Durand Telos Sapphire with composite arm wand (final version)

Mike Lavigne

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some months ago I posted about getting the prototype version of the Durand Telos Sapphire which I have been enjoying since.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-Telos-Tonearm&p=221730&viewfull=1#post221730

today Joel installed the final version of the Durand Telos Sapphire tone arm on my NVS tt. the final version has a composite arm wand and new base.....compared to my prototype version. Joel has been working for over a year on the composite arm wand.

I've been quite impressed with the prototype version. the addition of the composite arm wand with the final version lowers the noise floor (reduces distortion/noise) and as a result everything improves. what stands out is the overall ease and projection of energy, increase in texture and detail, increase in harmonic complexity/richness, increased solidity on musical peaks, and the music projecting out further into the room. these were all strengths of the prototype version and so this is an improvement in degrees on all fronts. not night and day differences compared to the prototype, but significant and when you are already at this level quite remarkable. the improvement in enjoyment and musical immersion is what I'm loving at the moment.

the additional pull of the music is across musical boundaries; rock, pop, jazz, classical.....female vocal, solo piano, string quartet, small combo jazz. the projection of musical energy and artistic nuance is hard for me to describe. explosive is a word I would use to describe the energy level.....unlike anything outside of tape I have heard.

I've been listening to many of my reference cuts for the last 3-4 hours and I'm blown away that there was this much more potential in the format beyond where I was.

I think it is beautiful and love how it looks with the NVS.

L1001510.jpg
 
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Mike Lavigne

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Looks pretty sweet ! Is that a built in led lighting for the pivot bearing ?

thanks.

the bearing tower is translucent solid Sapphire, there is an LED below with a rheostat to vary the degree of light. a nice touch to an otherwise completely no nonsense design. for the truly decadent Telos Sapphire owner one can choose a red LED.:D as I'm merely slightly decadent I went with a white LED.
 

TheAudioAssociation

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Wow! Congrats Mike! Enjoy the tunes!
 

jfrech

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thanks.

the bearing tower is translucent solid Sapphire, there is an LED below with a rheostat to vary the degree of light. a nice touch to an otherwise completely no nonsense design. for the truly decadent Telos Sapphire owner one can choose a red LED.:D as I'm merely slightly decadent I went with a white LED.

I have to admit that looks cool ! And I am sure it sounds fantastic !
 

PeterA

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Congratulations Mike. That are looks great and must sound excellent. As you write, you were already at quite a high level. I wonder if Joel will move away from wood arm wands in his Telea design. Has a retail price been announced yet? And I'm curious about how VTA adjustments are made. I see the large clamp on the side of the sapphire bearing. Can you describe how the arm is raised and lowered once the ring clamp is loosened? Does the sapphire bearing move up and down somehow? Finally, is there any deleterious effect from the light dimmer? I thought all dimmers around sensitive signals induced noise.
 

Mike Lavigne

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Congratulations Mike. That are looks great and must sound excellent. As you write, you were already at quite a high level. I wonder if Joel will move away from wood arm wands in his Telea design. Has a retail price been announced yet? And I'm curious about how VTA adjustments are made. I see the large clamp on the side of the sapphire bearing. Can you describe how the arm is raised and lowered once the ring clamp is loosened? Does the sapphire bearing move up and down somehow? Finally, is there any deleterious effect from the light dimmer? I thought all dimmers around sensitive signals induced noise.

thanks Peter.

I know that the Telos Sapphire will only be offered with the composite arm wand, and I expect that the composite arm wands will be offered on different tonearms as standards and upgrades. my understanding is that the wood will also continue to be offered. Joel went to wood initially because we found metal to have properties he did not prefer, wood less so. his wood arm wands are not 'just' wood. I don't think he is wedded to any material. obviously the Telos Sapphire is a testament to what might be possible with 'over-the-top' materials application to a tone-arm.

as far as retail price for the Telos Sapphire, I don't know. I have not yet paid for mine since Joel has not yet set a price that I know of.

