Chill3

Ok - I am well and truly a taken by the dark side - I no longer own any CD's ( I have about 30 SACDs) and use my Schitt Bifrost DAC on rare occasions only, 90% of home listening is vinyl. 

 

That said I still have a big digital music collection and go to iTunes a fair bit - we all need music on the go and my Yamaha GT2000 has proven a problem to use while flying !

 

So just saying - if iTunes, or any similar online store would just go hi res 24 bit I might be tempted to, well turn :0  - I find 24 bit done well, not better than vinyl, different, but good in many way

 

I suspect I am dreaming

 

I know about HD tracks, but that no were near iTunes in scope or ease of use

 

Will it ever happen ?

I have just finished a few weeks with a Graham Slee Reflex M – Elevator combination – thanks Keith, Vinyl Eye and Graham Slee – what an excellent and easy service and great product.

 

So I think a short review is in order.

 

First the logistics – so easy, Keith has this down to a fine art and communication is excellent and fast. 10 out of 10.

 

So on to my experience with the phono stage

 

Things got off to a very shaky start, nothing to do with the Graham Slee products mind, just the big guy upstairs trying to amuse himself at my expense.

 

After a very busy week at work I came home on a Friday afternoon to find the well packed Reflex M and Elevator, wife on late shift so plenty of time to set up and play  - Result !

 

Unbox – mmm , well made, simple but good looking aside from the ugly power supplies, overall good first impressions.

 

Hook up went well and all was ready to go, glass of red in hand, a selection of fav records, I sit down to listen – well aware that the units will need to warm up, but bugger that who can wait !

 

Rest of system is Yamaha GT2000, Ortofon Jubilee, MF A1 and Martin Logan Aeriusi & B&W PV1 sub – it had been sounding superb at last listen.

 

Sound was crap, bad bad bad, mmm perhaps these need lots of warm up. However two sides later I realise something major is wrong, bass is week and muddy, no highs, WTF.

 

So seems that there is nothing coming from sub – dead silent – that’s strange, lots of trouble shooting later, one dead PV1 L. Something internal is tripping with a click and nothing can get it back to life, bugger. Its out of warranty, still sitting down stairs out of sight while t=I contemplate getting it fixed. – how bizarre that it quit just as I sat down to listen to the Graham Slee ?

 

Ok so system with no sub – nope crap sound ( I have a very large room with suspended wood floor so subs well tuned make a big difference to sound I find )

 

So hook up spare sub from HT system, buy now I am hot, very sweaty and not is a great mood !

Nope – still not right – frustrated only a few days ago this set up was sounding sensational.

 

Then the next penny drops, or more to the point, the next drop of sweat drops, I am in QLD and its currently throwing it down, has been for three days, the humidity reading in my house in over 85%.

 

ML do not like 85% humidity – fine a high humidity, but not pea soup humidity.

 

So out go the MLs in come the JBLs and some fiddling with the sub.

 

At last – that sounds OK, however its now 10pm – I am not in a good mood and the wife wants me to stop and that all and pay some attention to other things !

 

Next morning – involves more stuffing around all in a rush as I have to work that afternoon.

 

Finally on Sunday afternoon I have something that sounds right, however I am about to get on a plane to Melbourne for most of the week, bugger again.

 

Stage 2 need to settle the F down and well Chill J

 

So now to the good part, after the hell week, all is going fine with the system all be it a different system, I have no enthusium to swap and change after busy days at work ( and I am a bit paranoid ) so just nightly sessions with a few disc’s each night leaving the Slee products in place and my current MF M1 vinyl on the side. It’s all sounding pretty good, very good in fact, but with so many changes hard to attribute to any particular item.

 

Stage 3 finally some comparisons

 

Week three and finally some time to compare. I hate constant switching and changing and listening to short passages of music, just makes you listen to non important things rather than the critical musical aspects, don’t even get me started on the whole DBT stuff.

 

For me I need to spend time listening to music not “hifi” to get past minor changes in frequency response and such, relax and let the musical qualities shine. So spend a whole three hours on Sunday with the Reflex / Elevator, then change back to MF, spend another 3 hours a lot of it with the same music.  Call it a day.

 

Swap back to the Slee’s and spend the next 4 nights with them, and boy are they starting to grow on me. On the final night I play records for 2 hours and then swap back to MF and repeat the same records.

 

So what’s the verdict?

 

Compared to the MF M1 there is very little important difference in typical hifi measures, the MF is a bit dryer in the bass and has a touch me HF energy, but nothing that a small amount of system tuning would not fix.

 

But when you sit back and listen the differences start to show, and they’re very musically significant. Each instrument has a more defined space and there is more depth of character to each as well. This is across the frequency range, a plucked double bass just sounds more solid, more clearly placed and “in the room” – it is not louder, more controlled of less boomy – it is a more subtle and musically more important difference. This caries through to the HF – cymbals on the surface sound the same if you “listen hard”  but then you stop that and just listen to the music you sense the size and quality of the cymbal in a way that the MF seems to not be able to produce. The Slee combo is also much better at making sense of complex passages where a lot is going on.

 

 Its hard to define but there seems less “hash” even though with the MF you are never aware of any in the first place.

 

Ultimately these are not “showy” in any way – not something you can throw on and impress, however they make good music and in my system are all I could ask for.

 

I had a very quick check with Elevator into the MM stage of the MF A1 and that does seem to give 80% of the same result.

 

 

 

Thanks Keith 

 

PS may have some Martin Logan's for sale soon at great price 

Zaphod Beeblebrox

I have this amp, it came as a package with some speakers that I bought on ebay

 

I wonder is it worth fixing - seems like a but of a monster the transformer alone is huge.

 

Not much infomation onelne other than it seems to be made by CODA Technologies

 

Fuse holder is broken and there is "stuff" on the power supply board around the main Caps

 

any help would be appreciated. 

Think wife says 1 pair enough 

 

she cool with me owning more - just not the living room looking like hifi shop

 

;(

 

 

 

 

 

So crap day for a number of reasons that you have no interest in.

Got home and a random eBay purchase was waiting

JBL XPL 90 s. ( google them will post pictures later )

Well bugger me, sensational , very happy and all for less than $300 !

These will now be my new main speakers replacing Sonus Faber Concertino

I have owned a fair range over many year, Quad ( 57 s and 2095s ) big JBLs, Infinity ML

These are very much up here,

Perhaps a bit of  brightness but I hav not even played with position yet

Might needc to star looking for a pair of the famous big brother XPL 200s !