Sonic's System

Listening to 78rpm records...what a blast!

From the Vinyl Anachronist

I spent yesterday up in Dallas with Terry Combs of Sound Mind Audio in Dallas. And, as promised, we listened to 78rpm records on a stellar analog rig that included a rare Micro Seiki turntable modded by Terry himself, with a wood-bodied Benz-Micro that was specifically built to handle the medium. I won't go into too much detail about the experience since it will appear in the next Vinyl Anachronist column for Perfect Sound Forever, but suffice it to say that it was an ear-opening experience.

In a nutshell, listening to a state-of-the-art 78 rig won't quite achieve the same level of fidelity and realism as the best modern LP playback systems. What this rig did offer, however, was an illuminating and exciting window into the original recording event, something that is just not possible with more contemporary solutions. What Terry did point out on lacquer after lacquer was the sheer emotional thrill of 78s, and how listening to 78s like this a something akin to traveling in a time machine. If you fancy yourself a musical historian who is interested in such classic performances, a 78 rig like Terry's is clearly the way to go (as opposed to remastered offerings on other formats).





The Vinyl Anachronist
by Marc Phillips
Part LXXXIX: Life at 78 Revolutions Per Minute
(March 2011)

"If your system doesn't make you cry, it ain't worth that much money!"

Terry Combs isn't like most other audio dealers. For instance, when he's playing music for you on one of his amazing hi-fi systems, he doesn't sit there silently waiting for you to form an opinion about the gear. He sits down, closes his eyes and lets a huge smile cross his face. He lets his body sway to the rhythm to the music. Every once in a while, he lets out a small laugh. He loves music, and he's amazed by it. He doesn't hide that from his clients.

Terry owns Sound Mind Audio in Mesquite, Texas, which is just outside of Dallas. He works out of his home, but he's one of the few dealers who follow this business model and still has a huge inventory of gear on display. He's also one of the very few audio dealers in the world who can let you audition a state-of-the-art 78 RPM rig. That's right. I said 78 RPM records, those ancient things they used to play on Victrolas. It may seem like an oxymoron to call 78 RPM playback "state-of-the-art" in the 21st century, but listening to old lacquers at Terry's place will change your mind about those old records. While the overall sound quality will never trick you into thinking you're listening to a new LP of a modern recording, you will be transported to a different era. His rig, which consists of a Micro-Seiki SX-1500 VG turntable (which Terry has modded himself), two vintage Audiocraft AC3300 tonearms and a wood-bodied mono Benz-Micro cartridge with a 78 RPM tip, is nothing less than a time machine. It recreates an accurate and uncanny window into the original performance.

"Did you hear the emotion?" Terry said more than once after the conclusion of a particular track. I certainly did. As Terry played 78's from the likes of Louis Armstrong, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Billie Holiday and Patsy Cline, I was reminded of those low-powered single-ended triode amplifiers I was so in love with just a few years ago. I was always mesmerized by the way these amps, which were also originally introduced in the first half of the 20th century, made human voices and solo instruments just hang there in the space in front of my speakers with eerie and life-like precision. While listening to 78's on Terry's rig, I was treated to that same immediacy and clarity--and yes, emotion. I could hear deeply into Billie Holliday's recorded voice and marvel at the way she would circle around and flirt with a note before zeroing in and making it hers, all hers. I could discern exactly how much reverb was added to Jerry Lee Lewis' voice in "Great Balls of Fire," making it one of the "wettest" vocal performances I've ever heard. I could see how Louis Armstrong and his wonderful horn always occupied the same exact place on stage, an amazing observation for a mono recording.

I also heard bass, real bass. In most cases, it was generated from the gentle pluck of an E-string on a stand-up bass or occasionally the lowest registers of an orchestra, but it was there in all its glory. I'm not sure why this was such a surprise to me. Perhaps it's because most people who were listening to these records back when they were new did not have playback systems that were able to reproduce the full weight of the lower octaves. So it's a little amazing that it was captured at all during the recording process, since no one probably heard it or appreciated it. It's these types of observations that prompt Terry to get to the heart of why we should still be listening to old 78's on a sophisticated system like this.

