Been at the carpentry over the weekend again, for perhaps the most important part of vinyl replay. This one is on wheels.
Claro Dual deck, machined to a tolerance of ± 0.01mm, the arm mounts machined to the exact length for Rega mounts. Machined aluminium plinth with two motors mounted underneath. Origin Live 12" Illustrious Mk3 arm currently with a low output Dynavector XX2 Mk2 (alternate is a Koetsu Urushi). Jelco 12" TK 850L with a high output SoundSmith Zephyr Mk3 MI. Sitting on a Townshend Podium for complete isolation.
Solid aluminium machined electronic speed controller, just to remind you where it came from.
Designed and machined in the UK.
I dont know much about turntables but that is a bulletproof printer!
My LOOORD!
Amazing room man… So nice!
Your 800’s look beautiful.
Nice Zus
Cool seeing the difference. Zus are great, but I bet the 800s were a HUGE upgrade!
Different league. Different universe.
Current iteration of main system… it’ll change fairly soon as I have some Magnepan .7’s on order, and they’ll go on either side of the fireplace. Not sure where the Harbeths will go yet, but I’ll play with things and see where they wind up. They could go in the TV room, but the height of the Imagine B’s in there is a little lower than optimal. (They line up with the top of the cabinet below the TV, so the tweeters aren’t at ear level; could angle them up i suppose.)
Components are in a closet in TV room. 90% of the time I’m using Roon, so once the system is on, it’s easy to control it from my phone.
The Thorens (with Ortofon MC20 Moving Coil) gets used pretty frequently when friends are over. Amazingly hardly any footfall vibration.
Anyway, it works great as a whole-house (main floor) system. Sounds really good, and the soundstage/acoustics when listening in the living room is wonderful. Some might ask why I bought Magnepans when I have Harbeths, but we are all crazy, amiright?
Another beautiful setup. Unfortunately the neatnik part of me never became fully developed.
I like how it is integrated with the rest of the living that goes on, rather than making it a central feature of a room (don’t get me wrong that can be very cool too, it’s how I did mine, but nevertheless) makes it more integrated into the house, somehow
What I like about the system is using a cartridge-appropriate step up transformer with a really cheap but perfectly good MM phono amp. Incredibly cost effective compared to some of the swanky MM/MC phono amps.
Shame about the P3’s.
I think you will like the Maggie’s ( I have 1.7’s) but you got to drive them for
a good while till they open up and they like to breath…off the back and
side walls. Try tweeters in and out, and toe them in as desired. An inch
makes a difference but dialing them in is worth it.
Oh heavens no. They are awesome speakers, and I will find a place for them somewhere in my house. I had them in the TV room a while back and they sounded great.
I’ve always wanted Magnepans, and never really had an opportunity to try them out. But I do now. (The factory isn’t far from where I live, and i visited there years ago. Like 40.)
The P3ESR’s are currently two feet off the back wall (and a good 10 feet from the side walls). Hoping that’ll be enough space behind the Maggies. Some say at least three feet behind is optimal, and I’m fine moving them out for a listening session… But being a living space, three feet is too far out into the room for every day.
The NAD phono stage sounds fine with the ortofon step-up. I have a Van Alstine Vision Q phono in my office that sounds really good, too, and can accommodate MM or MC.
But, I’m still lusting after the Stellar Phono.
I demo’d one last fall, but something was goofy with the MC side, and kept tripping something within my Audiolab integrated, and shutting it down temporarily, so I returned the SPP. The MM side was fine, tho. But while it was working, it sounded sooooo good. So, I’m thinking of giving it another try. And then I’d move the Van Alstine to this system.
Ahdunno. It’s all nuts.
Yeah, that back wall distance could be a little tight, but rear wall dampening
and/or diffusion could help, and possibly maintain your aesthetic.