Turntable choices

Welcome to ZG indeed Lord. Now we have "The Devil" and "Lord", all we need now is Jesus and The Holy Ghost

Michael.

 

Sideshowbob, you're wrong And my WT is Well Black.

Any deck that's best on a monolithic granite support may not be best on angle iron.

 

Thank you for all the kind messages and advice. Auditioning almost anything these days is rather difficult, but I'll try to give some of them a go.

TF is one of my closest hi-fi mentors and his Orbe, along with the Morch unipivot, and his 6 grand Koetsu something-or-other, is an amazingly excellent deck. There are some who say that it can't 'hold a tune', doesn't 'groove' and all the rest of those somewhat vague 'flat-Earth' hi-fi gimp buzz-words. The truth of it is that they don't know what they are on about, as usual. It looks lovely too.

Kathie has far better hearing than I do, and she really wants me to get an Orbe. Part of me suspects that she has her eye on the 'Ninja' for her own system (she has a Marantz CD 63, Pioneer A400 and Wharfedale Diamonds) and I guess that it might well slot in there very nicely. Or I could just paint it black I guess.

Hi Mick,

"...get shot of those bloody horrible speakers you own and go for some of the big Tannoy's."

Yes, the ATC 100A could have been a truly great speaker, but it is let down, sadly, by the inferior amplifiers and electronics which ATC make for them.

I am very pleased and gratified to hear that your new Naim CDS3 is even better than your Garrard, by the way. Apart from anything else, it gives me a new benchmark to aim for.

 

James, welcome back, hope you had a good xmas and your search for a worthy successor to your LP12 jobbie will be fruitful, next you may want to change your amplication to ECS, your good friend & partner in crime, seems to feel that he prefers them over sailsburys efforts, can't think why though?, anyway sideshow's missed your musings so much, he's gone into anaflakitic shock, and only mouth to mouth from your good self will save him T.

 

All of James' hi-fi musings on this thread - be they about turntables or suitable amps for his speakers, are politically motivated methinks.

 

Steve

You do indeed have an astute polictical mind.

Regards

Mick

 

Not that astute

Blindingly obvious.

At least your loyalties are unerringly consistent and backed up with solid arguments.

James's loyalties are somewhat at the mercy of meteorological or other conditions.

Many folks were perhaps distracted by his refreshing change of record.

 

So In essence then, my good fellows, what you are suggesting then, is that James has woken up and smelt the coffee, or as you may or maynot be impling, just goes with the politcal waverings of the 'most ego boosting structure' at that present time ?, I must say chaps what freudain observationists you are T.

 

Maybe its time James ripped out those crappy mosfet amps from his ATCs and installed some serious class T power. I am sure WM would be delighted to assist in upgrading the ATCs.

 

I tried to register as Jesus & The Holy Ghost but the name was too long, can you sort it out please?.

 

I auditioned the Orbe (with an SME V and CLearaudio Victory) against a Nouvelle Platine Verdier (with Morch UP6 and Dynaudio cart), and the Orbe sounded completely flat and lifeless in comparison.. The Verdier made music, as opposed to simply being an uninvolved replay device, though it is a bit of a strange looking fella.
Walrus have a 2nd hand one (morch arm, no cart) for £2195. And there is none more black...

 

Well it would have to be something with some serious power: I read that JW tried using them passively with a pair of his Stealth (now ECS) monoblocs (£6-8 K per pair), but these were not powerful enough to stir them. ATC themselves recommend using amplifiers rated up to 1500 watts per channel when in passive mode.

I've contemplated going active with three stereo amps, but I'm put off by the expense, and also by the fact that the people who criticised the MOSFET amps never really said exactly what they think is wrong with them. I can't hear any problems myself, and I've heard many other 'hi-end' systems, but none with the dynamic range and clarity of the ATC system.

...the Orbe sounded completely flat and lifeless...

Probably a set-up problem.

 

James,

Well that was really a tongue in cheek comment, but if you were to go passive, some class T amps would be a very sensible choice. I would go for something like a pair of Belcanto Evo4s, bridge 1 amp to give 360w/ch for the bass and then use the other 4 channel amp to give 4 channels of 120 w/ch to the mid and treble. Run the lot with balanced connections from an ATC pre. and some kind of active crossover.

The amps would really match up with the ATCs as they have stupendous dynamics, are very fast and do the PRaT thing with ease.

Not very cheap though.

 

Robbo, they do 3/4Kw into 4 ohms with ease, mind you I feel James would need a few of these on each driver array, might even inspire some lower frequency activity Wm

 

Hi Robbo and WM. Nice idea, but I'm OK with the ATC amp packs. I don't mind a little hardship as it's good for the soul.

 

You could try those Stealths James, marco swears by his, and after all that faffing around with the previous stuff too
Good luck on your quest fair scalpel wielder. T.

 

Well, anything's better than Naim power amps, eh?

 

ATCs were (maybe still are) used by Bob Ludwig, arguably the world's best known mastering engineer. He seemed to like them and I would imagine cost was no object to Bob. I'm presuming but I'm presuming that if they're good enough for Bob then they will be more or less OK.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&[email protected]

 

I always find justifications like "<insert famous recording engineer or musician> uses them so they must be the best because they could buy anything they want" very suspect.

In my view, my opinion about a piece of kit (or indeed your opinion, or anyone on this forum's opinion) is just as valid as any famous recording engineer or musician.

For every engineer that uses ATCs I could find you one that uses Dynaudios or PMCs or any number of other makes. For every musician that has a Naim system I could find you one that doesn't.

Celebrity endorsements of any product are best ignored.

Michael.

 

There is a difference between listening for faults in a recording and enjoying something that covers them up.

Still I do like the tag team effort by Robbo and WM, the BC is an impressive beasty and would stand out as the part of WM's system that I could happily live with.

I suspect before long, ATC will introduce some switching amp modules, it seems the way forward for active monitors.