Medialux

In this essay I try my very best to describe the difference of 4 of the most famous Koetsu cartridges, namely the Black Goldline, the Rosewood Signature, as well as the Urushi Wajima and the somewhat special Urushi Vermilion.

The test procedere

All 4 carts were mounted in a Frank Schröder Reference SQ tonearm using two different sorts of headshell plates Frank delivers with his arms to address the different effective mass figures a specific cart needs. More precisely the Koetsu Black Goldline was mounted with the aid of an aluminium plate which delivers with the particular Reference arm a mass figure of 13g. For the Rosewood Signature as also the Koetsu Urushi Wajima I used a brass mounting plate which raises the effective mass to around 18g. The Koetsu Urushi Vermilion got again an aluminium headshell plate, because the whole cart weights a lot more than the two other wood body carts – at the end I could manage to get nearly the same effective mass adjustment as with the other carts.

All carts were used with the same table and the same step up transformer. I opted for the Michael Ulbrich “Monster Can” with a 1:20 turn ratio, which let the Koetsu “see” 117 Ohm while getting 26db of clean uncoloured gain! As every cart had a slight variation in output voltage, letting alone the Urushi Vermilion, which delivers just half of what the others offer, I had to adjust the volume accordingly. Finally I recorded each cart with specific music examples using a 24bit/96Khz hard disc recording workstation (Pro Tools) which made adjusting for the exact same gain value an easy task. All carts were used with the the Air Tight ATE2 phono stage (read my essay to that specific type of equipment) and were judged using my beloved Quad ESL 57 as also a pair of original Chartwell 1 (restored vintage speakers) LS3/5a 15 Ohm models. During the test sessions I used also my headphone system (Grado) which hides any coloration from the room acoustics.

I discovered, that Sugano Sans designs needed all their specific,  precise adjustments – the SRA (stylus rake angle) differs slightly between the different carts – it is just a tiny bit – but you have to adjust the VTA accordingly. The Koetsu Black showed its best performance with a VTF just a tad under 2g, while the Rosewood Signature sounded best with 1,95g. Both Urushi models liked an even smaller amount of downforce, were the optimum was found around 1,9g. If the VTF is too high all 4 Koetsus sounded dynamically compressed which also resulted in a restricted bass performance with reduced tonal content. Please do not adjust the VTF with the “help” of a test record – you will end up with a way too high amount of VTF! The same must be said for adjusting the antiskating – all four carts needed just a tiny bit of scating compensation to show a perfect tracking performance. Keep in mind that a deflected cantilever is the last thing we want to have – phase coherence and sound balance will suffer seriously, not to speak about the rubber suspension, which will give up one day – than the expensive cart is ready for a trip to Japan….

One side note…..such a serious comparison is not done during one day, nor in two days, it needed 12days in total. Without the possibility to record the soundperformance of each cart, you are easily fooled, because hearing has a lot to do with your mood during listening sessions…Also the human ear can adapt in a few seconds to something new – even if that “New” sounds wrong – after a couple of minutes we think – oh – it is not too bad…..our brain will do the trick – and we wonder, that we get tired while listening to our favourite music. It needs time to dial in a cart to perfection, a quick and dirty adjustment is done in 15minutes – but to get the most out of the stuff it needs more music, more time and two good ears….

The Koetsu Black Goldline

The Black is one of the best selling cartridges of the world – it has a tremendous amount of followers as also people who hate it – it is a very controversial discussed cart, which was a few years ago a good entry into the world of Koetsu. I use intentionally the past tense – because the price of the Black raised from €1600,- 10 years ago (which was a fantastic price performance ratio) – to €1800,- and now we face a price tag of around €2100 – 2500,-. And there is no upgraded technology, no bells and whistles – it is still the same Black Goldline we could buy 10 years ago. Please calculate inflation and all that stuff, and you will never – NEVER come out with an increasement of €900,- in 10 years….. I do not know were this price politic will end – one thing is presumably – with a price tag of €2500,- for the Koetsu Black it is questionable if this cart will continue to be the best selling cart in its class. I mean a Lyra Delos costs in Germany €1300,- and a Kleos under €3000,- so you have the chance to put €500,- on top and get a Kleos – or you save €1200,- and get the amazing Lyra Delos, which is a bargain in my book !

