With the help of Jafox, phase one is nearly complete. We tried his amp, then went back to one of the two Plinius I was using. We tried some different combinations of cabling John brought over, finally settling on one Plinius amp and his NBS cabling. The success of the NBS was no surprise to me, in that my system used all NBS Statement cabling before the Valhalla. John and I were surprised to find his amp was not producing the dynamics and imaging of the Plinius. It did however produce some serious magic on the string section on The Philadelphia Orchestra, Nature’s Realm SACD. Track one, Liszt: Les Preludes, Symphonic No. 3. Every passage with the string sections came alive with a definition not heard before on my system. This left both of us scratching our heads and John on a mission to find a better tube combination. I suspect his amp will return some day for a second trial.
So phase one pulls out one Plinius amp, one set of Valhalla speaker cable (I hooked both sets of wire in the crossover onto one binding post. This allows me to not have to degrade the sound with jumpers), four sets of Valhalla interconnects, a Great Northern Audio PASI (passive audio signal isolator) two power cords (again thanks to John) one Aurios Pro, a set of Walker High Definition Links and one set of Titanium Orchard Bay cones. The result was surprisingly good considering I removed around $15,000 (used price) worth of equipment. Some loss of dynamics and a bit of the inner detail, but I think the system remains extremely revealing and very musical.
Phase two begins next week when I try out Lugnut’s pre-amp and speaker cable. I have Wellfed coming next weekend to let me demo some equipment he thinks might work for me. I look forward to seeing Wellfed, it’s been a while. I expect phase two will also look into power issues. I plan to remove the Hydra power conditioner and try some other power cords. I have not tried removing the Hydra since adding my dedicated circuits and outlets, so I may be pleasantly surprised.
I believe this will be the end of my changes for the summer. It should provide enough funds to cover most of my latest hospital bills and allow me some time to experiment with further alterations to my system. It’s very interesting to know how each of these components added another layer of detail, and yet pulling them out was not too bad. I’m not sure I’d be quite so pleased without Johns cables, but still I am amazed.
I again appreciate the caring and help, especially from John and Pat. You two are wonderful friends!
JD
So phase one pulls out one Plinius amp, one set of Valhalla speaker cable (I hooked both sets of wire in the crossover onto one binding post. This allows me to not have to degrade the sound with jumpers), four sets of Valhalla interconnects, a Great Northern Audio PASI (passive audio signal isolator) two power cords (again thanks to John) one Aurios Pro, a set of Walker High Definition Links and one set of Titanium Orchard Bay cones. The result was surprisingly good considering I removed around $15,000 (used price) worth of equipment. Some loss of dynamics and a bit of the inner detail, but I think the system remains extremely revealing and very musical.
Phase two begins next week when I try out Lugnut’s pre-amp and speaker cable. I have Wellfed coming next weekend to let me demo some equipment he thinks might work for me. I look forward to seeing Wellfed, it’s been a while. I expect phase two will also look into power issues. I plan to remove the Hydra power conditioner and try some other power cords. I have not tried removing the Hydra since adding my dedicated circuits and outlets, so I may be pleasantly surprised.
I believe this will be the end of my changes for the summer. It should provide enough funds to cover most of my latest hospital bills and allow me some time to experiment with further alterations to my system. It’s very interesting to know how each of these components added another layer of detail, and yet pulling them out was not too bad. I’m not sure I’d be quite so pleased without Johns cables, but still I am amazed.
I again appreciate the caring and help, especially from John and Pat. You two are wonderful friends!
JD