NYC tour

bonzo75 · Aug 3, 2016

So, last week I landed in NYC, with three objectives:

1. To see if I could get closure on my decision on restored apogees: Which I did, documented here

2. Compare Cartridges: Unfortunately couldn't get together with Christian to compare Olympos, Coralstone, A90, Dynavector (not to mention Allnic and Lamm), but did it make it to Myles to compare the A95 and the Atlas. His Pics are on the first page of that thread.

3. Compare amps: I visited Bob of Rhapsodys to check how I liked the class A SS sound of Vitus vs the valves of top of the line Kondo. Both 2 and 3 had Magicos as the main speakers and a lot of tape deck exposure. Documented here.

As part of 3, I also visited Innovative Audio - where I could listen to the Spectral DMA 400 with an Alexandria XLF (Spectral CD and pre), and compare it with VTL's new 400w poweramp and the VTL 7.5. I wanted to see what my tradeoffs were - the cleanliness, resolution, bass and dynamics of Spectral, as compared to the valviness, harmonics, but comparatively less resolution on the VTL, though VTL does not have the traditional tube sound. I also wanted to check if playing a TT through a Lamm phono would add the valve harmonics to the Spectral set-up, but unfortunately one channel of the Lamm phono was not working, so couldn't demo that. Innovative's Bruce and Eliot are extremely helpful, and quite happy to chat about their gear. They also have Dagostino and Lamm M2.2 to compare, with various Wilson and other speakers, though I didn't manage to get to those. I have heard the Dagostino Momentums on the X2S2 before and loved it.

I think at this level it comes more to a preference, and there is no clear answer. On some music like choral resolution is more welcome, while on some harmonics are preferred. Getting locked into a Spectral system is a huge commitment, so best is to go and check for yourselves what your tradeoffs are. Innovative has great gear. They also have the Bach SP, which I have not had a chance to hear yet, but heard great things on how it is a new tech for creating a 3D sound.

You will also get a lot of Spectral vs VTL compares from Marty's thread

Detlof · Aug 3, 2016

Thank you Kedar! Fascinating as always. Do you have any idea which tape machines Bob used?
BE WELL,
Detlof

bonzo75 · Aug 3, 2016

Detlof said:
Thank you Kedar! Fascinating as always. Do you have any idea which tape machines Bob used?
BE WELL,
Detlof

We discussed you, Detlof. One of Bob's machines was done by Ki Choi, with King Cello - I am not sure about the details of the others. I don't want to start getting into tape decks now, just like I did not want to start getting into Vinyl 2 years ago.

Rhapsody · Aug 3, 2016

Hello Brother Detlof

We were listening to Studer A812 with a King/ Cello tape preamp with 15ips and 30ips tapes. We also listened to a Revox B77II with 71/2 it's tapes.

Myles is totally responsible for my tape addiction.

Detlof · Aug 3, 2016

Hi Brother in Arms,
Thanks, good gear indeed . Just got my hands on a Studer A820, done by a master refurbisher. It will also have a switch with output directly from the heads. Have not decided on a tape preamp so far.
Have been tape addicted for a long time. ( Studer A810 and Tape Project/Bottlehead refurbished Technics and their preamp )
Ked, by the way, with his golden ears and his wonderful inquisitive mind will get drawn into tapes sooner or later, if he likes it or not.

Ron Resnick · Aug 3, 2016

Thank you for a wonderful and concise report, bonzo!

Joe Whip · Aug 3, 2016

Gee, had I known you were in NYC, I would have come up! In NYC Friday for some jazz.

bonzo75 · Aug 3, 2016

Joe Whip said:
Gee, had I known you were in NYC, I would have come up! In NYC Friday for some jazz.

Ah. These tours I do are a bit commando like, shock and awe, albeit with an exit strategy. I fly in, demo hard, fly out.

analog brother · Aug 3, 2016

did you like the s-400/7.5.3 pairing?

marty · Aug 3, 2016

bonzo75 said:
. I wanted to see what my tradeoffs were - the cleanliness, resolution, bass and dynamics of Spectral, as compared to the valviness, harmonics, but comparatively less resolution on the VTL, though VTL does not have the traditional tube sound.

You will also get a lot of Spectral vs VTL compares from Marty's thread

Yup, been there, done that. If you weren't concerned about getting arrested by the Spectral police, you could always go with a good tube pre-amp of low output impedance (i.e., VTL, BAT, NAT) and a Spectral amp. That's a best of both world's combo that's hard to beat IMHO.

bonzo75 · Aug 3, 2016

analog brother said:
did you like the s-400/7.5.3 pairing?

