Astonishing CD tweak? Zanash do try this!

My favourite music:

Shubert - String Quintet
Falla - 3 Cornered Hat
Mozart - Requiem
Mahler - Song of the Earth

I love Opera, but not always...

My favourite composers:

Bach
Mahler
Sibelius

Happy now...

 

Other favourites:

Villa Lobos - Bachianas
Ravel - Bolero and Valse Triste
Sibelius - Finlandia and Valse
Falla - Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Chopin - Piano Concert
Rachmaninoff - Piano Concert n 2

 

A couple of extremely good CDs:

Alpha, Frederic Chopin, Arthur Schoonderwoerd, piano Ignace Pleyel 1836

Prophone, Jazz at the Pawnshop

Proprius, Africa Sanctus

Fone Ensemble Maestro Concertatore and solo violinist Marco Fornaciari, Vivaldi The Four Seasons - SACD

Chesky Records Rosa Passos & Ron Carter, Entre amigos - SACD

 

Special for Ian:

Columbia, Willie Nelson, Stardust - SACD

Sergio Mendes, Timeless

FIM, Five Songbirds

John Lee Hooker, Boogie' Chillen - SACD

Analogue Productions, Chet Baker: Chet - SACD

 

Ian, Joe may have a point. What local conditions will affect speed? True an AC deck locked to the mains frequency will vary slightly as the mains frequency varies slightly over the day (though its slight), and that's one reason why some people go for regenerating PSUs.

Something to recognise though. If its AC and mains locked you want to use a mains light as the strobe, although for AC decks you are pretty much only able to check not adjust - speed will vary as I said slightly as mains frequency varies - but you can at least check its synced with the mains.

If you are using a DC deck with trim pots make sure you use a proper quartz locked strobe (same if you are using a regenerating PSU on an AC deck and want to check). If you use a mains light on a deck which isn't mains locked, such as a DC deck, you will be setting the speed possibly slightly slow or fast, as the reference (ie the strobing of the light) varies with mains frequency ... if that makes sense.

We are talking about fairly small fluctuations though.

 

Antonio, those are just lists, say something about why you like them.

UA, it's a DC motor, it's arriving via a circuitous path, and since the pots are there I may as well use them (they will certainly have been adjusted before I get the deck, and not necessarily correctly, given the deck's history). Yes, only a small adjustment, but since it can be made I may as well make it as part of the setup process.

-- Ian

 

Hi Ian,

Okay, well that's nice and easy then if its just a standard AC. Just use a standard mains incandescent. Interesting though its very rare for a mains synced AC deck to have trim pots ... what is it?

Edit ooops, sorry realised you said DC .... you will if you want it dead spot on need to use a proper strobe.

I only pointed it out as its a minor point that often gets missed, that if you use a mains light for setting speed on a deck not synced with the mains, you are almost certain to set it incorrectly ... unless you happen to hit that exact moment the mains really is doing 50Hz ... but not by enough to worry about overly. In the UK we are talking between 49.1Hz and 50.1Hz almost always, about 0.2%. I dunno could someone with perfect pitch even tell something was 0.2% out? ...

 

DC, not AC

(I typed AC initially and then edited it when I spotted my typo, I suspect you read the notification email but not the edited post!)

What I don't know is how much speed variation the trim pots allow, so I want to check it, because it won't necessarily be arriving with them set right.

-- Ian

 

I am as much a music critic, as you are an hifi tweak critic...

I like music that I "feel", not because of "technical" reasons, if you know what I mean...

By the way, everytime people come to my house to audition my tweaks, they go out and buy some of the discs I play, for the music, of course...

The other day, the owner of the shop where I bought the Linn player, said that my system sounded better than his 50.000 euro system, only because my discs are better, and no, they where not yet lathed... :shame:

 

Ah, I edited my post when I reread yours, I THOUGHT you had said AC If you can't get a proper strobe ... a CRT TV strobes at a genuine 50Hz (so I've been told anyway) ... don't drop it on yoiur deck though

 

A very difficult question to answer IMO.

 

Well there's some Chesky SACD's, some Chet Baker, and the infoamous Jazz At The Pawnshop, so I would hazard a guess that your interest in hifi and influenced your musical choice, as opposed to the other way round.

Still I suspect they 'Sound' good. What really crap recordings have you got that give you goosebumps and get played regularly Antonio? And following on from your favourite music, what performances of said pieces stand out for you and why?

 

:mana: My goodness! He can't be all bad!

 

Aw c'mon, I'm not sure anyone should feel obliged to explain or justify their musical tastes/passions just to prove to the forum that they're a music fan as well as a hifi fan. I don't give a toss what anyone else thinks about what I listen to!

For some reason this comes to mind:
"There's always someone, somewhere with a big nose, who knows... who trips you up and laughs when you fall"

 

I know your questions are traps, but I will bite...

1 - Did you notice that first I listed music and composers, only then I listed a few discs...

2 - There are no Chesky discs on my list, but when I got a player that plays SACD, I bought a few with music I like and good recording, not all proved satisfatory, because of inferior performances...

3 - Some of the discs I list are very old recordings, JLH is even mono, of course I didnt select it because of the recording... Actually they are in the list because I like the music...

4 - I like good recordings, dont we all, unfortunatelly most preferred versions of my favourite music are not the best sounding, even to test my tweaks I use music and interpretations that I like, with the odd exception, for instance Peter Gabriel SACD, good to test bass...

 

He could be just following the herd.

 

By the way, I have been enjoying music since before most of you where born, a lot more than 40 years, I am 58...

In my grand father house Chopin and Opera played all the time, he had a box in the Lisbon Opera, where I started going very early, most my oncles played piano...

The hifi hobby is a lot more recent, it comes and goes...

 

hate to say it SSB, that sounds like tweaking to me.....

 

Although it sounds like setup to me.