VTA adjustment is addressed in this post;

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-Telos-Tonearm&p=221767&viewfull=1#post221767

the LED light dimmer is plugged into the 'dirty power'; my system is all plugged into the Equi=tech A/C grid. I get zero noise from this LED or any of my lighting. my room uses a Lutron dimmer system which does not make any noise. in my past experience with lighting noise gets introduced when (1) the lighting is on the same A/C grid, (2) things are not effectively shielded or (3) something is acting like an antenna. I hear no evidence when using any of my lights that I'm getting noise.
 

Mike Lavigne

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so tonight I'm listening to a drum solo with the Telos Sapphire......"the Great Jazz Trio Direct From L.A.", EW 10005, cut 1, side 1, 'A Night In Tunisia'.....Tony Williams on drums. the whole album is really fine.

it's not fair.

the Sapphire Telos/Ortofon MC Anna/NVS --> dart 458's --> MM7's. those -4- 11" ceramic woofers per side (not to mention the -4- 15" powered subs per side too) only having to do 30hz to 250hz at 96db, 6 ohm. minimal excursion with such driver area keeps things so linear. and what that can do for drums is remarkable.

explosive hardly covers it.....you have to add effortless and life-like too. no overhang, no smearing, immediate, impactful.....delicate, expressive, tonally rich and complete.

revelatory.

the Telos Sapphire breaks new ground!
 

ack

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Very nice... current price?
 

PeterA

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Mike, what I don't see in your very nice photographs is the sapphire mounting plate for the cartridge. That was a huge and indispensable upgrade at the time you tried it as I recall. It looks like the new headshell/mounting method abandons the one screw offset angle adjustment in favor of a more conventional two screw slot method. Is there no longer the need for sapphire at the headshell mount?

It's interesting that some of what you describe with this new arm is similar to what is described with the new VPI composite printed arm. The Schroder LT arm wand is also composite I believe. Perhaps this will be a new direction for tonearms. Would you say the composite arm tube or the Sapphire bearing makes a bigger difference?
 

Mike Lavigne

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Mike, what I don't see in your very nice photographs is the sapphire mounting plate for the cartridge. That was a huge and indispensable upgrade at the time you tried it as I recall. It looks like the new headshell/mounting method abandons the one screw offset angle adjustment in favor of a more conventional two screw slot method. Is there no longer the need for sapphire at the headshell mount?

I've moved the sapphire cartridge plate to my other 'stock' Telos which I use for 'mono', where it pays dividends. the new composite arm wand does eliminate the need for a separate cartridge plate and exceeds the performance of the wood arm wand/sapphire cartridge plate.

It's interesting that some of what you describe with this new arm is similar to what is described with the new VPI composite printed arm. The Schroder LT arm wand is also composite I believe. Perhaps this will be a new direction for tonearms. Would you say the composite arm tube or the Sapphire bearing makes a bigger difference?

it's hard to isolate pieces of the whole 'Sapphire' package. you have the solid one-piece sapphire bearing, which is also inverted, there are different 'unobtainium metal' counterweights, you have the sapphire azimuth rod and cage, and the upgraded cable.....and now the composite arm wand. the base is also different but not in performance from the stock Telos base to my knowledge.

if I had to guess based on experiencing each step I would have to say that 'by itself' the composite arm wand may be the most significant, but that might just be it's freshness in my mind. so it's not for sure. it might just be that it was the 'last straw' to unlock the whole magic picture. maybe any of the other pieces might have tipped that over too.

as far as those other arm wands being composite I have no idea whether that is correct.....but it certainly could be.
 

ddk

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thanks.

the bearing tower is translucent solid Sapphire, there is an LED below with a rheostat to vary the degree of light. a nice touch to an otherwise completely no nonsense design. for the truly decadent Telos Sapphire owner one can choose a red LED.:D as I'm merely slightly decadent I went with a white LED.

