Electrocompaniet EMC II CD Player

Subaruguru, I agree with your assessment of the cast anodized alloy. The clamp appears to be aluminum alloy, rather than steel. My final analysis of the effects of the clamp is that they are minimal to none in my system. In fact, if I hadn't mucked up the old stock spindle during the process of removing it, I'd be selling the Spider at a nice discount. Those EMC 1-UP owners who are on the fence regarding purchasing a Spider clamp can undoubtedly improve the sound of their machines by allocating their dollars toward mods such as those mentioned by Subaruguru in his post above or those offered by Empirical Audio.

Tvad, Subaruguru. My error, the Spider is a milled (not cast) Aluminum Alloy with a magnet in the center.

I don't agree with the Tvad on the lack of substantial improvement produced by the Spider. I would love to hear anyone else weigh in with their Spider experience.

I will probably be looking into doing either the Empirical Audio's mod or the one mentioned by Subaruguru. Has anyone done the Empirical Mod and then added the Spider ? It would be great to add your opinion of the incremental improvements of both.

Cello, the dearth of less-than-positive reviews in audiophilia is a pet
peeve of mine, and forums such as these are valuable in that they offer a
voice to both sides of an issue. Others reading this thread are at least
exposed to positive and neutral (not negative) opinions of the Spider,
and hopefully the discussion can lead readers to an informed purchase
decision.

One of the easiest and least expensive improvements you can make with
the EMC 1-UP is to use the balanced outs if that option is available to
you. The sonic difference was palpable in my system, and other
listeners have confirmed this in previous threads.

Hey Subaruguru, why so worried about spending a few hundred bucks on the Spider when you've purchased a cdp that's worth maybe half of what it retails for? Maybe. Sonics aside, there just ain't much inside the EMC-1UP. Don't get me wrong, I love my EMC-1UP as much as the next guy, but aside from being heavy, it's not that well built. At $5500 retail, it's waaaaay over priced IMO.

I'm still willing to give the Spider a try. Cello's assessement is interesting, but may not apply to me. If I end up having the same opinion of it, I'll still be happy to have a clamp that's of better quality than the cheap little puck included as stock. Frankly, they should include the Spider as standard on EMC-1s if you ask me.

Jm88439 wrote, "Frankly, they should include the Spider as standard on EMC-1s if you ask me."
Exactly!