maxg

Ray, "However, our home systems are music REPRODUCERS, not PRODUCERS. The goal (uh, oops, one of the goals...) is to REPRODUCE a musical event with as much fidelity as possible to the original. In this context, it would seem to be obvious that the less distortion, the better." Whilst I understand exactly what you are saying about the difference between a music producer and a music reproducer there is a problem in trying to reproduce exactly a live event in your home. If nothing else you are sitting in your listening room in front of a stereo system of whatever make and type with a whole lot less people around. In other words you are starting from a point where it is impossible to re-generate the original to any degree of realism. If you were to take the musicians themselves and transplant them into your room the sound would be different from the above mentioned live event by definition. Therefore, I wonder if the interplay of the distortion generated by your playback system in conjunction with the enforced distortion of your listening room could actually get you closer to the live event music than a lesser distorting system. In other words could these euphonics really be a way of either getting sound reproduction in a form that it is less affected by your room's distortion, or, even counter-balanced by those distortions (although I regard the latter as improbable). All this is, of course, a long way from cables. I have no idea why cables should make a difference. All I can tell you is that I perceive a difference sufficient for me to spend half the cost of my speakers on them. As for the differences in digital cable that someone else mentioned on here - this is not a surprise to me at all. I have experienced the same thing. I think that the issue is jitter (or data stream timing). As I understand it - and as opposed to computer data - it is the timing of the stream of 0's and 1's that is important in digitally transferring music (in other words there is no built in timing coding to the stream itself). In the majority of systems there is also no buffering of the stream. Therefore with any digital transfer there is a possibility of introducing jitter into the system. From my limited experience digital cables suffer more or less with jitter, and, unfortunately it is the more expensive cables that seem to perform better.

Well I really dont know what to say other than thank-you Christos. From that review you might be fooled into thinking that his system and mine have similar sound quality - they don't. To put this into perspective, however, my entire system - including my TV, cost less than half what Christos' turntable did so I think I can see where the value for money line comes from!! As for the rest - I have been convinced for a while that I do have good sound. This review has confirmed that - but it also has helped me to understand what is possible - and the gulf between what is truely possible (money no object) and what I have. Now at least I have a target. I wonder if I can get close without spending the GDP of a moderate African country?? Thank you again Christos!! (Mike - Christos and Aristidis live at the opposite side of Athens from Tony and I (we are about 1 mile from each other). It is about an hour on a typical run in the car.) On Sunday there is an ACA bash at another audiophile's house. He has Montana ESP speakers (never heard of them) mated to a Cary V12 100wpc amp and a CAT SL1 pre-amp. If I get there it should be interesting...(if I dont then I will be in the maternity ward! Wife due any time now!!) cheers all ------------------ My System: http://aca.gr/pop_maxg.htm

But before you go racing off thinking you have made a decision or anything. Take a look at some of the DECWARE products - http://www.decware.com/tubes.htm Their Model SE84-CS is particularly interesting at $695!! They have a full range of stuff, including the pre that I own. Seem to be good value for money and around the budgets you are talking about. I havent heard any of the amps though - no-one here has them so I would love your input if you find something - I too own Heresy's!! ------------------ My System: http://aca.gr/pop_maxg.htm

There is a guy in Germany looking to put together some sort of TV documentary on high end systems and the people that own them: If you are interested you can find more on what he is looking for at http://pub4.bravenet.com/forum/fetch.php?id=9753785&dir=1&usernum=297162534 Obviously I have not furnished him with your details - so you can safely ignore it if you want. For some reason he posted on the ACA site. ------------------ My System: http://aca.gr/pop_maxg.htm

99% jazz !!!!! I am guessing you really really really like jazz then. For some strange reason I have precisely zero jazz records - but I will remedy that soon. Right now it is 10% classical and the rest are pop/rock and soul from the 50s to the 90s. My current best in the recording stakes is a Sade record (which sounded great on CD but it murdered by this). For some reason it seems to be recorded about 10 db louder than anything else - couple that with zero pops, squeeks et al, add on the imaculate soundstaging and it is a winner. The bummer is that my Queen - Live at Wembly and my Madonna are dreadful - the balance is way out (way to bassy) and they boom like cannonfire. ------------------ My System: http://aca.gr/pop_maxg.htm

