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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2018 21:24:04 GMT
Yeah it was the brown finished ones that won the Design Center award, The later black ones had to settle for a MikeMusic award  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2018 21:37:12 GMT
I had an Audiolab 8000A and quite liked it. Fair enough. I think I was maybe expecting too much after all the great reviews. I had that same problem with the Rega Kyte’s, the reviews we great, but the speakers for me a real disappointment. |
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Post by MikeMusic on Mar 10, 2018 11:45:40 GMT
Yeah it was the brown finished ones that won the Design Center award, The later black ones had to settle for a MikeMusic award And of course granted. Has to be wonderful if black  |
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Post by julesd68 on Mar 10, 2018 16:05:02 GMT
Quite a few years ago I bought a pair of AVI speakers on a bit of a whim - they actually looked quite handsome, they might have been the DUO.
A compact floorstander. In my system it sounded completely 'broken' so it was another quick sale.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2018 18:09:33 GMT
Those little Cambridge Audio phono stages. Never understood why people thought they were so wonderful. Yes they were cheap but made it sound like the speakers had socks covering the drivers ... I had a 640p and it made me not want to listen to music. To give a drinks analogy, it reminded me of when you pour out the last few dregs of an orange squash bottle and try to make a full glass by adding too much water. You can tell you even pick up the glass that it's too watered down to be anything other than unpleasant. Yes it’s weird, I heard a Jez Arkless modified 640p a while back and I had hoped that it would be an improvement, but for me it was just as thin if more dynamic and this was with an Ortofon, which was really lush. |
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Post by julesd68 on Mar 10, 2018 18:44:00 GMT
I had a 640p and it made me not want to listen to music. To give a drinks analogy, it reminded me of when you pour out the last few dregs of an orange squash bottle and try to make a full glass by adding too much water. You can tell you even pick up the glass that it's too watered down to be anything other than unpleasant. Yes it’s weird, I heard a Jez Arkless modified 640p a while back and I had hoped that it would be an improvement, but for me it was just as thin if more dynamic and this was with an Ortofon, which was really lush. Can you imagine what an unmodded 640P sounds like??  |
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Post by pre65 on Mar 11, 2018 10:39:14 GMT
Yes it’s weird, I heard a Jez Arkless modified 640p a while back and I had hoped that it would be an improvement, but for me it was just as thin if more dynamic and this was with an Ortofon, which was really lush. Can you imagine what an unmodded 640P sounds like?? I seem to remember Richard Dunn purchased a used Jez modified version and the general opinion amongst those who tried it was unfavourable. I have no axe to grind with Jez, and no favouritism for NVA, although I do respect their products. |
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Post by MartinT on Mar 11, 2018 10:54:41 GMT
A Jez Arkless MC phono stage was brought to my system once, for trial. It didn't compare favourably with the Hashimoto H7 step up transformers I was using at the time. He responded aggressively to my suggestion that perhaps the power supply could be more beefy than the puny wall-wart he supplied.
End of discussion. The product was poor and the attitude terrible.
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Post by MikeMusic on Mar 11, 2018 11:05:52 GMT
I remember that.
Surprisingly poor I thought
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2018 14:11:01 GMT
If haven't heard any modded versions of them but I really struggle to see how anyone could bear to listen to the stock Cambridge Phono Stages, let alone enjoy them. I'm a big believer in everyone's truth being paramount in terms of their own choices, but I'd envisage they would be worse than anything else you compared them to. Yes I think they are that bad.
Maybe there's a quality to them that I'm simply immune to. I can understand that selling via Richer Sounds will mean that loads are sold without being heard, relying solely on the 5 star reviews. I'd imagine Jez must have heard something in them in the first place to mod them though.....Unless he figured they were so bad, he couldn't fail to make massive improvements. It's still possible for the modded one to be a massive improvement yet still fail to beat the competition.
On the PSU issue, I'd agree that it usually makes a big improvement. However, the Michell ISO that I use and like is actually worse to me with the Hera. I'm probably the only person on the planet who will say this but I really wonder if I'm the only one who thinks this way. IME the Hera adds a leaden weight to the sound and slows things down a bit. It's also a vile "ball and chain-like" lump of ugliness which has to be dragged round whenever you move the ISO. Did Michell run out of budget, design ideas or Perspex when it came to the Hera? Either way, it's not an improvement to the ISO AFAIC.
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