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Reviewer's Bio
Mike Galusha
Born in 1960, I'm at the tail end of the baby boomer generation and thus came of age during the late 1970's. Growing up we didn't have a lot of money but my mother was a garage sale power shopper way before it was chic and so much of my first audio gear was from garage sales. Best deal, a Teac 4010 reel-to-reel for $1. It needed repair but somehow my teenage brain was able to sort it out and get it running. Garrard and Thorens tables, including even a silly RCA 45rpm changer. My mother was one of those incredibly gifted individuals to whom music was part of their being and she could pick up essentially any instrument and play it amazingly well. This meant we had all sorts of music in the house which embedded in me a love of music which has not wavered.
What caused me to pursue audio reproduction was a good friend of my parents. When I was perhaps 11 years of age we visited his home and I experienced the wonders of a Dynaco preamp, Crown DC300 and larger Advents. I was hooked and started tagging along with mom to the garage sales. Soon I'd managed to acquire a Garrard turntable though I have no idea what model, a HH Scott 200B and who knows what for speakers. In any event, in some form, I've managed to have a pretty decent system since my teens.
Have always been a tinkerer whether it be cars, machinery or electronics and thus have a strong bent for DIY. This has only increased, especially in the last 10 years when I finally had the means to set up a dedicated shop space. These days much of my system is either DIY or gear I've modified. I make no claim to only tinker with gear in pursuit of a purer musical experience and very much enjoy building things but it ultimately comes down to what allows the music to just suck me in. Fully enjoy the sound of my system and I could easily live with it until old age, yet will continue the pursuit of extracting ever more music from records and digital sources.
As for what is important to me, primarily tone. If the tone is not correct nothing else really matters. Tone is followed closely by dynamic capability and freedom from compression. For me, the ability to reproduce the full dynamic envelope of the performance is very important and allows a greater emotional involvement with the artists. Once these criteria are met, then more the list becomes more varied. Deep clean bass is high on my list as well, I want to experience all of the recording so bass limited speakers need to have well integrated subs.
System Information
Sources:
Digital is currently some combination of a tube output Squeezebox or the M2Tech hiFace USB -> SPDIF adapter feeding a DIY Sabre32 DAC with a transformer output. The DAC was built from one of the early Twisted Pear audio Buffalo boards with the latest generation ESS Sabre chip to replace the original. The music files are served from a machine located under the basement stairs via Ethernet and the audio PC in the music room is fan-less and silent.
Analog consists of a DIY Teres turntable with a lead filled cocobolo platter, Morch UP-4 tonearm, and a Scheu/Benz MC cartridge, which is essentially a modified Benz Glider. Phono stage is a Hagerman Cornet with Jensen step-up transformers. The turntable sits on brass cones atop a maple platform which rests on Herbie's Audio Lab Tenderfoot footers on cocobolo blocks.
Line stage is a preamp I designed and built. It uses a 6SN7/6F8G tube loaded by an ultra high impedance current source. This is direct coupled to a pair of 6AH4 triodes as cathode followers with a high bias current. The output is configured as impedance balanced. Power supply is tube rectified and uses a CLCRCRC filter topology with no electrolytic caps and is fully regulated. A Goldpoint stepped attenuator is used for level control. This preamp is very good at getting out of the way and letting the music flow.
Lately I've been using the Consonance Cyber 845 SET amps. They are nearly stock but the original power supply caps had failed so while repairing them I modified them slightly, employing FRED diodes and some power supply bypass capacitors to further reduce noise. This definitely added some resolution and I like the sound of these very much. I also have a McIntosh MC275 running in full balanced mode. I use Lundahl transformers to generate the differential signals, avoiding the internal phase splitter. This transforms the amp and it's very good indeed. I have a few others I don't use much and am considering reworking. These are a 100 wpc custom built OTL with twenty 6AS7 output tubes and an old but massive Aronov 960 push pull KT88 amp. I do have a couple of solid state amps left, an early version Audio-GD C1 and a Hafler XL-280. I'm currently a "tube guy" but was a solid-state guy for most of my life but as I age my tastes seem to have changed some. I am not averse to solid state but there is something about the sound of vacuum tubes that allows the music to draw me further in.
Speakers are the GedLee Abbey with three GR Research/Rhytmik Audio servo subs in a sealed configuration. They are driven at speaker level from the amps. The Abbey are fairly high efficiency at 96dB/2.83V/1M and offer controlled directivity while being an easy load for the amplifiers. The sub woofers are located in an effort to load the room better and I'm absolutely delighted with the low frequency response in my room.
Speaker and power cables are Kaplan Cable GS and I have some Analysis Plus Oval 9 speaker cables as backup. Interconnects are a combination of DIY cables made from Neotech solid silver and some mil spec three conductor shielded Teflon for the balanced run from the preamp to the amplifiers.
Power conditioning is two BPT BP-2.5 Ultra 20 Amp balanced power units. One for the source gear and one for the amplifiers. I also have a Bybee Wire SE conditioner that I use in conjunction with the BPT on the amplifiers, further reducing noise without limiting current. The source gear also has several CMC (common mode choke) filters after the BPT, primarily on the digital stuff to try and remove any additional grunge.
The music room is 14 by 20 feet with a 8.5 foot ceiling and is well treated with GIK Acoustics and 8th Nerve products. The room is also heavily sound proofed and employs double drywall with a layer of Green Glue between the sheets. Electrically there are two 20A circuits with 10 gauge wire, each with a pair of Jena Labs cryo treated outlets. The 20A circuits are fed from a 100A panel installed just to feed the music room.
System rack is a DIY affair modeled after the Flexy rack project. Various isolation blocks, depending on what sounds best with the gear. I also have a very comfy, low backed chair. This made a significant improvement over the previous chair as there is now nothing behind my head to reflect the sound.
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