Onward in the DIY stakes

Ok, enough of the bad experience with A'gon, best to turn my thoughts to more positive experiences. I spent a few hours over the last weeks assembling the TB Kit 3.1 speaker. I'll be writing up the process and reviewing the resulting sounds for Affordable Audio next so not too much info here other than to say there is something totally liberating about building audio stuff! Not only does this give you a sense of where the money goes in audio gear, but it seems listening to something that you had a hand in putting together really does make listening more fun. I've been putting the kit speakers through their paces with the totally enjoyable Elekit integrated I assembled back in April, and with an Ebay-sourced old Sansui integrated (soon to do duty in my patio system) and they really do create a sonic picture that is both unique and pleasing. More in due course.

Caveat emptor? Not on Audiogon....

Ok, I've had it with Audiogon. I hate to rant on my own blog but two apparently well-rated Audiogon members both left me in the lurch this week after bidding on my item and when I accepted, promising me the money was 'on the way'. In both cases, the money never arrived (thank you PayPal). Consider the following excuses both issued:

[Member name close to a large breed of dog]"I didn't realize I was so close to maxing out my credit cards"

Wow...you bid on $2k worth of gear and only then realize you don't have the money? And this after you make me measure the parcel size to get you an accurate shipping quote?

[Member name close to Oz value] "Sorry for the late reply. I'm out of the country due to my job and I have no return date yet, so I'm unable to continue with deal."

Oh, you bid, accept my counter-offer price, make arrangements for drop off, and THEN find out you are in another country with no planned return date. You must living in a movie!

Audiogon to the rescue by protecting the seller? Not so. Cleverly, Mr'Ozl' (positive feedback 24) had confirmed the final deal by emailing me directly, not via the 'Gon's mailer. So A'gon feel it's just bad protocol rather than failure to comply on a binding deal (even though for 24 hours I could not mod the ad or update other offers as a formal deal was pending). My attempt to offer constructive feedback on these 'members' is subject to their acknowledgment that I am telling the truth. Now, how likely do you think that will be? I have the full email trail which I'll happily share here if either party feels this is inaccurate but really, when did people become such plonkers?

Meanwhile, if you are in the market for a gently used component or two, and have the funds to back up your promises to buy, please watch for my listings from now on here or on Audio Circle, where there is a better breed of audiophile. And if you are buying via A'gon, congrats, simply following through on your offer might make you that rarest of creatures, a normal buyer. Mr Dane and Mr Oz.....you really should get to know each other.

HiFi Mag launches today

A new online magazine aimed at audio enthusiasts launches today: HiFizine . I interviewed Albert von Schweikert for the inaugural issue and he was very open, as you can see. There are lots of good articles produced by volunteer writers and there is a general open invitation to all to get involved, as the magazine aims to leverage the audiophile crowd's enthusiasm for discussion and analysis. Check it out.

How much improvement in digital front ends?

The Marantz repair, which it turns out from other owners is not unexpected, has forced me to put an old Denon 2900 into service again as my main player for the foreseeable (I am resisting temptation to purchase a new Oppo or Sony for purely financial reasons). First blush, it's a step backwards: clarity lessened, somehow the soundstage is not as real as with the SA11, but, and it's a strange but, over a couple of days, and with a Virtual Dynamics David PC added to the mix, the Denon sounds pretty good. Not so much a lesser Marantz, more a different sonic picture. Of course, the players originated from similar eras, 2004 (denon) to 2005 (marantz) but they differed cost wise by an order of three, at least. Other than sonics, which are better, the Marantz has a far more elegant feel in use and tends to load faster. Still, it confirms my view that money thrown at the digital front end is not as effective as money spent on a good preamp or speakers.

Of course, this is a lesson I should have learned the first time I seriously upgraded a CD player. I'd been a slow adopter, even being lectured by a Naim dealer in the UK when I lived there who like me was a vinyl addict, upon hearing my reaction to his carefully arranged demo of the first Naim CD player (a company slow to launch this line and who trumpeted their audiophile credentials for delaying it until the early 90s) said that if I did not like the Naim then I'd never like CDs. Well, he was wrong, and that early Naim player was an ear-ache to me (Sorry Naim, I love you really). Fast forward to living in the US in early 90s, and unable to buy new vinyl, I conceded defeat and went to buy a CD player. I ended up with an entry level Rotel, unable to tell the difference (again to the dealer's annoyance) between it and his more expensive models. It was fine, for the time, and I still have it, but bombarded by the audiophile media through the 90s that I needed a DAC or a new high end player to really appreciate digital, I succumbed to a two-box Parasound set up. Oh dear. It was really not much better than the Rotel, even though the cable connecting the two cost as much as that player.

Long story short, the Denon 2900 replaced the Parasound, with a simple return to one-box, and sounded better. The Marantz sounded a little better again. How many dollars could I have spent on other parts of the rig with better return? Don't ask. So, just how good is that Oppo?