"For the first time, we're listening to these recordings the way they were meant to be heard," Terry said. Perhaps this is the sound the recording engineers were hearing back in the studio, and they probably felt a little sad to know how much music would be lost by the time these lacquers would find their way onto the primitive record players of the day. Terry's 78 RPM playback system, which also included Heed Audio amplification from Hungary, an Aesthetic Rhea phono preamp and the same Trenner & Friedl ART loudspeakers I own and adore, recaptured all of that lost magic.

It's not quite perfect. For instance, there's a lot of surface noise on these old discs. "That's because they were played with nails for fifty years," Terry explained, referring to the giant needles that were used in the old record players (they sometimes used cactus needles too!). While he did have a few rare and precious 78's that were surprisingly free of surface noise, you do have to listen around the steady ocean of soft yet persistent noise that emanates from these weathered grooves. If you're a diehard vinyl fan however, you probably already possess the listening skills that allow you to ignore pops and clicks in order to focus on the music. But people who already prefer digital to analog are NOT going to get this at all.

Even if it's not a perfect medium, it's still vital to listen to these recordings in this particular format. Most record collectors--and most music lovers, for that matter--picture themselves as custodians or even curators. While the majority of audiophiles seem to concentrate on records that sound pristine, natural and life-like, true music lovers tend to concentrate on the music itself. It's that old adage that J. Gordon Holt, founder of Stereophile magazine, used to discuss: the higher fidelity a recording a possesses, the more likely it is to contain a mediocre performance. At Terry's place, I listened to absolutely enlightening recordings from the likes of T-Bone Walker (what a great guitarist!), Louis Jordan ("Beware" is the funniest song I've heard in years) and a host of musicians very few people remember in this day and age. Sure, these 78's could be noisy, almost to the point of distraction, but "almost" is the key here. Time after time, the wonderful music flowed through and made an emotional connection with me. Why would you not want to listen to these records? Why would you not want to care for them and treasure them and play them once in a while? It's history. It's important.

Sure, most of this material is available on LP's, CD's and probably even MP3's. Modern machines have been employed to remove all of the unnecessary noise and other artifacts. It's all been dusted off, sprayed with cologne and propped up for your enjoyment. But to paraphrase erstwhile audio reviewer Corey Greenberg, it's like being French-kissed by a robot. Why are we always "fixing" everything and making it perfect? We need to rediscover the Taoist concept of the uncarved block of wood. Things tend to be more beautiful in their natural state. 78's, in my opinion, are downright beautiful.

So am I going to run right out and buy a dedicated 78 RPM rig from Terry? Personally, I'd love to write him a check. The cost of such an endeavor however isn't negligible. Terry put a lot of time, money and sweat into both his system and his 78 collection. While garden-variety 78's are fairly cheap (a friend recently grabbed a couple for me from an estate sale for next to nothing), truly pristine lacquers can cost a small fortune. I've also been spending a lot of time on the other end of audio spectrum, exploring music servers and computer audio in general. But I think that when it comes time to upgrade my turntable--and that day is certainly drawing near--I might just have to insist on something that does 78 RPM.

Surprisingly, a few modern turntables still offer that feature. Rega even makes a turntable that's dedicated to playing 78's, and it's based on one of their more affordable models. That might be a fairly low-cost solution to consider.

In a single afternoon, Terry converted me. We spent a couple of hours listening to conventional LP's on his reference system which consisted of a Walker Audio Proscenium turntable and Transfiguration cartridge, VivA tubed amplification, Aesthetix Eclipse phono pre (with two power supplies and vintage Amperex and Telefunken tubes) and the amazing Trenner & Friedl RA Box speakers. It was one of the finest systems I've ever heard. Terry is meticulous when it comes to system set-up, and he spends countless hours fine-tuning everything and looking for ways to make it all sound more realistic.

Several days later however, I'm still thinking about those 78's. I think about how much fun I had listening to them. Maybe, just maybe, it brings a tear to my eye thinking about all that wonderful old music that's still out there, waiting to be discovered.

http://www.furious.com/perfect/vinyl79.html

Hello Zonees

With the settling of the Space Cones, Sonic has brought the front of the room to this:





The thing is, I substituted the MTDs under the FS-PZCs with threaded AAB1x1 cones. Now the MTDs were geniune Michael Green cones, not the less effective and musical AudioPoints that were sold by Michael in the early part of the Tune.

