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RE: What an astonishingly insightful (and iconoclastic) assessment of some formerly revered designs....

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In Reply to: RE: What an astonishingly insightful (and iconoclastic) assessment of some formerly revered designs.... posted by JKT on March 26, 2017 at 14:26:24

I modded it as it was built and
after, so it isn't stock. More chokes,
better RIAA, some super-quality small caps
in all the right places, more local power-usage
areas cleaned-up and made more dynamic.

I like it. There's plenty of power on
board to clean up and apply better,
RIAA is separated into two smaller
networks, feedback isn't a problem, and
gain is just right-- kicked up one notch
in my case..

I ran several cartridges into it, but the
new Clearaudio Maestro Ebony V-2 came up
with ALL the goods musically-- a first-- I
have never completely liked any cartridge,
MC or MM.

It's a good phono. I run it right into amps
thru a passive Ladder attenuator. Plenty of
drive gets it done.

I'll just say it's a Keeper. We're also
messing around with Liberty Audio's solid
state phono. I don't have it yet but have
solid love/likes from Tom Thomas. I thought he
should have one, he surprised me and got it!

At first he was cautious about saying
anything good about it. I had read Stereophile's
review on it and had spotted a few things that I
thought I liked.

It turned out that Tom called several days
later and said the Liberty was really good.
It's Stone Stock. I think of doing a show with
2 turntables, Disc-Jockey style. With two
DIFFERENT phono preamps.

This would get two things done: (1) make
for a fun time playing L.P.s-- no time
delays cueing-up. (2) two different,
but accurate, results. Sometimes using a
solid-state front-end to drive vacuum tubes
is really good. My Alpha-DAC2 proves that
every day to my own, and others, never-ending
delight. Sometimes tubes driving tubes
"locks-in" older LP's-- such as 1960's major
recording labels-- hey! Why not both?.

Most of all, Kevin's phono now kicks-ass
dynamically, and that's rule one, two, and
three with me. That's also what I am about with
recommending the Liberty. Tuning phonos is easy.
Good tone is a snap for good tuners.

Getting real, true-to-life dynamics is
rare, and that quality is what made me
want to play with both of them.

More on the Liberty as it develops, and
when I can lay my hands on one....

The Kevin TRIO is a winner, as I have
used it on damn near everything do far.

-Dennis-

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