Still thinning

Sold a couple more pairs of speakers from the closet this week, dawned on me that I never really talked about either one. Both on Craigslist, a nice guy Tom from California bought my ADS 300s (here we go, Craigslist out of state again) and another nice guy Gary swapped me some stuff for my Rogers LS-2s. Gary is actually local, and has been playing with this stuff for years. He has McIntosh, Klipsch, and has made the transition back to strictly two channel.

Rogers LS2

 The LS2 was a more practical version of the LS3/5A BBC monitor, more efficient, played louder, and handled much more power. Both 4" two ways, this was more of a regular listening speaker as opposed to a near-field monitor. Plus it handled 100 watts  instead of 20! Rubber surrounds with polypropylene cones, these basically will last forever!

ADS L 300 minispeakers

 ADS or Analog Digital Systems  had an early affiliation with Braun, and between the two of them I give them credit for inventing the first high quality mini speaker. Diecast aluminum enclosures with high quality drivers, they were a bit of a revelation in their day. Often used with a subwoofer, although very few choices existed back when these were introduced.

 Available with or without brackets, the intent was for them also to be used in automotive applications.Probably the first audiophile quality speaker available for cars.

Their name was interesting because at the time digital as we know it didn't exist. There were no CD players or downloading of music. The digital referred more towards the designing tools, CAD/CAM and programs.

 Their logo was changed a few years later to A/D/S, as Aids awareness came to the forefront. They did not want to be associated with this terrible disease.

I sold these at JB, and probably had this pair close to 20 years before recently selling them to Tom in California.

Elite TZ-F 700 speakers

Found some updated pictures of these, much better views of what they really look like. Still liking them, months later.Wrote about these more in depth in my June entries.

Ahhh, the clever marketing people!

   You gotta hand it to Ion and some of the other cheesecake turntable companies, they are starting to look more like audiophile tables all the time! With the exception of the Ipod , this one looks like it could have been made by VPI!  It even has built in phony Tip Toes! I am tempted to buy one just to look at it , not even plug it in. Probably still uses piano wire for the tonearm bearings. Nobody that has one of these will ever borrow any of my records!

From the why didn't I think of that department

 Before I get completely off the tweaks-

 New from PS Audio- a combination isolation platform/ power conditioner! Way cool! Available soon. Makes too much sense.

R.I.P. Dave Brubeck 1920-2012

Dave Brubeck—recently called "the reigning elder statesman of jazz" by the Washington Post—died Wednesday in Connecticut on his way to a cardiology appointment, one day shy of his 92^nd birthday. Even the younger audiophiles among us if not intimately familiar with all his works have certainly at least at some point heard "Take Five". His 1959 album Time Out, after rising to No. 2 on the charts, became the first jazz long-player to sell a million copies.

"Take Five"—composed by Dave Brubeck Quartet member Paul Desmond—which achieved a rare success: "hit jazz single." Never mind that it was in 5/4 time!

 

Happy December!

The last essential tweak

                                               A   Good Chair



                                      You thought I was going to talk about the new fuses, huh?



                            ( Does anyone else remember this from a Maxell tape ad in the'70's?)

Record Clamps

                                                           Mpingo crazy weights

                                                                           The Pig (!)

                                                               Monitor Audio Pod

                                         ADC Pro Grip (later Monster bought the rights to this).

                                                          The famous Sota Superclamp

A typical record weight

I could have addressed these in my last post, but then I would have one less thing to banter on about. These basically are divided into two schools, clamps and weights. A floating subchassis table is typically better suited to a clamp, as the excess weight of a weight  might require you to re-adjust the suspension.I have had most of these over the years (shy of the crazy Mpingos) and currently use the Pro Grip (branded Monster) and the Sota.(arguably the best). They work well with or without vacuum, and almost every audiophile table sold today includes or at least offers a clamp of sorts. I also still have a Pig, believe it or not, not really sure how it got its name. Those crazy English! Depending upon the mat or whatever else is under the record these can provide a synergy to the sound, more stability and fewer audible flaws.Some companies like Oracle and VPI have made the clamps an integral part of their tables, they screw down on a threaded spindle, as opposed to the reflex action of many of the others. While not as universal, they can be equally as effective.

Turntable mats

Another tweek, this time turntable specific. A variety of these have been available over the years, with various benefits ranging from damping, deadening, stabilizing, and isolating records from their players.

  From the Linn /AR philosophy of a simple felt mat to the Sota Supermat, whose material is a sister impedance to vinyl, and when combined with their vacuum system creates a 22 lb record! 

 A series of squishy, deadening mats arrived from Canada in about  the early eighties, the Platter Matter, Roundel, Platter Pad and later the Audioquest Sorbogel made the scene. I can remember the rep demonstrating the Platter Matter, he would sprinkle salt on a record and tap it with a pen.The salt of course would bounce all over the place. Next, he placed the record on his mat, tapped, and the salt didn't move.

  The naturally adhesive properties of this were such that you often picked  up the mat with the record when taking it off, and it was not light! The mat supplied with the Oracle tables, The Groove Isolator was very similar, coincidentally also a Canadian product.

  An extreme was Micro Seiki's  solid copper mat, pictured above, which still commands a high price on the used market today.There also are a variety of carbon fiber, brass, and even shale(!) materials that have been used.

 Lastly , the Ringmat, that I never completely understood the concept of, but it was and is  extremely popular. Cork rings glued to cotton flocking on a small 10" mat. Some had holes, some didn't. The cork rings almost always came unglued. Think I tried this once and sold it. Guess I am from a different school.....

  My takeaway from turntable mats in general was they sounded pretty much like what they were made out of. If they were soft and dead, they sounded soft and dead. If they were hard and brittle, well , you get the point. I think the squishies were best suited to direct drive tables. The Oracle being the possible exception. Whether you use a clamp with them or not, and what type makes as much if not more difference than the mat itself, as I will discuss in the next section.