With the AAB1x1s under the FS-PZCs, the improvement was huge.

The MTDs were good under the PZCs but when I fixed the Michael Green AAB1x1 cones, the sound improved even more in weight, clarity and scale. The effect was right across the soundstage Left to Right and I could get a sense of the absolute width of the soundstage without an overwide sensation.

Sonic knew the MTDs were good but AAB1x1 cones improved the width, girth, weight and sense of power of the soundstage. It is awesome.

Zonees may want to order a number of AAB1x1 cones from Michael. They sound wonderful and put you in another world.

Sonic

Thank you kind sir!

Hi Michael and Zonees

The AAB1x1 cones in the threaded, flat-top, sonic bell versions have been the most successful devices to improve the sound of my system that I have bought from Michael. These cones have improved the musick when placed under anything I have tried – speakers, CD players, amplifiers. In Sonic’s experimentation, I only found one application where the New Cones (AAB1x1) didn’t work – that is when the bottom of the device resting on them was corrugated. This probably reduced contact area and vibration transfer. Other than that, give them a flat surface and they created a weight with clarity that will have a listener nodding in appreciation.

Sonic was listening to a pair of box speakers recently and found them musical but a little recessed which made them sound nice but hardly exciting.

There is a thing which is called the “BBC dip” or sometimes the “Gundry Dip” after the BBC engineer who put the thinking together. The Gundry Dip is a small designed-in dip between 1 KHz and 4 KHz of no more than 3 dB in a speaker's frequency response. The psychoacoustic effect was to take the edge of some recordings and make things sound more relaxed. It also masked some colourations from the loudspeakers themselves. The drawback was a recessed soundstage.

As Sonic read up about the Gundry Dip, I learnt from Harbeth’s wonderfully informative website that a lift at 1KHz adds presence and a lift at 4 KHz increases “bite”

So Zonees who are tuning their rooms and systems, this might be useful if your system are too forward or recessed, lacking in projection or having too much of it.

In any case, Sonic thinks that we need accurate speakers, not things that are contoured so they impose ther characteristics on the sound.

Sonic

If I may throw in my 2 cents here.

I have always heard dips, built in or not, with almost any speaker that has a cross-over. It appears in a few areas differently because of a natural interaction that occurs in rooms, the sound of the cab or frame and the cause of suck out that happens from the distortion of cutting off drivers. Slopes in driver cut offs are clearly distortion and is easy to hear once you get use to the sound. The only way I have found to get rid of this distortion is to move toward a non-crossover free resonant design.

Think about what a crossover is? A FILTER After you get through this long signal process of the front end then the amp stage we shove this all through another series of components. BTW these components are usually inside of a speaker or attached to it and is a magnet for distortion.

If one has a speaker that can not be controlled and there is a need for correction, OK, do the best you can to fix the problem, but realize that this is indeed a problem and the purist should be looking at how to get rid of the crossover not glorify it.

There's a huge misconception that free resonance is distortion when in reality "free resonance" tuned is the lack of distortion and by far the purist form of the signal. The only way to have a balance on the plus and minus of the audio signal is to remove blockage and tune the harmonics.

Agree completely with Mr Green. If you have been listening to speakers with crossovers for years and then encounter a single driver device or one with no electrical parts to hand off the woofer to the tweeter, you'll hear an ease and "freshness" in the sound. Sonic has heard this which is why I am experimenting with single driver systems.

The crossover is not neutral and the more complex the design is (more components) the worse it gets. If any Tunees thinks like me that digital is mechanical sounding you'll soon find that once you go crossoverless, a part of that mechanical presentation goes away.

Mentally this brings me to complex speaker cab les with the big network boxes. There are filters in there which are said to optimise the cable for time alignment etc....while these bits and pieces are said to be not in the signal path, if they do what they say, once you play with time alignment and frequency related effects in a network there will be problems. Sonic has looked at those cables and the giant boxes attached with >$10,000 price tags.....sounds like "hey, your hifi is too good and too simple, pay $10,000 and we'll give you some interesting problems in a box to vex your mind over...and put you on the threadmill to seek more expensive gear that you think would give you the sound of live music...."

