Used Morch DP-6 or modified Origin Live Silver?

Twl,

I'm impressed. Not just by the insights in your review, which we've all come to expect, but by your candid and humble honesty. You expected your baby to "win" and you certainly must have hoped for it to. (I know I did, I've got one on order!) It didn't win, quite, but if your horse finishes second by a nose and cost you 40% less than the winner, you're doing pretty well. "Place" still pays a pretty good purse.

In the areas where your mods would yield the greatest benefits, dynamics and bass, the Swinging Silver Bullet still edged out the Encounter. Just as you predicted. The Encounter outperformed in delicacy and refinement, exactly what we'd expect from higher quality wire and plugs.

Tom, have you given any sort of modified bullets a go on the Encounter? I know that the housing is different such that the weights cannot be affixed via the bearing bolts, but did you give the double-sided tape a try. Just wondering if the effective mod on the Silver can extract even more from the Encounter.

David, I haven't tried that on the Encounter, but truthfully there is so little difference that I don't think it is needed. My mod and the bearing housing on the Encounter are doing about the same thing. Maybe the HiFi mod might be a tad more stable, but again, it is too close to warrant any fiddling with the arm for such a small difference. For all practical purposes, I think the Encounter has enough stability as it is.

Just in case anybody's watching, we received our TX103 stepups yesterday from BentAudio. John Chapman (nice guy) builds these using Stephens & Billington transformers. To minimize connections and solder joints he extends the secondary all the way to the RCA jack that plugs into the phono stage. There's also a pair of small binding posts across the secondary, which allows quick and easy swapping of load resistors. Very nice workmanship.

Now that the Shelter is loaded properly and we plenty of gain, things have gotten a whole lot better. I'll spare you the hysterical ravings, although it's not easy :) :) :)

Anthony Salvatore thinks low level detail is the key benchmark of a system. YMMV of course. One of his guidelines is whether you can detect the occasional pre-echo that's on some LP's. It's not that you want to hear them of course, but you certainly want to be able to! We always could hear pre-echoes when the opening passage was ffff, or even ff. Last night I caught a pre-echo of a solo piano playing at pp, no joke. Utterly amazing.

The Teres and OL are in transit so we're still using the HK/Rabco. The effects of a ringing platter and uncontrolled arm are now very audible. Can't wait for that 60 pound hunk of wood!

The gain control on the pre is now slightly lower than for line level sources, so we may have a little too much gain. Hmm, should I add a pair of step-DOWN trannies? :)

Doug, I don't think that you will have issues with a little too much gain, especially if you consulted with Mr. Chapman regarding your stepup (agreed, a great guy). Put the pressure on for quicker delivery of that Teres. :-) What is taking the OL so long? Did you order them together from Teres?