Hi garyi / Robbo
Good question garyi as WM said also, something that had crossed my mind. Was it worth the hassle / extra expense, and will it ever approach what I'm looking for? It's not rubbish in it's standard form, but it was crap for
me out of the box because the thing just wasn't fast or bouncy enough. Lots of laudable hi-fi qualities and a rich organic quality, but it left me completely unmoved at best and at worst irritated. As you will know, despite my anti-Naim leanings, I have to admit they often have bounce and tend to groove in a way that, once you've heard these qualities almost completely robbed from the music, you realise are two very important ingredients. WM and I agree on this, although we differ in so far as I like a leaner, drier, faster sound; while he doesn't "do" dryness, and he likes more organic and textural, but with bounce (cohesiveness in timing) as well as fast (speed and impact). In other words he's a fussy blighter
, even fussier than me. The reason he's fussy though is becuase he knows it can be done, he can demostrate it at home even, whereas my aspirations (and budget in money, time and enthusiasm) are lower.
However, the Teac uses a transport that in other applications can perform in the manner that I'm looking for, and so the finger of suspicion started to point at the supporting cast in the transport, the Power Supply, clock etc, and a quick look inside confirmed this. The transport
is good, but the application in the VRDS-T1 is economically challenged. Nicely executed, but there were definate areas for improvement, even that we obviously knew about. Afterall WM's been there and done it with similar Wadias and the like, which have basically the same fundamental building blocks, or related ones.
So to answer your question, that's why we took the gamble, I was in two minds, but from previous collective experience, it was a calculated risk rather than just stuffing the bits in and hopeing.
It does just go to show though, that I do seem to have a fairly strong FE leaning overall, which is probably why I run Kabers and a Densen. But don't tell anyone.....
As to how it sounds, well we were listening to it tonight for a couple of hours, and even allowing for the fact that clocks and Never connects take 3 weeks to come on song fully usually (well they do in Wadias amongst others), it is a transformed beastie. It now does bounce, has a very focussed feel too and is retrieveing far more detail. There's more on every disk too, particularly in the bottom end, and it
really bounces. It's quite fast, but the overall listening has gone from much worse then the previous Alpha 8 cdp tranny, to much better than that reference, which for this particular box was a revelation considering where it started. The 8 might have been a little faster (only have memory now to tell), but the Teac boogies, it's not just the speed of the main rhythym parts that seem important anymore, there are now more rhythym parts, made obvious in much the same way as a Nait 2 amp seems to do. They're not forced or edgy though, and the thing has real body, weight, impact, and colour to go with it, but also is now expressive and most importantly, interesting ......
Next stop? Well the bits cost a bit, and they're not an insignificant investment totting up their retail prices, so was it worth it. Well, even if it doesn't get any better than it is now after running in, then answer is definately yes.
Nothing else runs the TAG as well as this that we've ever tried, and even if the Teac's window of capabilites / prioritys only falls within 80-85% of the things I want out of a digial front end, it is just now so capable
all round, i.e. better than anything else I've used at what I want, and even better at other things I hold less important, even though the bias seems a little skewed, it is still a fantastic result.
Would we have achieved as good a result, or maybe even a better one for my ears, starting with a player that had speed as a priority out of the box, and then tweaked that? Well I don't know. And to be fair, I don't think it's going to matter now either.
Cheers