Hi I have heard the VTL pre and Spectral pairing at Marty's and loved it. I couldn't do that here. I heard the Spectral pre into Spectral power and VTL pre into VTL power.

I therefore wanted to try the Lamm phono into the Spectral gear to get valves in.

KeithR · Aug 3, 2016

Glad you nailed down your speaker choice Bonzo - congrats. the rest will be much easier i'm sure.

I A/B'd the Lyra Atlas vs Air Tight Supreme at Albert Porter's (same arms, same Technics SPIII) and much preferred the latter on his Focal/ARC setup. I also own a Lyra Delos now (after a 12 month wait - its sickening) and will compare to my 47 Labs shortly, which is more on the AT spectrum of sound. It's really system dependent, so at some point you just have to take the analog leap. You can hear 50 different rooms around the world, but it won't take the place of hearing stuff at home - particularly with analog.

I find Spectral a turnkey system - if you're already planning on Lampi and Lamm phono tubes to go in front, you might be distracting it from its glory.

bonzo75 · Aug 3, 2016

KeithR said:
Glad you nailed down your speaker choice Bonzo - congrats. the rest will be much easier i'm sure.

I A/B'd the Lyra Atlas vs Air Tight Supreme at Albert Porter's (same arms, same Technics SPIII) and much preferred the latter on his Focal/ARC setup. I also own a Lyra Delos now (after a 12 month wait - its sickening) and will compare to my 47 Labs shortly, which is more on the AT spectrum of sound. It's really system dependent, so at some point you just have to take the analog leap. You can hear 50 different rooms around the world, but it won't take the place of hearing stuff at home - particularly with analog.

I find Spectral a turnkey system - if you're already planning on Lampi and Lamm phono tubes to go in front, you might be distracting it from its glory.

Marty uses VTL and his system sounds great. Lampi tubes should be fine. It is getting locked into the cables that bothers me.

I am not planning on anything on analog yet. Too much to learn. The 2 - 3 giant killer phonos seem to be Thoress for valves and ASR and used FMA 122 on the SS side.

One thing I know for sure is analog need not be expensive to sound good. It can be, but it need not be.

microstrip · Aug 3, 2016

marty said:
Yup, been there, done that. If you weren't concerned about getting arrested by the Spectral police, you could always go with a good tube pre-amp of low output impedance (i.e., VTL, BAT, NAT) and a Spectral amp. That's a best of both world's combo that's hard to beat IMHO.

Spectral amplifiers have ultrawide bandwidth. Many tube preamplifiers use RF tubes that, either when they age or by fault can easily oscillate in the MHz band. If these few volts of RF get inside the amplifier they can damage it and specially burn your valuable tweeters! More than once I had bad surprises when looking at the output of tube preamplifiers with a 200 MHz Tektronix ... I have found that some old 6DJ8/6922 were really a disaster in these aspect , as some others I do not remember the type coming from GE India.

marty · Aug 7, 2016

KeithR said:
Glad you nailed down your speaker choice Bonzo - congrats. the rest will be much easier i'm sure.

I A/B'd the Lyra Atlas vs Air Tight Supreme at Albert Porter's (same arms, same Technics SPIII) and much preferred the latter on his Focal/ARC setup. I also own a Lyra Delos now (after a 12 month wait - its sickening) and will compare to my 47 Labs shortly, which is more on the AT spectrum of sound. It's really system dependent, so at some point you just have to take the analog leap. You can hear 50 different rooms around the world, but it won't take the place of hearing stuff at home - particularly with analog.

I find Spectral a turnkey system - if you're already planning on Lampi and Lamm phono tubes to go in front, you might be distracting it from its glory.

Keith, I respectively disagree. Although the Spectral preamp and latest power amps are a superb pairing, there is some tube magic (some call it coloration!) that might make the resulting sonic experience even more enjoyable. If I had a Spectral pre/power combo, I'd be very tempted to hear it with a Lampi DAC or a Lamm phono in front of it. I recently heard an all Spectral system (SV pre/RMA400 amps, zillion dollar MIT cabling etc., Magico S7s) including the near impossible to find SV4000 CD player (redbook only) and while I thought it very good, it just not make rain for me because it was missing that elusive harmonic and timbral something that tubes bring to the table. My most recent experience reinforces the old Dave Wilson adage..."you've got to have tubes in there somewhere"! For me, doing it early (DAC, phono or preamp) makes sense and thus leaving moving big current to those pesky little semicondiuctors.

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