Turntable choices

Hi Mick,

I hope you and your family had an excellent festive season.

The 501 is an engineering tour de force, at a Chesterfield show it stopped three of us in our tracks just by its physical presence. When Terry took the platter off and showed us the working parts we were further astounded, as the finish and quality of moving parts were by a mile the best we had ever seen.

All of this would have counted for nothing if it hadn't done the business sonically. Fortunately it does this in spades, tons of detail, secure imaging and an absolutely rock solid bass. There is something very direct sounding about an idler driven turntable evident even in an obviously unfamiliar system. Idlers are prone to problems of noise and need to be very tightly engineered and finished if speed stability is to be spot on. The 501 is deadly quiet and absolutely stable. The cost is very high but from examination and listening I would have to say it's worth it. I suppose you could console yourself by the thought that your great grandchildren will almost certainly be using the beast reliably.

 

Mick, not so very long ago.........on a not so distant forum you stated, your new CDS3 is so analogue, it made your TT seem like it came from wembly area , so if this is the case, why are you going on about it (I'm not doubting it's pedigee, as LP 12's owners only riel you, as to your choice), makes me wonder, why you use at all now ? Curious thats all . T.

 

Re: A Few Questions

Whilst excusing the 'Murco' as being nothing other than a typographical error, I would add that you should know full well by now through my contributions to the various forums that I have plenty of experience of using turntables. To date since 1982 up until around 1990, I have owned and extensively used (in no particular order) a Roksan Xerxes, Manticore Mantra, 'The source', various Systemdeks, a PT, an Ariston RD11s, together with numerous Duals and Regas, two versions of an LP12, and of course, my current vinyl-spinner, a Thorens TD124.

In effect, turntable-wise, 'I've been there and bought the t-shirt', so to speak. The reason I stopped using a T/T as my main source is because, as CD players (particularly those from Naim) gradually became more and more listen-able to my ears, and closer to the sound of a good turntable, I decided I could no longer be bothered with the idiosyncratic nature of vinyl, and much preferred the sonically more consistent, and all-round more convenient way of listening to music through using a top-notch CDP. The Phase 9 Mana'd CDS2/XPS2 combination I use now, for me, gives all the music I need, reproduced in a way that I find highly entertaining and enjoyable - that is what it's all about n'est-ce pas?

The TD124 will receive a wake-up call when I've finished adding Mana to the rest of the system, when I will fit a wall shelf at Phase 4 (to begin with) to accommodate it. Therefore, I presume all of the above is not only understood, but also receives the coveted Duerden seal of approval.

Now I'm off to play some music through this rather excellent EA-2 amp...

Ciao,
Marco.

 

Gentlemen and Bub in particular

Paul Duerden is someone with whom I have never met but I trust his judgement implicitly. He knows more about Hifi than most of you lot put together. So read what he says and digest it well.

Bub

If you are serious about vinyl, the Garrard 501 is your answer, every other machine mentioned here is way behind it. It will pay you to have a listen. It will only take one day out of your itinery, so it will be a day well spent.

WM

I like the best, hence the CDS3 and the Garrard

Marco

Your Thorens will wipe the floor with a LP12. Why not resurect it, it will provide you with much fun.

Regards

Mick

 

Re: Gentlemen and Bub in particular

We are not worthy oh great one. Blessed are we that such a deity walks amongst us

Michael.

 

Michael

I am pleased that you are begining to listen at last.

Well done

Regards

Mick

 

Being cynical here, one could say just another one of the mana squad, drafted in when ever marco & bub appear on the same bandwidth, and that mick uses as a foil to upsurt his own agenda, or that Paul may be a good bud of bub's, then again just like power chords it's all imaginary

 

Re: Gentlemen and Bub in particular

Paul Duerden is someone I have met (briefly) and he knows **** all about what I or for that matter any of us want out of our system other than what he might read here.

But it's nice for you Mick to have someone to provide a support for you.

I just love the absolutism of you Mick, it's so refreshing. You tell us!

Get the 501 Bub, Paul says it's good and he should know. Don't bother trying anything from the world's leading manufacturers, they are churning out crap, fodder for the ignorant.

Replace the word "best" with "overpriced" for a fuller understanding. Oh but you didn't pay anything like retail did you Mick

 

Merlin

I will listen to you after and only after

a) you have heard a CDS3 in a domestic environment. I do not mean hearing it at the latest Hifi show where nothing sounds half decent.

b) you have heard a 501.

Until then you lack experience to comment. Also your humour is of schoolboy standard. If you want to crack a joke, try and treat the rest of us as if we have an IQ, at least, equivalent to that of a poodle.

Regards

Mick

 

Mick, having had a cds3 in a domestic enviroment, I can concur with Merlin on this, overpriced, although not a bad product, no where near anything special.

 

Hold on a sec. Mick says tannis fox had a Ninja and presumably traded it in for a Michelle Orb?

Now Devil wants to do the same.

So is the Orb better than a Ninja?