Back to Sonic's (simple) system.

After my good experience with the AAB1x1 cones under the front PZCs, I worked to build up more harmonic richness in the reproduction.

I been listening to Haydn and Mozart symphonies and comparing them to recoerding of works by Handel, Beethoven and Mendelsohn, the Haydn and Mozart reproduce a bit on the thin sounding side. This is partly the scoring and the relative weights placed on the Violins, violas, celli and basses. In live concerts, the same pieces are full and you hear how the scoring translated into a thinness in recordings. For some reason records and CDs show this "lightness" more with Mozart.

With the Tune, this "thinness" has reduced over time in my system without bloating other types of musick -- after all Mozart is not one of my most played composers.

I moved some Space Cones from elsewhere and stuck them to the front boards of the PZCs, 1/3 way from the top.





There is an improvement very quickly in making the slight thinness became even slighter. Played Haydn's Symphony 12 and it sounded really full and balanced. Checked next with a Copland orchestral work to see if overcooking has occured and that SOnic had dialed in too much weight. Nope, nicely balanced.

Space Cones + PZCs -- neat combination

Sonic

Hi Sonic,

How did you attach the space cones to PZCs?

Hi Bill333

Sonic used a small square of transparent double sided tape (3M type). If unsure if the spot you choose is beneficial or permanent, loop a piece of thread like I did -- see bookcase wall tuning -- so you can pull the Space Cone off without having to pry it off.

You using Space Cones too?

Sonic

Yes, I am using the space cones. Michael brought a bunch of them along with the other equipment when he came for his last visit. I'm finding them very useful under equipment, but I have not tried them on walls, PZCs or any other surfaces yet. Do you have advice about where I might get the most mileage in these applications?

Hi Bill333

I found space cones to work in the upper tricorner, on on the ceiling and 2 pn the adjacent walls, fixed about 12 to 14 inches from the corner. I had to fix them to MW then to the wall but if you wall and ceiling is wood, I suppose the cones can go directly on.

They work on PZCs and on the wall behind me.

OTH I found them less than effective in the centre of each wall, centre of the ceiling or near the bottom corners. They might work on the floor -- when Sonic tried, there was a difference but I didn't pursue this.

The Space Cones work on transformers and on the cable grounds carrying the mains. Try them directly applied or with wood in between. In my set up they were a no go on the cable grounds supporting cables carrying the music signals. They work good on the subwoofer top surface placed on China poplar disks available from Mr Green.

How did you use space cones under your equipment? POint up or down? Under which pieces of gear?

Sonic

Hi Michael and Zonees

This has been a wild week of tuning for Sonic. I had two visitors, both hard boiled audiophiles, listening to and commenting on my system and I got some strong views which required a humble and learning response from Sonic to address the strengths and weakness of the reproduction of musick from my system.

Audiophile One said: Wow…this is fantastic…so much more detail…but bass is coming from the Right Hand side of your room (where the Janis W-1 subwoofer is)…you got a big soundstage but the bass is coming from the Sub…I think your subwoofer system is set up wrong…

Audiophile Two said: you got a very wide soundstage….how did you do it? I am in front of your Maggies but the images are at your front wall….but your room is too live… it rings…maybe your sound is a bit too wide…

Sonic took these comments to heart and remounted the EchoTune on my left wall at an angle instead of flat on the wall at the top of the ceiling/wall junction for more control.

I mean, if the Tune is done right, any listener from the craziest audiophile to those not exposed to the hi-end audio oddities should hear the Tune and appreciate it as something far above conventional audio quality.

Then after some “BOO!” tests which did show some liveliness in my room, I placed another Echotune at the upright wall and ceiling junction of the right hand wall.

Now this may be a departure from Michael’s rules where ETs do not face each other across a room. But Sonic’s room has concrete walls and ceilings rather than the gypsum board walls which Michael finds more tuneable.

My room is now quieter, but needed a slight increase in preamp volume setting to get a sense of the best of the musick.

