, you'd be playing every CD at the same level, whatever attenuation you added. That's not workable, is it? It wouldn't be close to workable with my CD's. In any case, a fixed attenuation network shouldn't be... | |
| US/Canada Customs Fees I just had a DAC shipped from Canada, by UPS, and UPS sent me a bill for $29 for "brokerage service charges". UPS is notorious for padding their profits in this way, and should be avoided like the plague in cross-border shipping, IMHO. | |
| help with a sometimes boomy sounding room.. Here's my constant recommendation for this and many other room acoustics issues: buy F. Alton Everest's "Sound Studio Construction on a Budget" or his "Master Handbook of Acoustics, 4th Edition". You'll learn how to analyze your room quantitativel... | |
| Please help prevent mistake : Phone-Pre amp I'll second the Parasound P/PH 100 suggestion, a real "giant killer" for the price. I had it and a Creek in the house at the same time and certainly didn't like the Creek better--if anything, the other way around. Someone knowledgeable just raved ... | |
| ROOM SIZE QUESTION I strongly recommend your buying F. Alton Everest, "Sound Studio Construction on a Budget", which covers all types of audio rooms including home listening rooms, or his "Master Handbook of Acoustics, 4th Edition". You'll get all the answers to you... | |
| Thick or thin speaker & interconnect cables ? If you believe Malcolm Omar Hawksford, "The Essex Echo", generally regarded as the one and only classic article on cable theory, interconnect wire should be thin. But speaker cables should in general be thick, and as short as possible, which is no... | |
| consensus on passive preamps? I'll never go back to an active. I had a CAT SL-1 III with factory-simplified signal path (unneeded switches removed), and its lack of transparency, compared to a homemade Shallco ladder stepped attenuator passive, was intolerable. Others will tel... | |
| Tango Recommendation I recommend Pablo Ziegler (a Piazolla student), "Asfalto" (Street Tango), and if you have a classical bone in your body, Daniel Barenboim, "Mi Buenos Aires Querido", plenty of passion there from a famous classical conductor who grew up with the ta... | |
| Advice on MC cartidge for vintage records? Hi,The Denon DL 103D, a classic from a couple of decades ago, comparable in its time to the Koetsu Black, is available still, or again, from Denon USA, for $229 plus $5 shipping. I had one 20 years ago, and just got another, and consider it one of... | |
| Perfect room size... The ideal is far from noncontroversial, unlike what several comments above suggest. Just work out the main resonant modes for various dimensions: the "golden ratio" is good but not obviously (or really) better than some other choices. I recommend ... |