Thanks for all of the replies. I forgot to say that the photo'd system - Spendor 15ohm LS/35As, AirTight, Kondo copper spkr wire, NBS Pro I RCA IC - usually has a Joule Electra LA200 pre and phono with it, but they need to go to the shop for a refresher (they are old friends; like a worn out pair of moccasins you still put on every morning...plummy down low and a tad sweet in the highs, but you tend to forget that when you close your eyes...). This is my "den" system now, since I bought my retirement home last May. I now have a 15 X 25 basement space that I am renovating into a stereo room, should be done in a year or so. I need a main system to play larger scale work, so have been mulling around what to do with that main system space. Thinking SF Strads, thinking AF V with the 3012R on it (have a Koetsu RSP in a box too...not sure how that will fit in...)...have some time to think about it. In the meantime, thought I'd pull the 301 out (its now sitting in the photo), get a plinth and fire up the 3012R combo. Sounds fun, right?! And I have a TNT4/Graham 2.2 in boxes that I need to get out and sell too....Anyway, plenty of places to make mistakes! But I've been around enough to know how to avoid some of those ruts in the road. And I, of course, have you all to help me...
ddk: Thank you, somewhat relieved. I'm too lazy to sell the 3012 Pro and hunt down a standard. So, will keep the Pro....now just need to find someone who will sell me an early copper SME IC...I'll start looking tomorrow. We'll see....
Tango: Loved the "I normally try to avoid admitting a mistake by thinking it is another experience I am accumulating." I'm a writer and know a great line when I see one....actually, we see things very similarly. And I think your "normal" and ddk's "natural" are quite similar ideas, thinking about the same experience. When you sit down to listen to your stereo, we are thinking, cognition still whirling, perhaps even from things that happened that day. Then we begin to listen and the grip of thinking fades into no-thinking, or receptive mind. So we put together stereos (like making a great sauce; a construction of flavors) with thinking-mind, trying to construct what no-thinking mind will then experience. When you heard that lady singing like a sweet bird at the coffee shop, what mind heard it? I think many have to come full circle in this hobby, like a black belt that finally fades back to white; back to searching for "natural" with "normal-receptive" mind. Hope that wasn't too abstract...as I said, hard to talk (think) about no-thinking mind.
Silver vs. copper: I agree with you both, Airtangent and Tao of Sound. When I say "old timer" then I imply oldest silver wire, and I know much has changed over the years. I have no problem mixing flavors to find a balance. Tonal/harmonic equilibrium is a valued goal. I have found, though, with silver, that no matter how its 'sound' is constructed by its inventor, there still remains a vestige of an imbalance; in this case, an imbalance between source and space. In other words, in silver cabling I hear an inherent balancing toward, as an inherent bias, in weighting energy into the source, and, then, within the source projection of sound, into the transient. The transient I can perhaps deal with, balance out, but having space behave more as a void, and less as a dimensional vessel, is very difficult to get out of the sauce once mixed in. I've heard transparently exciting silver-based systems, but I require a vast dimensional space where sounds dissipates into the outer reaches in a symmetrical and "natural" way. I am very senstive to such things, so maybe its just me, my problem to deal with. There are a thousand paths up soul mountain (actually, infinite paths...but that's not the saying).
Thank you again everyone for your help. Off in search of SME copper wire!! (and so the obsession goes...)