That's a smart new signature you got there NOS. New graphics package by chance?? Meant to comment in the previoius post but forgot. Sometimes I have the memory of a goldfish!! (A goldfish is supposed to have a 3-5 second memory - how do they know this? - anyway in the average bowl if it takes 10 seconds for the Goldfish to do a circuit that means it is saying "Bugger me - look at that" each time around). I have no idea why I shared this piece of information - must stop watching discovery channel!! ------------------ My System: http://aca.gr/pop_maxg.htm

Allan - what took you so long? LOL. My god - how quickly would you have responded if I had said it was urgent??? Unfortunately the discdoctor link seems to not be working - I get a micro$oft message to say it no longer exists. Any other sources??? TIA

Well now that I am getting seriously into this vinyl thing (140 albums now) the question of how to clean the records has arisen. I am assuming that a good bath in fairy liquid with a scrubbing brush and then hanging them outside to dry is not a good idea. Funnily enough that is not a million miles away from what I do with CD's - minus the hanging part. What do people use? I have seen a dedicated cleaning unit but it cost more than my turntable. What cleaning stuffs do I need? Would surgical spirit be a good idea? How about nail varnish remover? (I noticed the clear audio needle cleaning bottle smells of acetone) Vodka? What should I use for a brush? Lots of questions - not particularly urgent - all my records are new but I am sure it will come up as an issue. ------------------ My System: http://aca.gr/pop_maxg.htm

When the volume goes up...... They both leave.... Tried twice to post a pic and it failed then I tried to link to it and that failed too: One more go: Oh I give up - cute picture of my wife carrying one beagle puppy out of the room - use your imaginations. Technology - why do we bother sometimes?? This message has been edited by maxg on 04-02-2002 at 05:32 AM

Mike - the turntable I estimate cost something in the order of $25,000. He has a special cartridge on it (housed in wood I think) and the arm is clear-audio's best but much modified with his amazing suspension system (which does not show up in the photo's properly). From memory the cartridge cost more than my whole system (maybe including the TV too)! On Sunday I am hoping to attend my first group meeting at another members house. Should be interesting - they are all nuts!! Obviously, it goes without saying, that if any of you on this forum come to Greece you are expected to let me know and I will arrange visits to as many of these way out systems as you can stomach. I think we will start with mine though - dont want you to hear these things before mine - you'll puke!! FWIW - I now have my own profile on the aca site: See my signature. ------------------ My System: http://aca.gr/pop_maxg.htm

Oh no - not cables again!!!! OK - FWIW: I did not believe cables could make a difference. I had my Heresy's connected to my Accuphase E211 using Monster cable (4mm diameter) cut into 2 lengths of 3 metres each (about 9 foot). An audiophile friend who does believe in cables brought round some Synergistic silver cables for my to try. These cables were the same length but thicker than the originals. We connected the silver cables (using bananas) to speaker B on the Accuphase and the old Monster cables to speaker A (directly screwed in). Using the speaker switch on the amp we started up some music (I think Dire Straits Private Investigations on CD). I sat in my listening position he in front of the amp so I could not see him switch (he of course knew which cable was which so this was not a proper blind test). He pressed the button - and I jumped out of my chair. The difference was night and day. We repeated the test just twice more and I handed over a ludicrous amount of money on the spot. This was not a subtle difference. I thought he was fooling me and doing something else - he wasn't. Now maybe there was something wrong with my original speaker cable (he swears there isnt) I dont know, but since that day I have never been able to understand why people claim there is no difference and why no-one seems to be able to prove difference in a DBT. On the other hand in DBT's it seems you can prove all CD players sound the same, all SS amps sound the same, all interconnects sound the same, Maxell tapes sound as good as CD's.....either we are all being ripped off big-time, or, there is something fundamentally wrong with dbt testing. I vote the later and site Schroedingers cat as my scientific evidence. ------------------ My System: http://aca.gr/pop_maxg.htm

Mike - the point was simple - what a nice guy Christos is. He managed to make me feel like my system was worth something despite what he had at home. Remember he came to my house before I went to his so I had no idea. Ear(s) - your budjet is probably correct - it may even be optimistic for all I know. I am not foolish enough with say $12,000 worth of kit to try to take on $50-70,000. My problem until Saturday was that my system was as good if not better than anyone elses I know baring a very few (Aristidis for example). I had nothing to compare to. Christos' system is so high end, and so far out there in front - that I now have a new milestone to aim for. Maybe I will never get there - but at least for once I know where I am going!!