Sonic listened to Theolonious Monk's “Straight, no Chaser”, Stockhausen's “Kontakt, Refrain, Zyklus", Handel's Fireworks Musick (Pinnock/Archiv) and J S Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier (Koopman).

Sonic’s 27 Space Cones are now arranged this way:

12 Space Cones, 3 per tricorner x 4 triconers

1 Space Cone on the Musical Fidelity V-DAC

3 Space Cones on the Janis W-1 subwoofer

2 Space Cones on the Preamp's Transformers

1 Space Cone on the Subwoofer amp transformer

1 Space Cone on the Subwoofer amp transformer

1 Space Cone on the DAC

2 Space Cones on the Cable Grounds supporting the speaker cables

2 Space Cones on the Bookcase Wall

1 Space Cone placed on the CD player transformer

1 Space Cone on the casing of the Preamp (front panel)

Yes, the sound is good…

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Michael helped me with the applications of AAB1x1 sonic bell cones under my X-30 crossover.

I had removed the resitone rods in my x-30 mini clamp rack – the nuts tended to stick/bind on the rods making adjustments difficult and the wobblyness of the rods made the rack unstable – and the more stable rack with rods properly centred made the musick clearer and whole.

Next up, I removed the three machine wound Harmonic Springs and thin MW under the X-30 and replaced them with the three Bell Cones – a SB in front and two SBS rear.
The first impression was a large increase in clarity but as settling proceeded what I got was a hard trebly, over projected sound. There was a mild “blasting effect”. Listeners of 78rpm acoustic gramophones will know this well.

Sonic asked for advice and Michael he say, “It sounds like the bells loaded in the inner chamber. Sometimes this will happen if there is a certain type of surface they are touching or even if the vibration of the material that is transferring on top or bottom of them is shifted toward a pitch upward. Try using wood above or below them or even putting a filler in the bell. I have gotten interesting results doing this.”

I then placed thin MW pieces between the tops of the SB and SBS cones and the X-30 case. The X-30 is top tuned with a cherry finished MW bar and a Harmonic Spring (machine wound).

Much. much better. Thanks Michael!

I got the projection I was looking for and along it came better imaging where I could tell more easily where instruments were, how far back they were and a clarity without the treble emphasis and “blasting effect”. The volume has notched up. This is always a good thing. Sonic has not stayed long with any tune action that cut volume. The clarity is showing me that my Janis W-1 subwoofer cut in point could be raised a little for more forwardness in the cello/viola da gamba range.

Sonic will test this one subsequently and report. The cones/MW/X-30/miniclamp should be allowed to settle before trying the next step.

All this is working well and Sonic is planning the next step which will involve AAB1x1 bell supports for the Sony blu ray player and the V-DAC.

Sonic

Hi Michael and Zonees

Since Sonic’s addition of an EchoTune to the room last week, I have been working on getting a more focused and projected soundstage. This is where Sonic has gone:

I moved the two FS-DRTs from the bookcase wall, where they flanked the centrally placed FS-PZC, over into the front wall corners.





This means the bookcase wall now has only a single FS-PZC between it and the back of my listening chair. There are two Space Cones centrally stuck on each bookcase though.

The two FS-DRTs (Special) sit under the Tunestrips, 45 degrees across the corners. This means each front wall corner from ceiling to floor we have a Corner Tune, a Tune strip and the FS-DRT (Special).

I also mounted two Space Cones at the halfway points (length and height) of the side walls but this time with a MW slice between the cones and the wall surface. Without the wood slice, the Space Cones were not effective on the brick wall. With the MW,
this created warmth and a girth in the side images that radiate nicely from the Magneplanars. The focus increased and images in the half left and right sections of the front wall tightened up. The projection and volume also increased. There is a weight and strength to the sound that is more lifelike now.

The soundstage has also become less phasey. The images are whole and there is no loss of rear ambience even from having one FS-PZC behind me instead of a whole clutch of PZCs and DRTs. Very happy with this result, since the simpler you make any set up, the better the potential quality of the sound in that room.

Sonic also drilled an extra hole in the top of the X-30’s miniclamp lining the hole up with a clear spot on the large PCB of the X-30 for a tuning rod.