Hi Mike,

As a jeweler I'm confused about the Sapphire, what are we talking about here? Are you saying that the tower is now made from what's called sapphire glass or is there something else that I'm not seeing in the pictures that is actually using some kind of jewel? I know about the Telos jeweled bearing, that's clear but not the tower.

david
 

Mike Lavigne

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Hi Mike,

As a jeweler I'm confused about the Sapphire, what are we talking about here? Are you saying that the tower is now made from what's called sapphire glass or is there something else that I'm not seeing in the pictures that is actually using some kind of jewel? I know about the Telos jeweled bearing, that's clear but not the tower.

david

hi David,

i do not know what type of Sapphire is used for the Sapphire parts of the Sapphire Telos. my understanding is that it's some sort of industrial grown crystal product. whether that is what is known as sapphire glass or not i don't know so i don't want to speculate. i know that getting the sapphire bearing tower built is very expensive and takes time.

the sapphire bearing tower does incorporate the actual bearing itself. it's an inverted cup at the top of the tower. with the normal Telos with the unobtainium metal tower the bearing cup is some sort of sapphire cup inside the armwand. whether that bearing cup in the armwand is a jeweled sapphire or not i don't know. maybe you do.

Mike
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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some months ago I posted about getting the prototype version of the Durand Telos Sapphire which I have been enjoying since.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-Telos-Tonearm&p=221730&viewfull=1#post221730

today Joel installed the final version of the Durand Telos Sapphire tone arm on my NVS tt. the final version has a composite arm wand and new base.....compared to my prototype version. Joel has been working for over a year on the composite arm wand.

I've been quite impressed with the prototype version. the addition of the composite arm wand with the final version lowers the noise floor (reduces distortion/noise) and as a result everything improves. what stands out is the overall ease and projection of energy, increase in texture and detail, increase in harmonic complexity/richness, increased solidity on musical peaks, and the music projecting out further into the room. these were all strengths of the prototype version and so this is an improvement in degrees on all fronts. not night and day differences compared to the prototype, but significant and when you are already at this level quite remarkable. the improvement in enjoyment and musical immersion is what I'm loving at the moment.

the additional pull of the music is across musical boundaries; rock, pop, jazz, classical.....female vocal, solo piano, string quartet, small combo jazz. the projection of musical energy and artistic nuance is hard for me to describe. explosive is a word I would use to describe the energy level.....unlike anything outside of tape I have heard.

I've been listening to many of my reference cuts for the last 3-4 hours and I'm blown away that there was this much more potential in the format beyond where I was.

I think it is beautiful and love how it looks with the NVS.

View attachment 15386

Looks great Mike and goes to support my contention that the issues isn't so much the analog medium but the ability to retrieve the information off the record and transfer it undisturbed eg. the phono section that has been lacking until recently.
 

Mike Lavigne

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Looks great Mike and goes to support my contention that the issues isn't so much the analog medium but the ability to retrieve the information off the record and transfer it undisturbed eg. the phono section that has been lacking until recently.

+1.

we seem to keep finding more information in those grooves and advancing our views on what the format is capable of as more energies are focused on the issues.

as i see this process it's really an issue of everything matters, and the farther you go the more everything matters. any compromise in the sturctural integrity of the whole floor/rack/tt/arm/cartridge assembly becomes audible as information robbing noise/distortion....and even more critical in a true full range audio system as the more sensitive and accurate the vinyl front end is the more dynamic music feedback is an issue.

with a mechanical format like vinyl refinements in the mechanical process matter. and materials science is one significant aspect.
 

jazdoc

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Looks great Mike and goes to support my contention that the issues isn't so much the analog medium but the ability to retrieve the information off the record and transfer it undisturbed eg. the phono section that has been lacking until recently.

Myles,

I think that is a terrific insight. My initial reaction hearing a direct comparison of the new and old Telos arm wands was that a valve had been opened, increasing the data transfer and density of information retrieval.

BTW, the record the Mike referenced is a veritable analog unicorn: the mythic creature combining a great performance, well recorded, on quiet vinyl and relatively inexpensive. A must for even a casual jazz fan:



I prefer the Nautilus pressing to the standard East Wind pressing.
 

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