This is really a continuation of my previous postings and is a near-review of Christos Skalambakos' system. My comments, as linked to in the post "In ever an on-line persona...." are here again: http://pub4.bravenet.com/forum/fetch.php?id=9752805&usernum=297162534 But this time I thought I would add a few pics for your general enjoyment: This is Christos' turntable: It is a hand built clear audio unit with a variety of modifications, including a top mounted, spring loaded suspension system that beggars belief. And this is the same thing from slightly further away showing the base unit and some of the other equipment. Note the strange urn like object - it is actually a phono-stage: Here is tony pretending that this is his system rather than Christos' And finally - how long did we stay? ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Pro-ject 4 turntable with Pro-ject 9 arm and Pro-ject 6 head, Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

Ladies and Gentlemen. I think you have just been trolled. Dont take it to heart - it happens, but to quote the input from other forums to this sort of thing. Please stay back from the bars and DONT FEED THE TROLLS!! Have a good April 1 everyone!! ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Pro-ject 4 turntable with Pro-ject 9 arm and Pro-ject 6 head, Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

To have people come around to one's house to listen to your system is not a particularly rare event. My house is frequently the location for various grades of audiophiles to come around and sample my audio wares. Under normal circumstances I am relatively confident they will like what they hear. Fairly sure that wherever they come from they will be pleasantly surprised at my modest setup and pass, in the main, positive comments. There are exceptions however, times when the person coming is one that, through variety of circumstance, brings with him the expectation of disappointment. One such person, in my mind, was Christos Skalambakos. From the postings he has made on here, from his position as President of the Audiophile Club of Athens and from the ever present rumour mill I was expecting horns, tail, a halitotic sneer of fire and brimstone and the total rubbishing of my system. Had I known the sound of his own system I would have been in a flat panic. As it was that was yet to come: At about 11:30 in the morning he and Aristidis arrived at my house. To my mild surprise Christos seemed a friendly and relaxed sort of chap much in keeping with Aristidis. There was a brief summary of my system to get them acquainted with what lay before them and then a slight pause as they checked the setup on my new turn-table. It seems my needle weights in at slightly over 2 grams (which is fine apparently) and that the guy that set it up for me in the shop knew what he was doing. So over the next few hours we listened to records, to CD's and to SACD's including a few multi-channel disks. They made a few minor changes to some things. Switched out the interconnects from turntable to phono-stage, brought gifts (they say to beware of Greeks bearing gifts but I think I got away with it in this case) and listened intently. Tony finally arrived, joined the listening session for a while, and then we all headed off for my local vinyl supplier. I expected to see some look of relief of Christos' face. Some indication that he had already passed the point of politeness in listening time, or some give-away hint of his distain for my system. Far from it. If he did feel this way he hid it brilliantly. I sensed there were parts of the system that really did impress (I am inordinately proud of my soundstage, of the level of integration of my sub and even the quality of sound I have achieved for the money spent). Christos commented on all of this, positively. I know he was not unduly impressed with my sources, except probably with the Pro-ject for its price/performance. My Marantz CD player, I think, was regarded as barely adequate, whilst my Sony SACD/DVD player was not held in any high esteem. I further surmize that Christos did get a kick out of the Rodger Water's M/C SACD but that we will need to find a higher quality player to make it more than a passing interest. The shopping was likewise a great success. Despite my record shop not having gotten in all the new titles promised we found plenty to buy. I picked up 46 new disks, Aristidis about 30, Christos 25 or so and Tony another 10. I have the feeling we made the shop-owners day! Thus ladden we returned to my house, dumped the vinyl, ordered pizza (and Chicken for Tony - he is on diet again) and to my great surprize - continued, at Christos' insistance, to listen to my system. In the end his comments were positive, and the suggestions restrained to say the least. I should get the turntable properly placed (not resting on the DVD player) and maybe play with my interconnects. Christos stressed the importance of balance in a system and indicated he felt I had it. There was no "throw away those cheapo mono-blocks", and no "that CD player is an insult". How taken was I? Well I am now a member of his Audiophile Club of Athens (ACA) - I joined on the spot. To my knowledge I am the proud owner of the least expensive system in the club. Finally time came to leave so we all headed off to Christos' house to hear his system. THat my friends is another post altogether.... ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Pro-ject 4 turntable with Pro-ject 9 arm and Pro-ject 6 head, Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

