All components in BOLD are loaned; all components in standard face are owned by me.
LOUDSPEAKERS
Zellaton Plural Evo speakers.
ELECTRONICS
Soulution 312 stereo amplifier; Soulution 326 preamplifier with phonostage; Doshi Audio EVO phonostage; Doshi Audio EVO tapestage.
SOURCES
van den Hul Colibri Master Signature, Lyra Atlas SL Lambda, Analog Relax EX500 and Genesis Hypersonic X4 cartridges; VPI Statement Plus direct-drive turntable with outboard Vanquish power supply/VPI 12-inch Fat Boy gimballed, VPI 12-inch carbon fiber gimballed and SAT LM-12 tonearms, Technics RS1506 reel-to-reel with Flux Magnetics (run in balanced mode) playback heads, JRF modded tapepath.
CABLES
Audioquest Thunderbird and Dragon Zero speaker cables; Audience FrontRow and FrontRow Reserve interconnects, speaker cables and power cords; Skogrand Beethoven interconnect and speaker cables; Kubala-Sosna Ovation speaker cables; Absolute Fidelity AC cords; Kubala-Sosna Elation AC power cord and Ensemble Dalvivo power cords.
ACCESSORIES
Silent Running Audio Craz 3 equipment rack, OHIO Class XL+2.1 base (under turntable), Silent Running OHIO Class XL+3.4 base under amplifier, Symposium ISIS stand (reel-to-reel) and Ultra amplifier platforms, Fozgometer, Silver Circle Audio Tchaik 6 PLC, KLaudio US RCM, Furutech NCF receptacles, Cathedral room panels, Stillpoint Aperture panels, room is 29 x 14 x 8 ft.
Software: My musical library currently numbers approximately 10,000 LPs, 300 15-ips tapes and 700 SACDs, DVDs and CDs. Musically this breaks down into roughly 80% classical (Consisting of the original Mercury, RCA, Lyrita, Harmonia Mundi, EMI, Decca/London, Argo and many other wonderful labels), 10% jazz, 5% rock and 5% assorted (world music, soundtracks, country, etc.).
Making The Rounds
Conversation: Three Blind Mice TBM-43
Dean Martin: Dream With Dean, Analogue Productions
Donald Byrd: Byrd in Flight, Blue Note/Tone Poet
Fetler: Contrasts For Orchestra, Mercury SR90282
Jimi Hendrix: Blues, Classic Records
Jazz at the Pawnshop, Proprius 2X HD Fusion
La Folia Harmonia Mundi HM 1050 or ATR013
Led Zeppelin : Stairway to Heaven, Classic Records, Single-sided 45 rpm
Malia: Convergence, UMG
Mel Torme and Friends: Recorded Live at Marty’s, Finesse Records W2X 37484
Poulenc: Organ Concerto, EMI ASD2835
Ray Brown and Laurindo Almeida: Moonlight Serenade, Jeton 100 3315
SuperPercussion, SuperAnalogue SSY 19
The King’s Singers: A French Collection, CSD 3840
15 IPS Reel-to-Reel-Tapes
Hugh Masekela: Hope, Analogue Productions
John Coltrane Quartet: Ballads, Analogue Productions
Witches Brew, Analogue Productions
Dee Alexander: Magic, Int. Phonograph, Inc.
Joe Policastro: Vibes Quartet, Int. Phonograph, Inc.
Bill Evans: Waltz for Debby, Riverside/Tape Project
Nat Adderly: Work Song, Riverside/Tape Project
Frédéric Rosselet: Bach and Ligeti, Yarlung Records
Surodaya, Yarlung Records
Bill Evans: Some Other Time, 2XHD Fusion
Shirley Horn: Softly, 2X HD Fusion
Eric Bibb: Spirit and the Blues, Opus 3
Cantate Domino, Proprius/AudioNautes
Jazz at the Pawnshop, Proprius/AudioNautes
Listening habits: In a nutshell, the system must first and foremost, sound musical, not mechanical. The system should in those oh-so-rare rare, but precious moments, transcend the mechanical and recreate the illusion of the real event. At the same time, this musicality shouldn't result from gross colorations or distortions, such as that displayed by bad single-ended amplifier designs.
Though I can appreciate the diversity of approaches and paths to attaining audio nirvana, I absolutely loathe upper midrange aberrations. Specifically, that upper midrange brightness (note that what many think is a rising top end is in actuality traceable to problems in the upper midrange area as defined by HP). This upper midrange brightness results in part from non-linearity, not the frequency domain distortions (for more on this, see the early seminal papers on capacitor design by Curl and Marsh.) Another reason for this upper midrange distortion(s), although far less common in current equipment, is the presence of ferromagnetic leads/material in the signal path.
Other than that, I'm highly partial to systems that create a realistic soundstage (in other words, a quartet sounds like a quartet and not a symphony or vice versa) and imaging (I've never heard an orchestra sound, even in the worst musical venue, err Avery Fisher Hall, sound like amorphous, ill-defined blobs of sound), a wide frequency response, and musically consonant, not over-etched, low-level resolution.
Listening Panel: Zeus (5 year old, male, Brown/Gold Bengal), Cleo (5 year old, female, chocolate point, Torbie, mitted Ragdoll) and Emm (5 year old, female, sealpoint, Tortie, mitted Ragdoll).
