adding a 5th Taiko Tana/Herzan TS-140 active isolation unit.

[Mike Lavigne]

i wish i could un-like a post.

this is where the thread goes to hell.

 

[KeithR]

Your diligence certainly has to be commended, Mike. Your room/speaker (aka big woofage!) interaction seems to create difficult circumstances.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I hate "does it sound like tubes", "sound analogue", "sound digital", "sound like solid state" perspective/questions.

IMO the lines between formats is so diminished the relevant question is "how close is it to the real thing"

“Hate”? Really?

You don’t think that’s a little strong for somebody’s mere question about a hobby?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

sigh.

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . .

this is where the thread goes to hell.

Let’s make sure it doesn’t.

 

[Taiko Audio]

i wish i could un-like a post.

this is where the thread goes to hell.

Looking at it from a different perspective, generally it appears to me that tube amplifier manufacturers pay more attention to vibration control. Presumably due to the notion tubes are more sensitive to it then solid state.
But are they really? It seems to me every type of component benefits greatly from vibration control. In my experiments it really doesnt matter which component you treat, everything seems ballpark similarly affected, I get nearly the same effect from treating my powerstrip as my preamp.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Emile, agreed.
Stacore Basic Plus under my balanced power transformer, and RollerBlocks under my distribution strip, have both been hugely effective.

 

[Tango]

Damn...This thread is hazardous to my piggy bank.

Sigh.
Tang

 

[Stacore]

[...] It seems to me every type of component benefits greatly from vibration control. In my experiments it really doesnt matter which component you treat, everything seems ballpark similarly affected, I get nearly the same effect from treating my powerstrip as my preamp.

To our big surprise, we observe very much the same.
Cheers,

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Damn...This thread is hazardous to my piggy bank.

Sigh.
Tang

Dear Tang,

actually; i see it the opposite.

we all have our own unique source or system/room building ideas and strategic plan. i've only gone down my own personal road.

one can chase ultimate collective system performance with changing or upgrading this or that, and spend silly dollars. or.......do this and likely get to beyond those other pathways. i'm not saying that as fact, even for me. but as i sit here now, it seems that way. and i'm not aware of alternatives offering this same performance (not that everyone might agree with that).

i've considered tt upgrades obviously, and i have an amplifier upgrade i could do. both would exceed this expenditure......applied to those pieces.

come visit me and hear it for yourself.

best regards,

Mike

 

[Taiko Audio]

There seems to be some confusion on what the difference between a Tana active platform and a Daiza passive platform is judging from enquiries emanating from this thread. They are separate products, they can be used separately and they can be stacked. Attached to this post photos of both.

Tana:


Daiza:

 

[Kingsrule]

“Hate”? Really?

You don’t think that’s a little strong for somebody’s mere question about a hobby?

No

 

[Mike Lavigne]

last night i had a forum member visit for a listening session from out of town. we listened for almost 4 hours and i really enjoyed it. this visitor had last visited about 6 years prior.

as these sessions many times go, we did 45 minutes or so of digital, and then got the vinyl going with some of my 'big guns'. i'm not going to talk about the visitor's comments. but i was pretty blown away by what was happening. this change (to the 5th Tana) is still a new fresh thing to me. the vinyl was just something 'beyond'. and as i sat there i realized that the idea that digital has got closer to vinyl is a myth......to me.

what i mean is that i've been enjoying the Tana shelves under the amps, preamp and dac box for 10 months, but vinyl did not have that. now it does, and the consequences are pretty awesome. digital at the tip top of the food chain has it all, and it's really fully satisfying to listen to and so easy to live with. however; vinyl (to my ears now) is just waay out there and pulling away.

YMMV, just my 2 cents, and all that stuff.

 

[Kingsrule]

Lets see what happens when the Extreme arrives.....

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Lets see what happens when the Extreme arrives.....

Kingsrule, certainly i have high expectations for what the Extreme might do in my system.....and would be absolutely delighted if it's addition jumped the digital ahead sufficiently in performance to close back to the previous gap (or closer) to my vinyl.

 

[gshelley]

Mike hosted me for an evening of music and audio fun earlier this week. It was a great time. Mike is such a gracious host-Thank you!!

As he mentioned, it’s been 6 years since the last visit and his system has gone through a number of changes, It’s hard not to have high (very) expectations when going to hear a system of this caliber. And it didn’t disappoint...

His system sounds better than on my last visit. It simply has a higher performance level. I can’t attribute it to any particular change of course but I can say it is operating at a much higher level. There is clarity in the bass and dynamic capability that’s well beyond what it did previously. One of the ‘war horses’ played was a Ben Webster Live At the Renaissance track which I also heard last visit. There is a drum ‘thwack’ in it that actually startled me on this visit- and I knew it was coming.

At one point we were cruising along with 102 DB peaks and the system didn’t flinch. It sounded like music and not a bit compressed on any of the peaks. This was not a testicular ride to see how loud it could play. It was more of a “let’s keep jamming” moment. Awesome!

I agree with Mike’s comment on vinyl delivering a superior experience to his digital. His digital is Top Rate. Vinyl is just better here.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Hi Guys,

Can you describe more in what ways the vinyl has pulled so far ahead of digital now?

Cheers

 

[Taiko Audio]

Hi Guys,

Can you describe more in what ways the vinyl has pulled so far ahead of digital now?

Cheers

I can make an educated guess

There is something very profound happening when lowering vibration induced distortion. Typical audiophile jargon would be increased dynamics, both micro and macro, increased detail, better rendering of texture, more solid and more 3 dimenional imaging, better retrieval of soundstage / ambient cues etc.

However that doesn’t capture something which is hard to put into words. The best I can come up with is a very profound removal of stress and unaturalness allowing your system and room not just to playback a recording but to morph into an actual event happening with you smack down in the middle of it. It’s no longer just listening to music, it’s experiencing music.

If we only apply this sort of care to our vinyl playback systems, digital will never catch up.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I can make an educated guess

There is something very profound happening when lowering vibration induced distortion. Typical audiophile jargon would be increased dynamics, both micro and macro, increased detail, better rendering of texture, more solid and more 3 dimenional imaging, better retrieval of soundstage / ambient cues etc.

However that doesn’t capture something which is hard to put into words. The best I can come up with is a very profound removal of stress and unaturalness allowing your system and room not just to playback a recording but to morph into an actual event happening with you smack down in the middle of it. It’s no longer just listening to music, it’s experiencing music.

If we only apply this sort of care to our vinyl playback systems, digital will never catch up.

Thanks Emile - very nicely written.

 

[spiritofmusic]

People here really didn't get this when I tried to relay what Stacores were doing in my system. Something as radical as Emile's description.
It's not subtle.