I have the feeling that if you were to list out the least popular people on this site Christos Skaloumbakos would be atop many people's lists. There was a period some months ago where he went through a posting frenzy, madly pushing his own audio site and that really upset a good many of the regulars on this board. He then topped it off with running afoul of many sensitivties talking about money and profesionalism and seemingly showing off outlandish systems. This is most unfortunate, not the least because, HE IS A REALLY, REALLY NICE GUY. I will post separately about the events of this weekend. Christos and Aristidis (and my friend Tony) coming round to my house, our trip to buy albums (over 110 between us) and our subsequent visit to Christos house. But for this post I would ask the board members to reconsider our position on Mr. Skaloumbakis. A more helpful, supportive and considerate true audiophile I am yet to meet. Just as a, FWIW link, this is my impression of his system, Tony's impression of his system and his response to Tony sandwitched in the middle. The only way I can link directly to them all is to link to my response which was the last - you can see the previous postings below so it is kind of in reverse order. http://pub4.bravenet.com/forum/fetch.php?id=9752805&usernum=297162534 ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Pro-ject 4 turntable with Pro-ject 9 arm and Pro-ject 6 head, Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

Thanks Nos - I will be signing autographs later. Barista - For vinyl to sound good (i.e. better than a digital source) you do need a reasonably good player. I am not saying that your player is not good - I dont know it - but from what I have seen to date it appears that belt driven turn-tables are regarded as the way to go. The good news is that these do not haveto be too expensive. The basic version of mine is about $250 I think and from all accounts has good sound. They even do a version with a built in phono stage so you dont have to spend there either (if you dont have one). Hang on to your vinyl collection (I wish I had had one to start with). If and when you get a good player I think you will be amazed - I know I was! BTW - last night I listened to Bob Marley and then Janis Joplin. Bit hissy but somehow it didnt seem to matter that much with music of this vintage (actually the clean sound of CD seems strange here - like it does with the Beetles). Big wow on the sound. Then I switched media and genre. I played Wagner's Ring of the Neibelung first and then followed up with Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony both on SACD. Huge wow there too. Seems that this is going to be my schitzophrenic future from now on!

I just realised that that page has links to this site. I may be setting up a circular link here that you could follow for ever. I wonder if www.klipsch.com and www.aca.gr will ever be able to extricate themselves from this one?

I saw this story on the Audiophile club of Athens. That maxg character sounds like a right plonker!! http://aca.gr/paper24.htm ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Pro-ject 4 turntable with Pro-ject 9 arm and Pro-ject 6 head, Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

"the temptation to avoid what you HAVE to do with what you positively DONT have to do is horribly tempting." Tell me about it Kelly. If I wasnt the boss my *** would be grass by now!! Actually I find the Audioreview general chat quite pleasant and post there a lot. Thus far I aint really been flamed and there are some real nice people I have gotten to know (as far as you can in a forum like this). BTW - 94 records and counting (not bad in 10- days) - what are the odds on my having more than a thousand by year end?

Hey discussions will get heated from time to time - it is a part of this board. Lets not get all choked up on it - just ride with it. I find the interplay of different personalities and opinions most rewarding on here and wouldnt change it for the world. To me audio is largely subjective (it must be - who in their right mind would want B&W speakers for crying out loud??? - just kidding) and so we can expect hot disputes to fire up suddenly. I have learned more on this board in the last few months than I would have believed possible without taking a degree course in audio. I know enough to know that I know, in fact, very little, but it doesnt really matter. On here there are some that know less than me - and I can help them - and many that know more and they can advise me. This is what it is all about. god if you think the flame wars on here are bad avoid the cables forum on Audioreview - it will kill you!! Just my $0.02 ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Pro-ject 4 turntable with Pro-ject 9 arm and Pro-ject 6 head, Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

