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RE: Nakamichi PA5 and PA7, opinions

67.189.22.145

Posted by solid-state McNut on February 19, 2008 at 03:06:10

In Reply to: RE: Nakamichi PA5 and PA7, opinions posted by Crazy Dave on February 12, 2008 at 08:30:42:

Dave -

Ah, the Mac full-function preamp. It's true that useful controls and switches can get dirty and all, but it sure is nice to be able to do this or that when you NEED to.

My old buddy who was the first way-out audiophile nut I knew back in 1982 used to say "yeah, ADS is the best thing you can get for the car." He had 300is in his 1976 BMW 2002tii.

I must be sensitive to feel this dismissal. Oh well, I've dished out far worse already right here! My old boss used to tell me "Steve, people are fragile. Everyone is fragile in a different way." Boy, ain't it the truth! Make that "different ways." I did learn a few really important things from the old buzzard.

My audiophile friend was an intersting cat, who had a Spatial Coherence preamp, a Dahlquist electronic crossover, a pair of Rogers LS3/5a dudes sitting on Satterberg subwoofers made to match, with the Lux tube monos and a Radford solid-state amp driving the stereo subs. He had an LP12 with a Unipivot arm and a Grodo (excuse me, "Grado") Signature 6+ cartilage*. (I'm in a mood, can you TELL?!) The Grado actually sounded just fine, although God forgive for not understanding about what all the fuss is about.

I had the opportunity to compare his setup with mine, piece by piece (for our mutual edification). I had a Yamaha P850 turntable with an ADC XLM-III cartridge and a Platter Matter mat, the ReVox B750 integrated amp, and my ADS 810 speakers on the matching F400 stands (about 6" high and angled back). I was using the original Kimber 4PR speaker cable and Teac Professional Series interconnects at the time. I was using a Discwasher D2 and the SC2 stylus cleaner, with LAST Recpod Preservative.

He used to demonstrate the sonic impact of playing cards placed upon the speakers. Oh, bother!

Not to say that a certain audio rep named George didn't mockingly ape my ritual of minutely adjusting the speakers for perceived phase reinforcement over critical frequency ranges... He certainly wasn't hearing it, and had no belief that I did, either.

Both piece by piece and overall, our systems weren't far apart -- but I had paid a lot less for mine. The Satterbergs were a little muddy. I noticed that moving the very good Rogers satellites back and forth on top of the subs caused a very noticeable phase-frequency interaction. How do you get it right and keep it right? What a pain. I like built-in voofers, please. At least he had stereo bass.

The idea that you can't hear where the bass is coming from is completely wrong in my universe. It must originally have come from the fact that records have no left and right bass. Everything below 250 Hz goes down the center of the groove, or else you'd never be able to track it. One of the best things about digital sound is left-and-right bass (sadly often lost in this deeply misguided era of subwoofage).

*One of my cust-O-mers once told me "It has a brand-new cartilage!" Another woman said, "I was told I should ask to hear the Erotica symphony." I tried to keep a straight face, saying I thought I had a copy of Beethoven's 3rd. She said, "I want to hear it on a tangenital tonearm." I said, "We have the B&O tangential-tracking tonearm." I thought the B&O turntable (and, inevitably cartridge) sounded pretty good playing Beethoven, one of my real favorites.

Can you BELIEVE it, though? The "Erotica" symphony on a "tangenital" tonearm?

"Let's see, I've got one of those right here!"

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