Many audio old timers, at least internet audio old timers, will remember the brilliantly entertaining posts over at AA by Joe Rosen. Joe, a good Canadian, certainly knew how to share his opinion. Agree or not with his thoughts, but he could be a blast to read.
Here's an example of one of his posts over there:
Wow indeed!
Thanks for the praise, and that is a big set of questions, so here are my answers, from the top now:
-Preamps. I have LOTS of experience with the Dynaco PAS, and it took me quite some number of years to come to the conclusion that the thing is a mutt. It's clean, quiet and very neutral. It's reliable, well made and easy to service. It won't drive a low impedance amp like any typical solid-state jobs, and sonically it just sits there like a big yawn. It's several light years better than the pig-misery Dynaco replaced it with (PAT-4 & PAT-5, both utterly atrocious beyond mere words), but other than that, it sucks! I can rhyme off an easy half-dozen valve preamps that make better music than it can, from the obvious Marantz & McIntosh choices (and I'll expand on them here: ANY and ALL preamps I've heard from both companies absolutely SMOKE the PAS, including ancient McIntosh C-4's & C-8's!), to both Harman-Kardon Citation models (I & IV), any QUAD preamps (QC-1 & 2, 22), etc. etc. blah blah blah...
I'd like to add the Eico to that list, and I have a couple of them in either working or near working condition. But for various reasons, no doubt the size of my collection plays a part in this, I've never bothered to hook them up or get them working and listen to them. I've studied the schematic in the past, and remember seeing a competent all-12AX7 preamp, more sophisticated and I would have presumed noticeably superior sounding to the PAS. But, most people would consider it quite a stretch to make a sonic assessment of something merely by looking at the schematic for it, and while I would argue that, I can only argue the point the OPPOSITE way. Which is to say, if you see obvious engineering mistakes and dumb bean-counter gratifying cost-cutting horse-latitudes, you'll hear them. But, failing that, it can be a bit of a toss-up to determine just how GOOD, as opposed to just how BAD, something sounds. And with vintage gear, and I've said it before (so what the heck, I'll say it again!), CONDITION IS EVERYTHING. I can restore an old piece of valve audio gear, I have a nice arsenal of test gear, premium audiophile-grade spare parts, NOS valves and a lovely transconductance tester to sift them out and match things up with. And of course, I realize that most folks don't! So what you found is what you got, and you can throw another set of bottles into it, and that's all most folks get up to with their gear. Maybe your HF-85 needs repair, maybe it's just a lousy sounding preamp. Either way, I'd trust your ears!
Again, my own experience is that what you've described where an integrated amp of minimal pedigree beats out more expensive separates, is totally in line with my own experiences. In fact, when I run vintage gear in my "second" systems, I usually find myself using Integrated amps and NOT the separates. I have no aversion to fiddling with bias controls, running extra interconnect and power cords, and space is not an issue. Yet, I seem to favour the integrateds!
In any event, I certainly agree that the PAS3/ST70 combo won't stack up against a nice Fisher X-100! The 70 is clearly superior to the amp section in the Fisher, nonetheless, the one in the Fisher is nothing to sneeze at, either...
-Cartridges. Hi-Fi magazines, particularly the English ones, don't know a good cartridge from a dull hypodermic needle glued to an old rusting soup can. The latter is an accurate description of the kind of build and engineering that goes into Linn, Goldring, Decca, Supex, Denon DL-103 & Ortofon SPU "cartridges", which are actually modified wood-carver's detailing tools, rejigged for damaging precious vinyl and sounding like garbage along the way. But that goes without saying, really. What IS sad is the people that defend these things and have the nerve to suggest that they sound at all good. Every time I hear this crap, I hear that the vinyl being played had been long TRASHED, and good. Most likely on the first play, since that's all it takes, really...
First and foremost, you need a good cartridge that can trace difficult discs without either:
a) Requiring a tracing force in excess of 2 grammes, never mind 16 tonnes.
b) An ability to trace at those forces anything that gets thrown at it.
c) And, from a company that understands and follows Quality Control procedures, something senile old men working in Quonset huts in Japan don't know a thing about, never mind senile British watchmakers also working in filthy old Quonset huts, with worn out machinery that was old & tired and well beyond its sell-by date even when your Granddad was born...
While the High-End Magazine-Morons have recommended Grado & Sumiko in the US, and Decca, Goldring, Linn (which are just Supexes & Audio-Technica crap, anyways) & Supex in England, they've completely missed the boat.
Your vinyl is precious, 99% of it is not readily replaceable anymore, and by that I mean with NEW copies!
So, you are supposed to use badly made, badly overpriced cartridges that can't trace properly even at 2.5 or even 3 grammes, just because some Wanker got a kickback from the distributor or manufacturer? Or because their ears are up their arses, which is also a major problem with the press, ESPECIALLY when reviewing phono gear. Or both (of course)?