I used a Resitone rod (sharpened) to top tune the X-30, the rod tip just touching the main PCB. Sonic found that the X-30 has damping under the PCBs and removing the damping which also acts as an insulation, is taking the risk of a short circuit or RFI breakthrough.

Up till now, I tuned with a cherry-finished MW bar across the open X-30 case but the boards don’t ground enough due to the X-30 circuitry being separated from the casing (and therefore makes for no effective grounding) due to the insulation in the crossover.





Wow!

I got a huge increase in clarity, inner detail, girth, power. There was so much musick released just by different ways of top tuning

This is great. Was listening this evening to Chinese zither musick from Suzhou (China), Britten’s cello works and Palestrina's settings of the Mass. Very good.

Sonic

When we get those harmonics to align through top tuning the results are almost hard to put into words. This 3d realism is very hard to achieve any other way.

Hi Michael

Sonic has been testing the DF crosscut wood pieces you sent me.

Tried the DF crosscuts under the Bare Essence cables in one mounting place per channel in my system and on a recording of a piano, I could hear the sub-harmonics of the hammers. I have heard this in the Steinway Concert Grand pianos live but hardly, or never from hifi systems. Now I think I hear it from my system!

I also listened to Henry Purcell’s Birthday Music for Queen Mary – Early Music Consort directed by David Munrow. The recording sounded more real and lifelike with the DF crosscuts than without – thinner without them IMO.

Think Sonic will experiment with the DF crosscuts a bit this week and see how they settle.

What does DF stand for - Dark Fir?

Sonic

Hi Sonic

Douglas Fir that I get really dry. The stuff is super light weight. It has 3 coats.

that's great! Wonder if I should make you some bigger pieces? I get it 1.5" X 1.5" up to 6' long.

It's also inside of the mini mods finished with more coats, slightly heavier. It's one of the tuning bar choices for the new speakers (I mean instruments ).

Hi Michael

With the Douglas Fir supporting only my speaker cables, Sonic got three effects after 24 hours:

a. a blues rock album I rarely listen to because the snare drum sounds dead and muffled, like the snare wires are levered off (sounds like "thonk" instead of "thhwack") has changed!

The snare wires are there...I can hear them now just that the drummer adjusted them for a tom sound with some rattle....a snare drum has a lever and adjusting knob at the side to do this....you can cut the snare off completely and get a tom, or you can adjust the tension of the wires for different amounts of rattle.

The music piece sounds right. And audiophiles said the only way to get this record sounding right was to use amps with hundreds of watts....Sonic has the same 90W amp but with DF crosscuts, I got a snare drum instead of a tom.

b. on an atmospheric recording of ambient music, the soundstage is huge and I can hear new details including the understanding there are things going on in the air behind the listening chair.

I get the feeling like new sound and musick wants to burst out into my room space.

c. on many instruments, I can hear the leading edge transients have harmonics going down in frequency as well as up. This gives piano notes, drums, xylophones, cymbals struck on the bells and with mallets a new depth and impact. Just 6 pieces of wood....is this a parallel universe

Michael, I'll PM you about ordering the Douglas Fir, where to apply them without going overboard.

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Sonic has become a fan of Douglas Fir. Michael gave me 8 pcs (1"x1"x 1/4") to try and I placed 4 pcs to support the speaker cables and now have put 4 pcs under the cones of the platform supporting the Main amplifier.

Sonic got an increase in volume, a sense that the sound wants to burst out of the Magneplars, and that wonderful sense of sub-harmonics -- the deep signals that undergird the strikes of a piano key, the pressure waves from brass instruments and the force of bowing string instruments. The temptation Sonic needs to resist is to apply Douglas Fir under everything in sight....I tried the pieces under the miniclamp supporting the X-30 and while I got a sense that images were the same size across the soundstage, I also got a bloated and over projected upper bass...too much of a good thing.

Sonic listened to Haydn's Keyboard Concertos Hob XVIII.4 (G Major), Hob XVIII.11 (D major) and Concerto for Keyboard, violin and strings Hob XVIII:6 (F major). "Concerti per il clavicembalo, Andreas Staier and the Frieburger Barockorchester Dir: Gottfried von der Goltz (Harmonia Mundi) tonight.

