[Audiogalore]

Thank you for your thoughts Miguel and Kboe, Kboe you also have an outstanding setup. I love your R10....
 
Miguel again thank you for the heads up about getting my K1000 cable installation work done by Alex.  I am now waiting on the K1000 re-cabled from ApureSound (Alex) and once I have been able to try it out I will give you my thoughts. Then I will be done,  until the next lurking

project. 
 
 

 

[TheGhostWhoWalks]

Quote:

I



HATE



YOU!




Sweet though...

Hehe, thanks.

 

[mulveling]

The latest iteration of my system. I've gone through a good bit of gear in the last 5 years so here's the equipment listing with timestamps:

1. SOTA Star table and Fidelity Research arm (3 years)
2. Tannoy Kensington SE speakers (1.5 years)
3. Rogue Apollo Monoblocks and Hera preamp (winter/spring 2010)
4. Sonic Frontiers Phono 1 (summer 2010)
5. Koetsu Onyx cartridge (last week)
    

 
I'd started with a Benz Glider, then went up the Ortofon MC ladder to the Windfeld. The Koetsu cartridge has been a bit of a revelation since it was both resolving AND warm, with the lowest noise floor of any cart I've tried. The Kensingtons are warm by nature, but they'll do bright if the upstream gear dictates it. This might have been caused compliance/mass issue with the Ortofons, since my Japanese arm is quite heavy (20g effective mass).
 
I've also recently experimented with a Benz Ref 3 - it's almost as warm and musical as the Koetsu, but not as clean nor resolving, and with a fairly high noise floor. Still an excellent listen, despite a probably mismatch to the heavy FR-64fx arm. Listening to the to the pairings, it would be reasonable to conclude that the old Koetsu is a natural match for the heavy dynamic-balance Japanese arm. I also had a chance to try a Koetsu-branded arm (the 1100D Mk II - Jelco-made). I believe that the Fidelity Research was the superior arm, though the 1100D had a wicked-cool looking Koetsu-branded headshell.
 
My Koetsu is old and crusty (less so since a careful cleaning), but still very very pretty - on an old Koetsu headshell:

 

 

[kboe]

Frack Me!
 
Im coming over to play.

 

[kboe]

I can see the cables elevators, what cables are you playing with?

 

[mulveling]

Quote:

I can see the cables elevators, what cables are you playing with?

Audioquest - Mont blancs on the woofers, KE-4 on the tweeters. Cheetah and Sky for the ICs. Leopard phono cable. Got the elevators free from a friend that owns an antique shop - they help a bit with the cable management, though I need to do a better job still.

 

[Racio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mulveling /img/forum/go_quote.gif

-snipped-
 

I love your Koetsu headshell and Onyx cart Mulveling. I'll wager they sound heavenly!

 

[mulveling]

    Quote:

I love your Koetsu headshell and Onyx cart Mulveling. I'll wager they sound heavenly!

Thanks - indeed, the sound is decidedly warm and lush, yet somehow still highly resolving and with the best imaging I've yet heard. Vocals are stunning. Noise floor is also lower than that of my other carts (Ortofon Windfeld, Benz Ref 3, Ortofon Kontrapunkt c). It's been addicting since first drop. The main trade-off (besides cost of replacement) is that it's a very marginal tracker - possibly due to the age of the suspension. It's getting the job done, though.
 
They were all fun to play with, but it's quickly approaching (or past) the point where having this collection of cartridges is silly. The Koetsu wins for now, though I may explore other possibilities before setting on Koetsu exclusively (Dynavector XV-1? Benz LP?). The problem is that I'd probably need to try an SME V arm first - my heavy Japanese arm is a superb match for Koetsus, but a marginal match for other modern high-end MCs. The unipivot arms are probably out, as they may not be a great match for a suspended table like my SOTA (and SOTA has said as much about the VPI arms). There are so many factors and expenses to balance out in the analog game
 
The heavy warmth and dynamic, lively sound of Koetsu vaguely reminds me of my first experience with the Audio-Technica L3000 headphones years ago, though the Koetsu is the far more resolving transducer - still, the L3000 was a revelation for me back then in a similar way. So musical - and obviously voiced for musical enjoyment above all else - for all genres.

 

[Audiogalore]

Hey Mulveling system look great and must sound fantastic, glad to see a serious analog listener.
 
Enjoy music!

 

[beamthegreat]

Heres my setup. Its not exactly high-end but pretty close to it... and its a pretty nice setup for a high schooler, imo.
 
desktop setup: Macbook pro -> Carat ruby MKII DAC -> Amb M^3 amplifier -> HD 800
trans/portable Ipod touch -> Ibasso P3+ -> denon D2000 (shure se210) 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 
The last picture of the HD 800 (above) was taken using my dads SLR, btw.

 

[mulveling]

Crap, in college I remember getting $15 Sony earphones (the fold-up kind that would come with a walkman) and plugging them right into my soundcard...which I think was a Turtle Beach Montego in my Dell tower (with a Pentium MMX @ 166Mhz!). That's essentially what I used all 4 years. It's probably a good thing I didn't have cool toys to fixate on back then

 

[leberserkfury]

you can't beat the head-fi beer! 

 

[indydieselnut]

I just couldn't help post this picture here...it's just given me so many laughs over the past three days of living with it that I wanted to share.  I picked up a pair of Harbeth P3ESR from the same dealer I got my Compact 7ES-3 from.  I wanted to use the P3ESR as desktop speakers since I'm still in the middle of my cd importing project and am spending most of my time listening at my desk.  I got the idea to use the Lovan Jazz 6" stands to get them up to the perfect height for my ears.  The result - a combination of a 60's-era Steelcase table I scored from Craigslist, the iMac, speaker/stand combo - just came together so perfectly (for me) that I'm getting pleasure just from looking at it, let alone listening to it!  Out of the picture are the Naim Nait XS integrated, Rega Apollo cd-player, and Cambridge DacMagic (in combo with a Halide Bridge) that are feeding them.  Perhaps a Naim DAC in my future?  Who knows...the sound right now is an absolute riot!  I'm having a total blast with this setup.  Want some solo violin?  Never heard it better!  
 

 

[mulveling]

Looks like a near-field setup done superbly. Not really surprising it sounds so damn good! I dig the style too, though maybe ideally you'd have a mac mini tucked away (that aluminum strip of iMac is a lot of bright and new, in contrast...).

 

[Sherwood]

Quote:

Looks like a near-field setup done superbly. Not really surprising it sounds so damn good! I dig the style too, though maybe ideally you'd have a mac mini tucked away (that aluminum strip of iMac is a lot of bright and new, in contrast...).

Actually, it's funny to me how much it looks like your setup, in a different-universe kind of way.  You, too, have a new aluminum strip on the bottom of your setup, yours is just a pair of Rogue monoblocks and a preamp.