Rockport Capella 2

lasercd · Feb 27, 2012

Has anyone had any experience with the Rockport Capella 2? *I've always had a bit of a minor obsession with it and all things Rockport (I own the Aquila). *I've only seen two come up for sale on Audiogon over the years and almost made an offer on one about 5 years ago but got cold feet.

Does it give you a taste of the Sirius III? Is it competitve with current designs? *I'm quite fond of my Raven One but my phono stage can handle two tables so you never know what might happen down the road if one turns up.

Ken Golden

lasercd · Feb 29, 2012

<insert cricket noise here>

I guess Andy didn't sell too many of them...

FrantzM · Feb 29, 2012

Hi

There seems to be a manifest lack of market recognition about Rockport speakers... I heard the Mira and they are the real deal.. Fully competitive with speakers costing several time as much .. yet in the discussions of great speakers, you rarely hear the Rockport name mentioned. A friend of mine has heard the Altair and in his opinion likely the best speaker he's heard out there and he's heard and possess a few ...
You will find the Audiophile scene awash with anticipation about the next Magico or tidal or Wilson speakers but Rockport barely registers .. very , very strange ... They need to work on their marketing .. So far exttemely poor .. Truthfully ... MIA...

Randall Smith · Feb 29, 2012

Its true, the Rockport brand isn't pushed in your face in the same way other brands are. On the other hand, if they were any more popular, Andy and his crew wouldn't be able to keep up with the orders. Andy is a busy man! Not only does he design all of the speakers, but he also places his hand on every speaker that exits the factory doors. There simply isn't enough Andy to go around. If he was to expand his business, would the quality of his product suffer? Maybe, maybe not. In the end, Rockport is a serious contender for the best speakers on the market at all price points. He doesn't need rave reviews or forum buzz to accomplish this.

lasercd · Feb 29, 2012

Agreed. I own the Aquila. They are amazing and unless I can figure out how to sneak the Altair past my wife I will have them for years to come. The Capella and Capella 2 were Andy's idea of a budget turntable.

On one hand Rockport could improve their marketing (or even just update the website more often) but I suspect Andy has a customer waiting for every pair of speakers he makes.

thekong · May 10, 2012

I have been using the Capella 2 with the 6000 arm for about 10 years now. The one I have is the basic model with non-airbearing and non-vacuum platter.

When I bought it, I directly compared it with the Sirius III with the ClearAudio Insider Reference Wood in the agent’s showroom. The Capella 2, with the ClearAudio Discovery, was on a Michael Green (forgot the brand name he used before) audio rack, while the Sirius 3 was, of course, on it’s pneumatic stand.

Call me optimistic, but I felt the stock Capella 2 could get about 85% of the performance of the Sirius III. I have since upgraded my Capella 2 with the OEM pneumatic stand (same as the one under the Sirius), mylar belt, record clamp, and high pressure compressor with integral surge tank for the 6000 arm, resulted in consider improvements.

Of course, I would love to own a Sirius III

trponhunter · May 19, 2012

FrantzM said:
Hi

There seems to be a manifest lack of market recognition about Rockport speakers... I heard the Mira and they are the real deal.. Fully competitive with speakers costing several time as much .. yet in the discussions of great speakers, you rarely hear the Rockport name mentioned. A friend of mine has heard the Altair and in his opinion likely the best speaker he's heard out there and he's heard and possess a few ...
You will find the Audiophile scene awash with anticipation about the next Magico or tidal or Wilson speakers but Rockport barely registers .. very , very strange ... They need to work on their marketing .. So far exttemely poor .. Truthfully ... MIA...

Vert true - they are the real deal - solidly designed and engineered with no black magic. Rockport flies under neath the radar while embarrasing the big names in terms of performance.

Mike Lavigne · May 21, 2012

thekong said:
I have been using the Capella 2 with the 6000 arm for about 10 years now. The one I have is the basic model with non-airbearing and non-vacuum platter.

When I bought it, I directly compared it with the Sirius III with the ClearAudio Insider Reference Wood in the agent’s showroom. The Capella 2, with the ClearAudio Discovery, was on a Michael Green (forgot the brand name he used before) audio rack, while the Sirius 3 was, of course, on it’s pneumatic stand.

Call me optimistic, but I felt the stock Capella 2 could get about 85% of the performance of the Sirius III. I have since upgraded my Capella 2 with the OEM pneumatic stand (same as the one under the Sirius), mylar belt, record clamp, and high pressure compressor with integral surge tank for the 6000 arm, resulted in consider improvements.

Of course, I would love to own a Sirius III

yes, you would.

i owned a Rockport Sirius II for 18 months, and then owned a Sirius III for 8 years. i would expect that your Capella II with the air suspension table would have something in common with Sirius II.

the II had a very special quality of great ease to it, but the belt drive was a limitation.

the III had a waay lower noise floor, and the direct drive and air bearing gave it a sense of space and foundation that i loved. everything was planted and rock solid. the level of information coming from the III blew me away at the time.

thekong · May 22, 2012

Hi Mike,

Yes, the Sirius III is a very special turntable, and it also blew me away when I first heard it. I have not heard the latest top contenders, like the NVS, but I have heard a couple of Continuum Caliburns and multiple ClearAudio Statements in different systems, and they failed to impress me as much as the Sirius III did.

After I got my basic Capella II, I wanted to upgrade to the airbearing and vacuum platter, but unfortunately, Andy had stopped supplying the upgrade parts then. :-(

Since it is very unlikely that I can afford / get a Sirius III any time soon, I have been trying to improve my Capella as much as possible. The mylar belt did help, and I am contemplating on how to add a tension pulley, like the one on the Artemis Labs SA1, to reduce belt slippage.

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Rockport Capella 2

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