The fragility of SACD players, perhaps

Addendum to the last post, last night the Marantz started skipping and stopping on the wonderful sounding SACD anniversary issue of Dark Side of the Moon. Ouch....all my ranting about cds might be misplaced (though I still think they are badly packaged!) as it now seems likely the Marantz could be the cause. I located an SACD owners and lovers forum, SA-CD Net which contained a several years old thread outlining problems others have had with their SACDs. Seems it's common enough for players to fail on the SACD layer while reading the red book track just fine. A series of not-terribly helpful back and forths with the Marantz customer contact line has me now packing up the SA11 for shipment to the nearest service center for a check up and hopefully, warranty-covered correction. We'll see.

The fragility of CDs

If anything is going to push me over to the computer audio side in my living room it's the increasing problems I am having with CDs. We know the 'perfect sound forever' claim was never valid but most of us interpreted that as referring to the 'perfect' part, we kind of thought CD was robust but I am beginning to wonder. It's bad enough that 1 out of ever 3 or 4 cds I purchase from Amazon comes with the case split or damaged before I even open it, or that I have to use a knife to get access to the disk with all those sticky layers of 'protection' on the case, now I find CDs seemingly give up the ghost of playing without any cause. Last night my relatively new SACD of the Incredible West Montgomery album (new because I never realized Amazon carried the SACD version (they keep this hidden mostly unless you specify it in format search) so I purchased the album again having lucked on to that), refused to play. In fact, the TOC would not read in my Marantz. I took it out, gave it a quick examination and saw nothing unusual so I wiped it down, tried again and again before popping it into my older Denon 2900, relegated to DVD duties with my TV and always a machine guaranteed to read anything. Sure enough , the blue 'SACD' light came on and the player read it. But still no luck with my main rig. Hum....time for some stronger cleaning. I tried the toothpaste trick -- no luck. So, feeling brave I tried serious buffing before making a copy on my computer for luck. A quick search on the Web turns up all sorts of tricks for cleaning and repairing CDs (including, I kid you not, bananas, coca-cola, erasers, Brasso, and Barkeepers' Friend). Now as I am seriously determined to understand how any of these work I started a regime of trying them. I can tell you that I ended up with no luck and one still largely unreadable SACD. I have no idea what heppened to it but I never manhandled it or let it fall but now I hsve only the Apple Lossless version to listen to so I did what any self-respecting audiophile of a jazz leaning would do, I bought another copy. But I've not given up. There are some serious tools out there for people who want to repair cds and I am going to explore this one further to learn if I cannot resucitate this original. Stay tuned. But let me just say, I never had this problem with my LPs.

Great reads for audio heads

I've been totally enjoying Greg Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music which offers a history of audio recording from Edison up to the software tricks of modern pop singers. Excellent material of interest to any self-respecting audiophile, including visits to Mikey Fremer's house.


While on the subject of what any audiophile should read, I am a great admirer of Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession which I reviewed for Affordable Audio a couple of years back. It's one thing to study gear but to really understand how it all works, you need to understand that machine between your ears. Levitin explains it better than anyone I've read.

Welcome to the machine

Roger Waters will be touring the US later this year, playing The Wall too, but if you want to see him be prepared to pay through the nose and pre-register for the privilege of doing so via lottery at his site:

Bah humbug-- it's a gas....

Jaton RC2000p preamp: lushness embodied

Jaton's Operetta RC2000P is my latest review for Affordable Audio. I quite liked it as you will see, it has an almost tube like quality to it. At $1300 it provides plenty of competition to preamps in the $2k range but Jaton Corp are offering direct deals on this line now which will bring the price down 30% further -- see Jaton's site for details. At that price, fully warrantied, you are entering the realm of bargains typically found only in the used market, but with trial and return privileges.

Metheny at the Paramount

Went to see Pat Metheny at the wonderful Paramount Theater here in Austin on his Orchestrion tour. Not having heard the new album at the time, I wasn't quite sure what to expect and Pat spent some time trying without much success to explain to the audience how it all worked. He appeared on stage alone, slowly revealing more and more of the accompanying technology surrounding him that allowed him to create the equivalent of a band: drums, synthesizers, other guitar parts, bass etc. It made for interesting visuals too, a drum kit separated out into one stick and one percussive item per frame, stacked up behind him with robotic hands pulsing out the rhythm. He mixed it up and threw in some oldies and some improvisations as well as the whole new album, and as always, he was his charming self who let his playing do most of the talking for over 2.5 hours. Great musician, great venue, decent sonics for an amplified show and a glass of wine made this a far more pleasant experience than some gigs. But, and it's a big but - throw in parking, ticket convenience fees (!), a sitter etc. and the whole evening set me back $200 for two. Live music is essential but who can afford this level of regular attendance?

Elekit amp up and running

Despite the damage to a tube outlined below, the Elekit amp building project proceeded and I'll add pics and details as I get the full story written.

