Since upgrading from my original custom spec'd VR-9 SEs to the VR-9 SE Mk.2s, I've been a rather busy bee. Albert calls me a master tweaker. I don't know about the "master" part but one thing for sure, I do not leave any stone unturned. In my mind, when I invest any amount of money on a piece of equipment, it is my moral obligation to invest time and effort into maximizing and then optimizing its performance. If I were a true master I would have had things singing in a few days. It took me about 9 months.
To say my room is acoustically treated would be a bit misleading. It was in fact acoustically
designed from the ground up specifically for the eventuality (fingers crossed) of hosting VR-11s. By that I mean that the front third of the room was designed with the radiation pattern of the 9s and 11s firmly in mind and the other two thirds designed to hit a predetermined RT60 curve that my acoustician and I arrived at.
Some say the room is half the battle and if so, I can comfortably say that half the battle has been won because intelligibility even with the HVAC on is so good that you can whisper to each other from 30 ft away. It is very quiet at 40dB but not so quiet that it is uncomfortable where your own breathing becomes obtrusive. I've had a couple of light fixtures ring when I was being plain irresponsible but that has since been addressed
I had migrated to all Critical Mass Black Platinum and Black Diamond platforms 3 years ago, the same ones used by Albert at Axpona 2013, to address vibration. I finally busted the hum problems by moving from a Shunyata V-ray to Nordost's star grounded QB8, I even had custom brackets done for the painting on the front wall to be canted up towards the Almute wave cloud. Most vexing was speaker positioning to get not just the tonal balance right but the exact relationship between focus and depth of field that I was after. I still thank Albert for having the foresight to put these large speakers on casters instead of spikes.
My old sources had come with me from my old place. In the world of digital, you might as well be counting in dog years. To say my Emm stack was long in the tooth is being kind. It had served me well but it has been superseded by its own younger brother as well as by those from other manufacturers. I found that my Tentation handily beat it at Red Book play, heck it stands its ground against anything. Unfortunately, the Tentation only plays CD and my library of Hi-Rez files is steadily growing since a 24/48 or 24/96 album goes for about the same price as a CD when you consider shipping and 24/192 goes for about the same as an LP. I had been using the DCC2 with a laptop and a Halide Bridge but I felt that it lacked the organic quality of the Tentation and only really shined when playing SACDs of which I have relatively few. My flirtations with the textural qualities of NOS DACs led me to this piece. Keith and I went to Singapore not just to hang out with Albert and Eunice but also to check this DAC out seizing the opportunity that they would be displayed along with KR and VSA. To verify, we went to the Adelphi to listen to it in a totally different system. We loved what we heard.
If you have keen eyes, yes there is work to be done on this front. My MBP is on its last leg as well and I'm still miffed that my new one doesn't have an ethernet port anymore. You'll also notice that the USB cable was snagged from my printer as a supposedly high end USB cable from this side of the globe did nothing but glitch!
In any case it shares a lot of characteristics with the Tentation and plugs in the hole left by the Tentations lack of functionality in terms of Hi-Rez. The only downside being the very long burn in period the Light Harmonic required because they use these silk capacitors that took FOREVER to settle. You might add to that that the USB input sounded superior to the SPDIF in my opinion. Well, the wait was worth it, very much worth it so now I am waiting for their dedicated server that will be fitted with 12 TB with Raid protection, a BD-ROM drive to rip with and a tablet to serve as the remote. LH made glitch free USB cables to send along as well.
Now here comes the game changer. I love my TW AC-3. It is flexible, reliable and downright sounds good. Large format loudspeakers however can wreak havoc on an analog rig, especially systems that pump out sub 20Hz with ease. You get mighty close to arm resonance territory and you can hear when the stylus is, to borrow a phrase from Peter at Soundsmith, no longer in intimate contact with the groove walls. I've always been a fan of Micro Seiki turntables. Heck look at a TW and this reflects that. Micro Seiki has been gone a long time though and noisy air pumps are a no go as far as I'm concerned. Then one day I get a PM from a friend in another forum that Nishikawa-san formerly of Stax and Micro Seiki had built a 21'st century table with vacuum hold down, an air bearing AND a truly silent pump system! NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Where does it end???????????????
The Air Force One by Tech DAS
I'm not going to go all gushing over this table just read what Fremer, Kessler, Pearson, Breunninger have to say. It's all true. Hot damn. I had no idea how much more my Lyra Atlas had to give and no idea how much more the VR-9s had to give either.