One of the things I have decided in building up my record collection is only to buy new. It seems that the prices for new vinyl here is so reasonable ($5 per disc)that it is simply not worth going second hand. Of the disks I picked up yesterday I have played around 6 of them. I have already got one stand out performer. Paul Simon Live in the park (a double album) - the music is great, the performance terrific and the quality of the recording is breath-taking. Leaving aside the incredible dynamics that are coming through my speakers I played all 4 sides last night at considerable (and growing) volume. Just one pop (side 3 - 2nd track) on the whole thing. This kind of performance is very important to me, coming from the digital domain. I still find the hiss, pops, clicks and so on totally unacceptable in my listening but, with brand new vinyl, carefully brushed and placed on the turntable, this is not yet an issue. FWIW I now regard this Paul Simon recording as the best in my collection. The Roger Waters Live and in the flesh SACD has been relegated to second place, finally, and that cost me 5 times what the Paul Simon cost! At my current rate of progress I should have 200 records within a month or so, comfortably overtaking my 70 SACD's. I wonder how many of my SACD's will then be in my "top ten recordings". I am already at the point where none of my XRCD's are in there (although the Sonny Rollins Jazz Collosus XRCD would make my top 20). Sadly the Queen - Live at Wembly performance I picked up yesterday is not so good. The quality is fine but the balance is all wrong so that the bass drowns out the vocals - I have to strain to hear Freddie at times. This means I still do not have a good Queen recording despite owning one DVD, 5 CD's and one double album - bugger!!

Oooooohhhhh I wish I could make one sensible contribution to this erodite tube discussion. Ah well - such is life. In the meantime NOS - I noticed you are running your Heresy's matched to the Klipsch KSW 15. Are you happy with it? I only ask as it was one of the options I was considering before I bought the REL Strata 3. Sadly I could not get my hands on one to test and the only unit I did get - the KSW10 was not up to the job. This is, of course, a silly question so let me ask it in another way. Can you tell where the speakers stop and the sub starts? The reason I bought the REL was simply because i couldn't (and still can't). As a feature of the sub this is far more important to me than big explosions in movies and the like. I just wanted to extend the Heresy's - not blow the roof off (although you can always give the volume control on the REL a twist if you want to pound a bit). I suppose an indication of the integration I have achieved was demonstrated by Aristidis when he came round. He plum forgot, at one point that the sub was on, or, in fact, that there was a sub at all. Show signature - not show signature - oh hell - it is my first contribution to this thread... ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Pro-ject 4 turntable with Pro-ject 9 arm and Pro-ject 6 head, Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

It stars John Cuzzack. As a film it is mildly pleasant and enjoyable but there was one scene with him in his living room sorting his albums. I have no idea how many he had there, guess 10,000. That is my target! Right now I just picked up another 20 which makes 90 altogether. 9910 to go - LOL. The good news for me is that we just found a friend of a friend that owns a record shop in central Athens. Apparently he lives for this stuff (his own collection is 25,000 records) and he is bringing in 6,000 brand new records in about 2 weeks time. He has also promised us one copy each (there are 3 of us collecting right now) of every Floyd album there is!! Not a bad haul all in all. Oh look - there is a record player in my signature. Finally something my father will recognise!! ------------------ 2 * Heresy 2 (mains) 2 * Homemade horn speakers (rears) 1 * REL Strata 3 sub Accuphase E211 amp. Tube monoblocks with separate pre-amp (DECWARE ZTPRE with separate beefed up PSU) Pro-ject 4 turntable with Pro-ject 9 arm and Pro-ject 6 head, Marantz CD6000 player Sony NS900 SACD/DVD player Stax Headphones (on loan to a friend) Humax 5400 digital satellite receiver Sharp Video 32" Sony flat screen 16:9 TV Mogami interconnects Silver Synergistic speaker cable

Sinatra, Speaker break in is one of those topics that gets everyone all hot under the collar here. Some say they do, some say they dont - no consensus as of yet. Same applies to many items (CD players, amps, pre-amps). I happen to believe that there is some change in the sound for various of the above items over time but I woulod never be able to come up with an explanation for it. I asked specifically for the turntable primarily because a) I have just got it and after some 70 hours of play it seems to be sounding nicer and nicer (although that may be me adjusting to it, and I know nothing about turntables and they may just be one of those items where run in is generally accepted. As Mobile says they do, and no-one has said they dont, that will do for me for now. All I know is is that this thing was sounding better and better till yesterday (when we removed the carpets for summer). Now I will have to wait till September to get my proper sound back - such is life!!