(Warning, this is LONG-WINDED. I'm writing to avoid taking down the Christmas tree.)
The beginning:
I started down this rabbit hole in 2007 after collecting records, but not gear, for 15 years. I got this sound in my head then. Not a sound I'd heard anywhere... but this idea of a sound. Pieced together from live performances, playing a few instruments myself, and the few decent hi-fi systems I'd heard up to that point.
This morning, I finally saw the exit sign and pulled off the audio expressway. Stopped the car. Got out, looked at the sunrise... and sat down in front of that sound.
Rewind about 6 months.
Completely burnt out I unplug all the vinyl stuff from my stereo. My Sony TTS-8000 turntable has just been dropped off at Fed Ex to travel for repair right after I'd got it dialed in. Old gear. I just wanted to rent one of those big dumpster containers that they drop off in your driveway and dump it all in. Thousands of hours and thousands and thousands of dollars and I wasn't even happy. In fact, I was LESS happy than I was in 2007.
Fast forward: November.
A month-long cold, bored on the couch with laryngitis. Couldn't even talk on the phone because I sounded like a demon and scared people. To distract myself I started looking at local audio listings and there's this Merrill/AR ES-1 turntable with all the Merrill mods (and more) that I'd intended for this AR EB-101 I'd had. I'd sold that to a friend, too burned out at that point to go through the mods.
But the money. So sick of spending money.
I looked at my stash, found my biggest frustration, my biggest example of chasing other peoples' tastes instead of my own (rhymes with TD-124) and I threw it out there as a trade. Mostly to remove its mocking smirk, its knowing of my inability to get out of it what others get out of it.
And so...the Merrill/AR ES-1 ended up here! And I made another local audio buddy in the process.
New audio buddy seemed like a kid in a candy store looking at my huge stash of gear...gear that was dead to me. I was OVER it. The clutter, the expense, the wrong turns, the failed-retail-therapy. But this gentleman...he was into it. And his excitement was... contagious.
I visited his place (hopefully not infecting him with the laryngitis) and he had super cool gear. Different from my gear. Big Tannoys in beautiful homemade cabinets. Really pretty McIntosh tube stuff. A big PTP Lenco build in a beautiful homemade plinth (that could make fun of all those ugly boxy Jean Nantais plinths). And lots of wood. Mmmm, beautiful oiled wood record cabinets. You could smell the teak oil.
I got to be the kid in the candy store.
Forward to the near-present.
The new turntable? It had a sound that reminded me of THAT sound. The sound in my head that got me into this mess for in the first place. It wasn't -quite- there, but I could smell it. A dim light in the distance. Is that.... is that my exit?
Out of audio-breath (and actual breath, still sick) but with audio-energy coming back I started doing little tweaky things. Played with my speaker positioning for several hours. Moved cables around. Dug around in the basement for little metal cups to place under the spikes on the speaker stands to give them a firmer footing. Got some white-tac and fastened the Harbeths to their stands (finally). Swapped carts in and out, found two of them to be close but no cigar. Posted here about wanting a top-shelf cart, and Sound Dragon sold me his Ortofon Cadenza Bronze (turned Black with a new cantilever/stylus).
That's when I knew it really was the exit sign ahead. End in sight.
The last 48-hours:
I got the protractor(s) out. The digital scale. All of the hex keys (or are they Allen wrenches? Who's Allen?). I dug through the abyss to find the Fozgometer, that oh-so-audiophile thing that tells you that azimuth is perfectly set. This cart was going on and staying on.
Last night I took my tube phono-stage off the storage shelves. It was taken out 2 years ago because it picked up massive amounts of RF from my ex-neighbor's pot-growing or meth-cooking side-gig (my guess, as it stopped the day his sketchy, no furniture, people-visiting-for-10-minutes-at-a-time-then-leaving ass moved away taking his RF-spewing cheap-Chinese grow lights with him.)
Sorry, little bitter about all that.
The tubed stage really gave it that last polish of realism. I lowered the suspension on the table a bit...that got it even more sorted. It was all just a wee bit too dark for my taste.
Time for bed and the fresh-look that morning-ears can give.
This morning, I replaced a Mullard 12ax7 in the phono stage with a Telefunken. The darkness went away, 3 Mullards being too many Mullards...and everything sounded natural and neutral. To my ears, at least. (Ya'll and your SET gear might think it all sounds like a fax machine )
Joni Mitchell floated in the room. I wish I had a river, too, Joni. And I wish this album had always sounded this emotionally intact, this heartbreakingly tangible.
Then I sat down.
Took a breath.
And smiled.
There it was, right in my living room. That sound in my head from 2007.