The kit comes with a set of well wrapped parts which are not labelled so you have to spend a lot of time relating these to the packing list to make sure you have all the parts and can identify them accurately. I recommend a thorough review of the instructions to help you accomplish this too as the resulting amp is heavy and densely packed once assembled. Undoing a mistake will prove costly so take your time and really do it one step at a time. Despite reading a review where the the builder put the fuses on the wrong side of the main board, I also made that mistake myself. In part this results from the lack of images in the instructions but also it comes from my own failure to read it all as fully as I might.

First up, you need to separate the circuit board into several parts along precut lines to free up the main board for some resistor installations. The instructions also ask you to solder plate a couple of holes on the reverse side too. No great difficulties here but you need to be sure you get your resistor values clear and don't confuse your 47k with your 33k etc. To make this work for me, I set up a dedicated space for the project which I knew I would not complete in a day or two but which I would return to over the course of a couple of weeks.  Too much to tell in a blog entry -- I'll have the full story in a separate document soon, but rest assured, it's a working amp that's a lot of fun to use. 7 watts of tube glory and a wonderful midrange ease.  Add a pair of sensitive speakers,  a half-decent front end, all joined by some affordable cable and you have real hi-end system. Stay tuned for results.

Virtual Dynamics closes down

Everyone loves to beat up on cable manufacturers, and no doubt Virtual Dynamics fed the fire with uber-expensive lines but I was saddened to learn the company is folding due to economic pressures. In my view, any designer who thinks that applying their skills to improving audio reproduction in the home is important deserves our encouragement. The proof is in the listening but if nobody is willing to try make a better tube, a better cable, a better table or better amp, then we will all be forced to live with what we have. So once someone has developed something new, you can judge it in various ways. You might consider its price relative to others, its parts quality, its claimed benefits, its underlying science, or you might just give it a listen and decide for yourself. It is clear in audio land that just listening is never enough and, in some cases, is not even relevant to forming an opinion.  I heard VD cables and I liked what I heard. If you read around, you'll learn that I was not alone. I did not understand the application of Coulomb Friction that the designer invoked as explanation, but I do know that a set of their lower end David speaker cables made me accept, finally, that cables can make an audible difference.

Few, perhaps none, have copied this principle in their cable designs, preferring instead to work on the metal components, shielding, terminations or some combo of all three in offering their best shot at communicating the signal. What I do know is this company's approach was different, made many people think the designs mattered, and will be missed. On top of this, head honcho Rick Schultz was always a pleasure to deal with and was open to helping. Au revoir, another hi-end company bites the dust.

A footnote -- curiously, a discussion on this topic on A'gon disappeared -- not the first time I've noted this on that forum. Audio Asylum closed one discussion topic on this but left it up for review. Funnily, many people made a big deal of a web review that basically showed the parts in an entry level cable and used it to ridicule the company. I interpreted that whole cable design differently, feeling VD had deliberately put together a cheap cable based on the principles of their more expensive designs as a lure to new customers to try one and see if they would like it, and all at a cost that was entry level (around $100 I think). Well, like everything in audio, interpretation is key. For example, try this review

Paul McGowan on room set up

Paul McGowan explains how to get your room right, in general terms, in this video from the latest PS Audio Newsletter. The newsletter generally is worth signing up for, it appears monthly in your inbox and is not just a sales push, though selling PS Audio's approaches is generally what it's all about. Paul is a generally positive guy who offers great input on the company's own customer forum at www.psaudio.com. If nothing else, the video shows you the cool set up at in their listening room. Maggies, diffusers, prototype amps.....enjoy.

Bye bye Herb

I hate it but it is so, the great Herb Ellis has left us. I can write about it but words won't convey the wonder of his playing. If you need an education, go to YouTube and check the guy out. If you want to listen, really listen, to a player who could comp, solo, accompany, interpret and just plain push that guitar into the realm of true instrumentation, pick up one of his solo albums and just listen. No histrionics, no wailing distortion masquerading as technique, no speed runs feigning profundity, just pure harmonic joy in the instrument. And if you want to know how anyone could live in the same space as Oscar Peterson and thrive - he was that man. Thank you Herb - you made life better. Nuff said.

Reviewer sells cables sent in for review - shock, schlock and lack of facts

One of the complaints of the web is that we are drowning in too much data -- but another is that some postings never die, and can resurface at any time. Both are in evidence in a recent note I came across on Audio Asylum. Not sure how I missed it since I subscribe, but apparently a leading writer in a leading magazine (!) was alleged to have sold his review samples on A'gon. Worse, this was $20k's worth of cable from a high end manufacturer who was not amused. No official response from the 'critic' though he allegedly called the editor of a rival journal a 'fucker' for mentioning it.  Follow the links, it gets more bizarre as a well known amp designer chips in with other stories and a picture emerges of bribery, reviews for sale and general lowlife behavior among some members of the review community. Now read those mags with a better sense of perspective.

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=critics&m=29508
http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=critics&m=30087