tonywinga
Responses from tonywinga
| Stratospheric audio gear prices Up through the early 70s hi fi was very much DYI. Then manufacturers caught on and started to offer hi end features in their products. I’m an engineer. I fell into the wrong crowd in the late 80s- hobbyists that were heavy into modded hifi. I enjo... | |
| Why are Ayon tube amps not mentioned very often? I bought an Ayon DAC and CD transport this past January. The sound blew me away. I never imagined CDs had so much detail/resolution. I was using an ARC CD player before. The equipment quality of build is outstanding and they perform flawlessly... | |
| Stratospheric audio gear prices If you look at prices over time, luxury items like high end watches, boats, esoteric audio gear and super cars increase in price about 3-5% per year while common appliance prices stay flat or even get cheaper. High end luxury isn’t about cost cut... | |
| SOTA Sapphire power suppy output? The small power supply for the Sapphire has only a transformer, fuse and a switch. So it outputs low voltage A/C. Contact Sota for questions. They are very helpful. | |
| SOTA NOVA, HR-X VPI, Technics 1200G recommendations? That’s right what chakster said. | |
| SOTA NOVA, HR-X VPI, Technics 1200G recommendations? For anyone who has ever tried playing the Telarc record of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Symphony knows that if the tonearm/cartridge combo isn’t right, that tonearm is going to skate across the record when the cannons fire. Very exciting record. | |
| SOTA NOVA, HR-X VPI, Technics 1200G recommendations? Remember, the first rule of Engineering is to watch your units. Well, we had a professor in college that said the first rule of Engineering is "You can't push a rope." But if your units are mixed you can get into trouble very quickly. Also note... | |
| SOTA NOVA, HR-X VPI, Technics 1200G recommendations? The phono cartridge and tonearm combine to make a spring mass system. The phono cartridge and tonearm must compliment each other to yield the ideal system natural frequency. That ideal system natural is between 8 and 11 Hz. Once you decide on a... | |
| SOTA NOVA, HR-X VPI, Technics 1200G recommendations? The effective mass of my SME 309 tonearm with removable headshell is less than the effective mass of the SME IV or SME V fixed tonearms. Hmm. Generalizations can be dangerous. I agree that fewer connections between the phono cartridge and prea... | |
| CD vs.same CD ripped to HD I used DB Poweramp’s CD ripper. It is very good. I have a pretty high end DAC and CD Transport. My transport upsamples the CD to DSD and conveys that to the DAC via either I2S or 3 BNC cables. After I got a music server and ripped my CDs to th... | |
| SOTA NOVA, HR-X VPI, Technics 1200G recommendations? I have had two Sota Turntables over the span of 39 years. My latest is a Star Vacuum Series VI. It was a series V until the motor died. So I had them upgrade it. The speed is stable in terms of both setpoint and w&f. My older Sota Sapphire Ser... | |
| Best Cartridge for SME309 arm I have the Soundsmith Zephyr MIMC Star on my SME309. It is the best tracking cartridge that I have ever had. It sounds great. I have a couple of records going back to the 70s that I thought had bad grooves. The Zephyr tracks them perfectly. I have... | |
| Atlanta, Ga. Any 2 channel gatherings going on in Atlanta area? I’m in middle Georgia. | |
| CD v Streamed I’ll clarify what I mean about the differences between streaming 44.1/16 bit and FLAC on my SSD. The most notable difference is the soundstage. CDs already have a smaller, less holographic soundstage compared to vinyl- in general. Some CDs are sur... | |
| CD v Streamed It’s complicated. My experience with regards to digital is downloaded hi res files are tops followed by CD. FLAC files from CDs on my server SSD are pretty much indistinguishable from CD. I have a very good CD transport and DAC. I use Qobuz. St... |