A nice sense of presence from the orchester and the fortepiano had deep sub-tones under every key strike. Very nice and realistic.

Michael, should I replace all the MW wood squares under my loudspeakers, the PZCs, the Janis W-1 subwoofer and the racks with Douglas Fir squares or will this result get too extreme?

Sonic

Hi Sonic

I'm thrilled You will need to be the judge of how much is too much, but it certainly sounds like we found a great material for your audio chain. Isn't it like picking out a new guitar? or piano

Hi Michael and Zonees

Here is a pix with the Douglas Fir pieces installed:





The Douglas Fir pieces are under the AAB1x1 bell cones supporting the Quicksliver preamp (x3) and four Douglas Fir pieces sit between the cones of the platform/amp stand and the floor.

One DF piece supports the digital cable.

Very good soundstage and image size when the preamp is top tuned.

This is the V-DAC PCB. It is 6 ins long and 3.5 ins wide.





The bottom is uneven with the tips of the component wires protruding at different lengths.

Sonic

Hi Michael and Zonees

Sonic set this up:

[Pix FS PZC tuning goeth here]

Those squares behind the tuning bolts of the front FS-PZCs are 3" x 3" x 1/8" MW pieces. There is a crinkled aluminum foil behind each MW piece and they are mounted without the tuning bolt washer.

There is a change of sound but it is hard to describe. This is partly because I think I am getting the flu bug going round my town with running nose and such, so I'll let things settle and be cautious in my description.

There is however something different and probably better going on in the centre of the front soundstage.

Let's see what I hear in the next few days before putting another similar MW pieces and foil under the tuning bolt of the rear FS-PZC.

Sonic

Hi Michael and Zonees

Here is the tune Sonic has applied over the last week – it started after I set up the MW/aluminum foil squares on the front FS-PZCs and the PZC behind my listening chair.

The centre images took on a solidity I haven’t heard before in my room and these images projected out towards the listening seat the way Sonic has aimed for (at last) …however… the images at the two side walls lagged and were weaker…this is the opposite of the banana shaped soundstage that Sonic referred to many times.

What to do? I angled the front Sound shutters towards the listening area set to 45 degrees because the room seemed to be telling me it wanted more pressure along the sides projected forward.








Very good! The soundstage and sense of acoustic pressure seemed to want to go past me to the rear of the room. Sonic could hear the pressure in the place filling up.

So next up, I angled the two Sound shutters at the room rear by 45 degrees and a bit more. The thinking was to allow the pressure wave to move to the rearmost end of the room without a barricade.





The soundstage became even fuller but the pressure wave-flow at the sides seem zoom past to the rear corner of the room then bounce back out creating a de-focussed sound. Sounds like too much speed and reminds me of a too live acoustic space.

Michael, what should I do? Sonic likes the big soundfield but I need to dial in more focus. Sonic senses the next step is going to be a small subtle one that will pull everything together.

What do you suggest for just that bit more control?

Also here is the pix of the underside of the V-DAC PCB – the board is 6 inches long by 3 3/8 inches wide. The soldered wires from mounted components do not come closer than 1/8 inch from the long edges of the board. They get very close to the short edges though.





What do you suggest, Michael?

Zonees – if you're wondering what this is about, we are planning a mini spring platform to tune the V-DAC.

Sonic

With the advent of taking everything down to the circuit board (which is the next step in tuning) we introduce 2 options to tuning that hadn't been needed before with using bottom chassis. One is a cut out bottom tuning board, the other is a tuning board with standoffs or "Tuning Poles". With there not being much to support the edges I'm thinking tuning poles.

When the day comes that I design my own stuff my circuit boards will be much bigger and spacious.

"Michael, what should I do? Sonic likes the big soundfield but I need to dial in more focus. Sonic senses the next step is going to be a small subtle one that will pull everything together.

What do you suggest for just that bit more control?"

At this point without messing anything up see if you can focus it in using the electronics (wires). This will change the waves just slightly.

How tight are your RCAs on your components?