 

WM

You at least have an experience to back up your comments and as such I can respect you viewpoint, even though I do not concur with it.

Merlin, rgretably does not have any experience, hence he has no credibilty.

I could tolerate his humour if it was reasonably intelligent. That last little effort was feeble and banal.

Regards

Mick

 

Anders

You are best directing that question to fox and Bub

Regards

Mick

 

Re: Merlin

Mick,

There was no humour in my post - I was deadly serious.

With regards to experience, again I might listen to you when you have had a SME30, Avid Acutus, Vpi HRX, Simon Yorke S7, Well Tempered Reference, Clearaudio Master Reference and Verdier Platine at home. Only then will your ridiculous stance have the substance that you seem to believe it does.

The Naim CD player will be here next week, for comparison with a few other top end players. I will give it a chance, but on hearing it at the shop, I have to say the Eclipse is easily it's equal to these ears, the CD12 is impressive, and the Audio Aero far more analogue sounding. But I suspect in an all Naim system, it would be difficult to beat.

 

Re: WM

Well, I'm Tolerated? eh, thats a big step up from a minor player cheers Mick, just for the record, you are merely tolerated, by way of your love of all thing sailsbury, seems we have an offical sheep to keep the balance fair
Here's one for you then Mick, a well know Jurno uses a cds3 as his main soucre I believe, when a Jap player of little value was plugged in to do a back to back that certain person preferred the modded jap player, strange that, after all the jumping up and down he did about it, funny old world aint it .
Well saturday, should be enlightening for you sir, then we must get aquainted with your TT again I did like, miles better than those LP 12 things. Wm

 

Did you really mean this??!

Marco, honestly. You really don't get it do you? You do really seem to have no idea whatsoever how the recording & playback system works.

Alex said:

Then you said:

Just tell us, please!, which part or parts of what Alex mentioned 'isn't on the master tape'.

Ta bottleneck, I've been biting my pencil. Don't know if your deck would benefit from Mana. Might well be worth a punt, though. It might deal with any motor noise, what deck do you have?

 

Re: Re: Merlin

Mick doesn't need to he has perfect aural memory. Hence he can compare different turntables even though he has not heard them in the same room, system, with the same cartridge, phono amp, pre amp, power amp speakers (in phase or out). He doesn't even need a reference device to try to work out what the particular turntable is doing. He also has only heard about 2 other serious systems in a home environment and bases most observations on show sound which he regularly rubbishes in other posts.

I, on the other hand, have heard the following decent decks in known systems: WT ref., Clearaudio master reference, VPi HR, many LP12's, old P9, few Michells (1 orbe 1 gyro).

I can therefore say with absolute certainty that the Garrad 501 is the best deck because Mick thinks so and it is painted with Bentley paint ;->

Cheers

Jason

 

Hi Jason,

I know you know but I had better make it clear that I was not saying the 501 is the best turnatable in the world, just that if you want something engineered to that standard it is going to cost. I have no experience of the Simon York deck, but someone I trust reckons that this one is also engineered to an incredibly high standard. Again it is an expensive deck.

In the real world the three I would be interested in would be the Spacedeck, the Well Tempered and the Orbe. I know the latter two quite well, and Kyung Wa Chung playing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto was a serious highlight of a London visit. Thanks due to the .Well .Tempered deck and Alex's taste.
Fox's Orbe also sounded superb when I last heard it and I think may have been the reason for James starting this thread.

Oh and Merlin, where did we meet? I suppose you are not really called Merlin but you seem to have the advanbtage on me.

 

Mick

For mainly one simple reason, Mick: lack of rack space.

At the moment, I've got a 6-tier rack filled with a CDS2, XPS2, 52, Supercap, and the EA-2. The spare shelf left allows some distance between the source components and the equipment containing large transformers. Obviously, if the CDS2 wasn't a top-loader, I could drop everything down a shelf and stick the TD124 on top.

As an aside, I've tried taking the CDS2 off the top shelf and putting the Thorens in its place, and it does sound rather good, but not anywhere near as good as the CDS2, so at the moment there's no way I'd leave the CDS2 disconnected and instead use the Thorens. Before I use the deck regularly, I need it to be able to compete with the CDS2/XPS2, and that will require me to get a much better arm and cartridge (currently SME3009/Shure V15 Type III), and probably a Prefix to use with a moving-coil cartridge, also possibly some form of outboard PSU, not to mention the requisite amount of Mana to support everything. There's also the small matter of rebuilding a whole new vinyl collection from scratch, as I sold most of my LPs along with my last turntable.

As you will appreciate, all of the above require a significant amount of funds, which at the moment is being allocated to other areas of the system, and of course the purchase of CDs!

Regards,
Marco.

P.S Don't let these bad boys get to you, the CDS3 is superb :MILD:

 

It's funny. Some chess players never seem to anticipate nor acknowledge a checkmate.

Paul, yes. Kathie and I paid a visit to fox at the solstice. His Orbe sounded staggeringly good, and Kathie was very taken with its appearance, too. It does look rather wonderful.