Post by ant on Aug 9, 2017 15:27:53 GMT
Ok, a few thoughts on it after a couple of hours.
Bear in mind this is in comparison with my at-f7, and is on my own design unipivot arm on one of my lenco gl75 conversions.
Firstly, it is very clean. By that I mean that it is imo pretty neutral. Its not warm per se, but it isnt abit thin either. It seems its voiced to be just a tiny bit into the warm side of neutral.
Absolutely no end of side distortion. At all. Setup is a piece of piss due to the mostly square body, a novice could do it, however its a pig to see the stylus to get it on the null point on the protractor due to the long nose it has. So abit if care is needed there.
The azimuth needs to be spot on, otherwise the soundstage closes in, but get it right and it suddenly snaps into widescreen. My unipivot design can be set very accurately for azimuth which helped no end. Most arms other than unipivots dont have the facility to do this so bear this in mind.
Build quality seems excellent.
It seems sensitive to vta aswell as azimuth, so i'd want to put it in an arm that can accurately set these perameters.
If the arse end of the arm is a little too high, it starts to get bright, not strident though so this could be system dependent. I wouldnt want to use it in a 1987 linn naim system. But then again, I wouldnt want to use anything in a 1987 linn naim system....
So. My take on its Sq.
It is neutral, erring very slightly to the warm side, top end is very clean indeed. Cymbal decay goes on as long as its there for and doesnt get lost.
Instruments are separated properly and imaging providing azimuth is spot on is very good indeed. You can pick an instrument and follow it, then pick another and follow it at leisure.
Mid is where it should be, and vocals are absolutely spot on. And I mean spot on.
Bass is tight and fast, maybe a little tiny bit of Bloom around 100hz, but nothing that most would pick up on.
Slight con for some people, may be a tiny bit more surface noise if youre used to an elliptical stylus cart, but its certainly no Deal breaker.
I wouldnt describe it as smooth, as some have described the 2m black which I suppose is the closest equivalent, id describe it as alive. Musical.
The f7 will go back in its box. I honestly think that you would need to spend at least 750 to a grand to get appreciably better performance.
One caveat, watch the capacitance of leads ect. I first used it with the denon ha500 step up still in line with it and the benedict audio hothead, so it had an extra 2 foot of cables to go through and whatever the step up added. When i took it out the treble and microdynamics were noticably better.
Whatever pf the cable I made up for the arm, and the phono stage presented to it was about right.
My conclusion.....
Love it. It does what i wanted.
Of course, the biggest caveat of all is that the prose above is my opinion, and as mentioned, system dependent.
So a rundown of the system itsself is appropriate so you have an idea where im coming from.
Tt - lenco gl75 conversion
Arm - unipivot of my own design
Phono stage - benedict audio hothead (mm)
Pre - passive
Power - dual mono pass f5
Speakers - prototype metronome speakers (2 way with sb acoustics tweeter and faital 6fe100 mid/bass)
Mains - straight out of the wall, although I am buggering about with a balanced mains unit at the moment, this was not in at the time ( needs a thermistor in there so it doesnt pop the breaker due to inrush current)
Bear in mind this is in comparison with my at-f7, and is on my own design unipivot arm on one of my lenco gl75 conversions.
Firstly, it is very clean. By that I mean that it is imo pretty neutral. Its not warm per se, but it isnt abit thin either. It seems its voiced to be just a tiny bit into the warm side of neutral.
Absolutely no end of side distortion. At all. Setup is a piece of piss due to the mostly square body, a novice could do it, however its a pig to see the stylus to get it on the null point on the protractor due to the long nose it has. So abit if care is needed there.
The azimuth needs to be spot on, otherwise the soundstage closes in, but get it right and it suddenly snaps into widescreen. My unipivot design can be set very accurately for azimuth which helped no end. Most arms other than unipivots dont have the facility to do this so bear this in mind.
Build quality seems excellent.
It seems sensitive to vta aswell as azimuth, so i'd want to put it in an arm that can accurately set these perameters.
If the arse end of the arm is a little too high, it starts to get bright, not strident though so this could be system dependent. I wouldnt want to use it in a 1987 linn naim system. But then again, I wouldnt want to use anything in a 1987 linn naim system....
So. My take on its Sq.
It is neutral, erring very slightly to the warm side, top end is very clean indeed. Cymbal decay goes on as long as its there for and doesnt get lost.
Instruments are separated properly and imaging providing azimuth is spot on is very good indeed. You can pick an instrument and follow it, then pick another and follow it at leisure.
Mid is where it should be, and vocals are absolutely spot on. And I mean spot on.
Bass is tight and fast, maybe a little tiny bit of Bloom around 100hz, but nothing that most would pick up on.
Slight con for some people, may be a tiny bit more surface noise if youre used to an elliptical stylus cart, but its certainly no Deal breaker.
I wouldnt describe it as smooth, as some have described the 2m black which I suppose is the closest equivalent, id describe it as alive. Musical.
The f7 will go back in its box. I honestly think that you would need to spend at least 750 to a grand to get appreciably better performance.
One caveat, watch the capacitance of leads ect. I first used it with the denon ha500 step up still in line with it and the benedict audio hothead, so it had an extra 2 foot of cables to go through and whatever the step up added. When i took it out the treble and microdynamics were noticably better.
Whatever pf the cable I made up for the arm, and the phono stage presented to it was about right.
My conclusion.....
Love it. It does what i wanted.
Of course, the biggest caveat of all is that the prose above is my opinion, and as mentioned, system dependent.
So a rundown of the system itsself is appropriate so you have an idea where im coming from.
Tt - lenco gl75 conversion
Arm - unipivot of my own design
Phono stage - benedict audio hothead (mm)
Pre - passive
Power - dual mono pass f5
Speakers - prototype metronome speakers (2 way with sb acoustics tweeter and faital 6fe100 mid/bass)
Mains - straight out of the wall, although I am buggering about with a balanced mains unit at the moment, this was not in at the time ( needs a thermistor in there so it doesnt pop the breaker due to inrush current)