I recommend the Shure Me95ED, or its replacement, since I haven't kept up with what Shure is doing these days. Here is a cartridge that can trace anything in sight at a very modest 1.4g, is beautifully made to much higher standards than any Koetsu (and I've seen my share of defective Koetsu's, believe me) in Mexico. Yes, Mexico!
The cartridge is sweet, clean, clear as a bell and non-fatiguing. It isn't quite the last word in detail retrieval, tonal or timbral neutrality, bass control, slam or image focus, but it doesn't do any of those things horribly either. And it makes MUSIC, it is a very accessible sound that never gets obnoxious, and like it or not, it at least will preserve your records for when you can afford something better. Which is far more than I can say for any Grado, which oftentime left the factory with dented & curving cantilevers, unpolished blobs of industrial diamond for a tip, and dunder-headed instructions telling you to use insufficient tracing forces (1.5g when even 2.25g was slightly optimistic. I'm talking the FTE+1 here, which Absolute Smut magazine once recommended all too highly) and NO anti-skate! Oh, the cartridge I had which didn't have a proper stylus and had a dented and curving cantilever was the Signature 8, also rave-reviewed by TAS. All I can say is, I hope the clowns responsible for these rave reviews had better made samples than the one I paid $250 for...
For $200, you are close to being able to afford a Bang & Olufsen MMC2, which used to be sold by Lyle Cartridges in New York State. I doubt that they do anymore, since the fools at B&O decided that the way they now want their products sold is a mirror of the way Sony sells many of theirs. That is to say, they turned their distribution on its head, ditched 95% of their dealers, and forced the remaining ones to open new stores devoted entirely and singularly to their mostly substandard and totally unmusical and tinny-sounding range of crap lifestyle junk products...Too bad, because some of the designs of senior engineer Dr. S.K. Pramanik are brilliant, and that included the range of cartridges, the brilliant little turntables (some of which handily eat your Thorens for breakfast, never mind Regas, Duals and anything and everything the Japanese ever made), and some fantastic cassette decks (particularly the stellar 9000, which puts any Crapamichi to shame, both spec-wise and soundwise, too).
On the other hand, you have some promising but otherwise excessively gimmick-ridden and compromised electronics, which sound at least OK, but then it's all thrown in the garbage with B&O's UTTERLY MISERABLE speakers. And B&O has one of the best anechoic chambers for doing acoustic work in all of Europe, and had a dedicated listening panel of some dozen or so people to judge the results. Shame on the lot of them!
Here's an example of one of his posts over there:
Wow indeed!
Thanks for the praise, and that is a big set of questions, so here are my answers, from the top now:
-Preamps. I have LOTS of experience with the Dynaco PAS, and it took me quite some number of years to come to the conclusion that the thing is a mutt. It's clean, quiet and very neutral. It's reliable, well made and easy to service. It won't drive a low impedance amp like any typical solid-state jobs, and sonically it just sits there like a big yawn. It's several light years better than the pig-misery Dynaco replaced it with (PAT-4 & PAT-5, both utterly atrocious beyond mere words), but other than that, it sucks! I can rhyme off an easy half-dozen valve preamps that make better music than it can, from the obvious Marantz & McIntosh choices (and I'll expand on them here: ANY and ALL preamps I've heard from both companies absolutely SMOKE the PAS, including ancient McIntosh C-4's & C-8's!), to both Harman-Kardon Citation models (I & IV), any QUAD preamps (QC-1 & 2, 22), etc. etc. blah blah blah...
I'd like to add the Eico to that list, and I have a couple of them in either working or near working condition. But for various reasons, no doubt the size of my collection plays a part in this, I've never bothered to hook them up or get them working and listen to them. I've studied the schematic in the past, and remember seeing a competent all-12AX7 preamp, more sophisticated and I would have presumed noticeably superior sounding to the PAS. But, most people would consider it quite a stretch to make a sonic assessment of something merely by looking at the schematic for it, and while I would argue that, I can only argue the point the OPPOSITE way. Which is to say, if you see obvious engineering mistakes and dumb bean-counter gratifying cost-cutting horse-latitudes, you'll hear them. But, failing that, it can be a bit of a toss-up to determine just how GOOD, as opposed to just how BAD, something sounds. And with vintage gear, and I've said it before (so what the heck, I'll say it again!), CONDITION IS EVERYTHING. I can restore an old piece of valve audio gear, I have a nice arsenal of test gear, premium audiophile-grade spare parts, NOS valves and a lovely transconductance tester to sift them out and match things up with. And of course, I realize that most folks don't! So what you found is what you got, and you can throw another set of bottles into it, and that's all most folks get up to with their gear. Maybe your HF-85 needs repair, maybe it's just a lousy sounding preamp. Either way, I'd trust your ears!