(Now let's wait and see what breaks first )
The beginning:
I started down this rabbit hole in 2007 after collecting records, but not gear, for 15 years. I got this sound in my head then. Not a sound I'd heard anywhere... but this idea of a sound. Pieced together from live performances, playing a few instruments myself, and the few decent hi-fi systems I'd heard up to that point.
This morning, I finally saw the exit sign and pulled off the audio expressway. Stopped the car. Got out, looked at the sunrise... and sat down in front of that sound.
Rewind about 6 months.
Completely burnt out I unplug all the vinyl stuff from my stereo. My Sony TTS-8000 turntable has just been dropped off at Fed Ex to travel for repair right after I'd got it dialed in. Old gear. I just wanted to rent one of those big dumpster containers that they drop off in your driveway and dump it all in. Thousands of hours and thousands and thousands of dollars and I wasn't even happy. In fact, I was LESS happy than I was in 2007.
Fast forward: November.
A month-long cold, bored on the couch with laryngitis. Couldn't even talk on the phone because I sounded like a demon and scared people. To distract myself I started looking at local audio listings and there's this Merrill/AR ES-1 turntable with all the Merrill mods (and more) that I'd intended for this AR EB-101 I'd had. I'd sold that to a friend, too burned out at that point to go through the mods.
But the money. So sick of spending money.
I looked at my stash, found my biggest frustration, my biggest example of chasing other peoples' tastes instead of my own (rhymes with TD-124) and I threw it out there as a trade. Mostly to remove its mocking smirk, its knowing of my inability to get out of it what others get out of it.
And so...the Merrill/AR ES-1 ended up here! And I made another local audio buddy in the process.
New audio buddy seemed like a kid in a candy store looking at my huge stash of gear...gear that was dead to me. I was OVER it. The clutter, the expense, the wrong turns, the failed-retail-therapy. But this gentleman...he was into it. And his excitement was... contagious.
I visited his place (hopefully not infecting him with the laryngitis) and he had super cool gear. Different from my gear. Big Tannoys in beautiful homemade cabinets. Really pretty McIntosh tube stuff. A big PTP Lenco build in a beautiful homemade plinth (that could make fun of all those ugly boxy Jean Nantais plinths). And lots of wood. Mmmm, beautiful oiled wood record cabinets. You could smell the teak oil.
I got to be the kid in the candy store.
Forward to the near-present.
The new turntable? It had a sound that reminded me of THAT sound. The sound in my head that got me into this mess for in the first place. It wasn't -quite- there, but I could smell it. A dim light in the distance. Is that.... is that my exit?
Out of audio-breath (and actual breath, still sick) but with audio-energy coming back I started doing little tweaky things. Played with my speaker positioning for several hours. Moved cables around. Dug around in the basement for little metal cups to place under the spikes on the speaker stands to give them a firmer footing. Got some white-tac and fastened the Harbeths to their stands (finally). Swapped carts in and out, found two of them to be close but no cigar. Posted here about wanting a top-shelf cart, and Sound Dragon sold me his Ortofon Cadenza Bronze (turned Black with a new cantilever/stylus).
That's when I knew it really was the exit sign ahead. End in sight.
The last 48-hours:
I got the protractor(s) out. The digital scale. All of the hex keys (or are they Allen wrenches? Who's Allen?). I dug through the abyss to find the Fozgometer, that oh-so-audiophile thing that tells you that azimuth is perfectly set. This cart was going on and staying on.
Last night I took my tube phono-stage off the storage shelves. It was taken out 2 years ago because it picked up massive amounts of RF from my ex-neighbor's pot-growing or meth-cooking side-gig (my guess, as it stopped the day his sketchy, no furniture, people-visiting-for-10-minutes-at-a-time-then-leaving ass moved away taking his RF-spewing cheap-Chinese grow lights with him.)
Sorry, little bitter about all that.
The tubed stage really gave it that last polish of realism. I lowered the suspension on the table a bit...that got it even more sorted. It was all just a wee bit too dark for my taste.
Time for bed and the fresh-look that morning-ears can give.
This morning, I replaced a Mullard 12ax7 in the phono stage with a Telefunken. The darkness went away, 3 Mullards being too many Mullards...and everything sounded natural and neutral. To my ears, at least. (Ya'll and your SET gear might think it all sounds like a fax machine )
Joni Mitchell floated in the room. I wish I had a river, too, Joni. And I wish this album had always sounded this emotionally intact, this heartbreakingly tangible.
Then I sat down.
Took a breath.
And smiled.
There it was, right in my living room. That sound in my head from 2007.
(Now let's wait and see what breaks first )
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