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Reviewer's Bio
Claude Lemaire
My earliest
musical memories reach back to the early 1970's.Like many I'm sure, I was
first influenced by my parents' musical choices; classic Burt Bacharach along
with protégé Dionne Warwick shared Garrard platter time with Progressive Big
Band leader Stan Kenton. My attention soon turned to the emerging Disco
movement and it's forerunner/close cousins Philly Sound & Symphonic Soul. Perhaps
to counterbalance this new found love for the steady thump and lush
arrangements, my best friend introduced me to the hard & heavy sounds of
Deep Purple, Led Zep, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Slade and Kiss (the Alive!
period).
\As the decade(s) progressed so did my LP collection and openness to new sounds to include names like Donna Summer, Giorgio, Cerrone, Costandinos, James Brown, Motown, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, Kool & The Gang, Manu Dibango, Kraftwerk, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, ELP, Babe Ruth, Rush, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, J. & R. Strauss (thank you Stanley Kubrick), Schoenberg, Ravel, Stravinsky, Glass, Ella, Billie, Franky, King, Duke, Dizzy, Bird, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Art Pepper, Steve Coleman, Metallica, Slayer, John Zorn, Nils Petter Molvaer, Murcof, etc, etc.
Without even trying, call it second nature if you prefer, certain records just seemed to sound better than others, same case with certain labels -- Supertramp's dynamic Crime of the Century (1974) on A&M vs Bowie's rather muffled 1975 single "Fame" on RCA sowed the seeds to a lifetime of Audiophile discontent (kidding). "No big deal" I hear you say?Well keep in mind I was only ten years old at the time.
My very first sound system (Xmas 1976) was a Sound Linear turntable, a Jelco cart that was soon replaced by a $35 Shure, an Akai AA-1010 receiver and a pair of 'no name' two-way thick grilled speakers. At first I was in Heaven, but of course a few years later I got bitten by the Audiophile bug and you know the story too well... I had to upgrade in order to stay hi (fi). Two Technics SL-1710 + Stanton series 500, plugged into a Pioneer MA-62 A mixer served time during my heavy disco mixing period. After high school, I completed my studies with a college degree in Electronics. Got hooked on reading anything related to hi-fi such as acoustics and sound physics.
Eventually around 1987 this gave way to a more respectable audiophile entry kit sporting a Rega Planar3/RB300 with Grado M+ cart, a Conrad-Johnson PV6 preamp, Sugden P28 power amp and a pair of Rega-Camber 2.5 speakers on stands. The latter would yield it's place to the Apogee Stage (+ sand-filled bases) planar/ribbon dipoles in spring 1990.Soon I started recording live Jazz and Classical direct to 2-track cassette and also reel to reel tape. Around 2000, I got involved in Loudspeaker Design and Sound Mastering for mainly independent music labels which come to think of it, are not that far apart in that both these fields can be viewed as sound manipulation or phrased differently, voicing. In 1999-2000 I did a weekly disco show called Flashback on the FM dial. Since a few years, each semester I give music appreciation conferences at a nearby college as well as maintaining a sound/music blog. See my current reference system and blog link below. Oh! and one last thing, I always wear ear protection at loud concerts and during my occasional drumming.
Reference
System
Analog
Sota Star Sapphire turntable (suspension compliancy at minimum-rubber feet screwed in mostly)
Eminent Technology ET2 straight air-bearing tonearm with Wisa air pump + Airtech Surge Tank Air Reservoir.
Denon DL103 moving coil, conical tip cartridge. VTF adjusted (most of the time) @ 2.64gr. VTA readjusted for every record & on the fly while playing if needed. Thin (self adhesive) cork applied on cartridge body sides, front and a tiny bit below to absorb or reduce plastic resonances.
Duelund 1.0 silver flat conductor in oil impregnated silk as interconnect from tonearm to step up; non-shielded.
Denon AU-310 step-up transformer. 1:10 ratio (20dB gain). Fixed output cable bypassed by 2 inch Duelund 1.0 silver flat conductor w/female RCA + custom copper + Mogami shield interconnect to preamp.
Tascam BR-20T 'broadcast' 1/4 inch 2 track half track reel 2 reel analog deck.
Ampex AG-440B (vintage 1969) 1/2 inch 2 track half track analog mastering deck.
Digital
NEC CDR-602 CD-Rom reader as transport. SPDIF out on custom multi-solid core
copper.
ART DI/O A/D-D/A converter (stock but tube taken out) 7V output on 1/4 jack. Cheap plastic (better than 'full chromed') male 1/4 jack to fem. RCA adapters. Custom multi solid core copper RCA terminated.
Custom all tube preamp with separate power supply: 5Y3 WGTA USA or RCA 5Y4 GT (both long black plates) rectifier + 20H choke. ASC PIO, Cerafine caps Signal path:7025A (12ax7A variant) + two (1 per channel) 6c45pi (Russian high transconductance triode) for phono section - passive RIAA correction EQ curve - followed by Sylvania 6gu7 for line section. Allen Bradley carbon resistors, P.E.C. 100k potentiometer, Jensen 'pure copper foil silver leadout paper in oil type' output cap.
Custom multi solid core copper short interconnect.
Custom all tube power amp: modified Audio Note KIT ONE. Supply: Audio Note
mains, Chelmer 5u4G rectifier, 10H choke, Mundorf , LCR caps. Signal path: Only
one Sylvania 6sn7GT input/driver, 0.22uf Audio Note copper foil in oil coupling
cap, directly to 300BC Shuguang DHT+ 'EI core' Audio Note output trannies. Allen
Bradley carbon resistors. 7W/ch. at less than 1% THD, mainly 2nd harmonic,
bandwidth: -0.8dB @ 10Hz & -0.7dB @ 20kHz (-1.3dB @ 30kHz). No feedback
or...
Nelson Pass First Watt F4 'Class A push-pull impedance converting ('current follower') solid state power amp. Signal path: one FET input + 3 parallel complementary pairs of MOSFET outputs, DC coupled, no feedback design. 25W/ch./8ohm & 50W/ch./4ohm. A plastic sand filled 2.5 pound dumbbell weight sits atop front chassis for more authoritative low frequencies.
Custom 'shotgun' bi-wire copper speaker cable (12 gauge equivalent).
Custom mid-sized (50 pound) birch ply 2-way 'Jensen/Onken inspired' vented monitor loudspeakers. Birch ply matching stands. External passive x-over. Impedance: 8ohm nom., 6ohm min. Sensitivity: 92.5dB/2.83V/1W @ 1m. Anechoic frequency response: 37Hz to 30kHz +/- 2dB. In room response: flat down to 30Hz, -3dB @ 27.5Hz, -6dB @ 25Hz. Listening chair position: back wall at 14 inches from ears, front baffle at 92 inches toed in to cross at 'nose tip'; separated 80 inches between centre of baffles.
Preamp & power amps use identical custom 10 gauge manually braided fine multi strand copper terminated with Wattgate (cryo treated) male & female 'IEC' connectors.
Turntable/arm sit on 'sandboxed' top shelf of custom equipment stand. Latter is very sturdy, made out of real wood sporting four 4 x 4 inch posts & two other removable shelves; preamp in middle & solid state amp on the bottom. Tube amp sits alone on shelf on bricks on 'spongy' orange hockey pucks on bricks on concrete floor. Room measures approx. 34' x 18' x 7' total; main listening area close to 20' x 18' x 7'.An 8' x 7' rug sits under and in front of the speakers. Ceiling is 2’ x 8' wooden beams. Minor corner absorption.
My Blog: soundevaluations
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