Again, my own experience is that what you've described where an integrated amp of minimal pedigree beats out more expensive separates, is totally in line with my own experiences. In fact, when I run vintage gear in my "second" systems, I usually find myself using Integrated amps and NOT the separates. I have no aversion to fiddling with bias controls, running extra interconnect and power cords, and space is not an issue. Yet, I seem to favour the integrateds!
In any event, I certainly agree that the PAS3/ST70 combo won't stack up against a nice Fisher X-100! The 70 is clearly superior to the amp section in the Fisher, nonetheless, the one in the Fisher is nothing to sneeze at, either...
-Cartridges. Hi-Fi magazines, particularly the English ones, don't know a good cartridge from a dull hypodermic needle glued to an old rusting soup can. The latter is an accurate description of the kind of build and engineering that goes into Linn, Goldring, Decca, Supex, Denon DL-103 & Ortofon SPU "cartridges", which are actually modified wood-carver's detailing tools, rejigged for damaging precious vinyl and sounding like garbage along the way. But that goes without saying, really. What IS sad is the people that defend these things and have the nerve to suggest that they sound at all good. Every time I hear this crap, I hear that the vinyl being played had been long TRASHED, and good. Most likely on the first play, since that's all it takes, really...
First and foremost, you need a good cartridge that can trace difficult discs without either:
a) Requiring a tracing force in excess of 2 grammes, never mind 16 tonnes.
b) An ability to trace at those forces anything that gets thrown at it.
c) And, from a company that understands and follows Quality Control procedures, something senile old men working in Quonset huts in Japan don't know a thing about, never mind senile British watchmakers also working in filthy old Quonset huts, with worn out machinery that was old & tired and well beyond its sell-by date even when your Granddad was born...
While the High-End Magazine-Morons have recommended Grado & Sumiko in the US, and Decca, Goldring, Linn (which are just Supexes & Audio-Technica crap, anyways) & Supex in England, they've completely missed the boat.
Your vinyl is precious, 99% of it is not readily replaceable anymore, and by that I mean with NEW copies!
So, you are supposed to use badly made, badly overpriced cartridges that can't trace properly even at 2.5 or even 3 grammes, just because some Wanker got a kickback from the distributor or manufacturer? Or because their ears are up their arses, which is also a major problem with the press, ESPECIALLY when reviewing phono gear. Or both (of course)?
I recommend the Shure Me95ED, or its replacement, since I haven't kept up with what Shure is doing these days. Here is a cartridge that can trace anything in sight at a very modest 1.4g, is beautifully made to much higher standards than any Koetsu (and I've seen my share of defective Koetsu's, believe me) in Mexico. Yes, Mexico!
The cartridge is sweet, clean, clear as a bell and non-fatiguing. It isn't quite the last word in detail retrieval, tonal or timbral neutrality, bass control, slam or image focus, but it doesn't do any of those things horribly either. And it makes MUSIC, it is a very accessible sound that never gets obnoxious, and like it or not, it at least will preserve your records for when you can afford something better. Which is far more than I can say for any Grado, which oftentime left the factory with dented & curving cantilevers, unpolished blobs of industrial diamond for a tip, and dunder-headed instructions telling you to use insufficient tracing forces (1.5g when even 2.25g was slightly optimistic. I'm talking the FTE+1 here, which Absolute Smut magazine once recommended all too highly) and NO anti-skate! Oh, the cartridge I had which didn't have a proper stylus and had a dented and curving cantilever was the Signature 8, also rave-reviewed by TAS. All I can say is, I hope the clowns responsible for these rave reviews had better made samples than the one I paid $250 for...
For $200, you are close to being able to afford a Bang & Olufsen MMC2, which used to be sold by Lyle Cartridges in New York State. I doubt that they do anymore, since the fools at B&O decided that the way they now want their products sold is a mirror of the way Sony sells many of theirs. That is to say, they turned their distribution on its head, ditched 95% of their dealers, and forced the remaining ones to open new stores devoted entirely and singularly to their mostly substandard and totally unmusical and tinny-sounding range of crap lifestyle junk products...Too bad, because some of the designs of senior engineer Dr. S.K. Pramanik are brilliant, and that included the range of cartridges, the brilliant little turntables (some of which handily eat your Thorens for breakfast, never mind Regas, Duals and anything and everything the Japanese ever made), and some fantastic cassette decks (particularly the stellar 9000, which puts any Crapamichi to shame, both spec-wise and soundwise, too).
On the other hand, you have some promising but otherwise excessively gimmick-ridden and compromised electronics, which sound at least OK, but then it's all thrown in the garbage with B&O's UTTERLY MISERABLE speakers. And B&O has one of the best anechoic chambers for doing acoustic work in all of Europe, and had a dedicated listening panel of some dozen or so people to judge the results. Shame on the lot of them!