Lets stop that kind of discussion, and start to listen to the little black gem. The Goldline is a sort of sassy Koetsu sound if you compare it with the Rosewood Signature. You get a very sexy up front gesture, a vocal performance which makes you think the singer is right in front of you. A trick managed with a very strong centerfill were the stage is more intimately rendered than big and great. If you listen to Vocal Jazz it could be the last cart you will ever need…..it is in a special way spectacular. That said things change dramatical if you listen to big orchestra compositions. On Mahlers first symphony, third movement (DECCA) you will notice a strong emphasis on the lower mids and upper bass, as also a bump at the lower presence (which makes the vocals so damn sexy). The stage is not illuminated in the way I am used to it, instead of the great size of the orchestra and the recorded space, you get the feeling of a somewhat larger Jazz club. Also the demanding passages towards the end of the third movement is not an exercise the Black Goldline likes too much – it sounds strained and unorganised. If you change your music selection towards Mozart or Hayden – the picture changes dramatically, still there is the uneven frequency response, but in this case you get a warm, sensational string tone with an amazing melodiousness – it sounds soooo real – but it is not. Which brings us to a basic discussion about what is the approach of a HiFi system…is it to be neutral to the source or is it something which can make us believe that what we here is real – even if non linear distortion in any kind is involved??

The Koetsu range of carts showed me, that both philosophies could work – not with every type of music, but in some cases the outcome was spectacular! The Black is not the right cart for heavy metal, it does not like modern classic and also no big romantic orchestra music – what it does amazingly good are smaller ensembles, singer songwriter, Jazz and especially vocal Jazz, Wiener classic and also baroque music…. We get an intimate, holistic picture with a very strong centerfill, a damn sexy vocal performance as also a warm maybe overly ripe lower midrange, which is contrasted by the fresh also emphasised upper midrange / lower presence – so you have to listen carefully….The gestalt of the presence reminds me a little bit of the DL103 which also colours this particular frequency region to minimise the distance between the singer and the listener. The micro dynamic shades the Black has to offer are very very nicely rendered – the incredible silent tracking performance might be the key to this astonishing performance. With the big dynamic swings it is a different situation – if you compare the Black with a SPU Classic, you will be aware of how big dynamic swings could sound like….and even a SPU is not the last word in this particular discipline.

If you are a listener who scores the beauty of the tone over everything else and you are not interested in romantic orchestra music nor heavy metal – this is it!….if – and this is a big IF – there would be the same price tag as a couple of years ago…I would advice you – buy it – hurry up and get one because you are in for something really special. But for €2500,- there should be a performance which is completely independent of music styles and orchestra sizes….

The Koetsu Rosewood Signature

Listening to the Rosewood Signature, we are diving into Sugano Sans world in all its glory – it is in my opinion the first real Koetsu cart. And as I wrote in part I of this essay – it is a very steep price tag we have to pay for this experience. The Koetsu Rosewood Signature is cut from another cloth than the Black Goldline. The first thing you will notice is the amazing amount of recorded space, the width of the stage with the exactly rendered sound sources placed on it. The bass has a grown up gestalt, it is still not the sinewy delicate and amazingly fast bass of a top notch Lyra cart – but it is aesthetically fantastic. Full bodied with endless shades of colour and heft. The midsection is world class – I know nothing that can beat a Koetsu in this discepline – again millions of colours which wrap around the listener. There is a very stable center fill – but the amount of the upfront gesture is decreased. Still there is a very intimate contact to the things which are located in the center of the stage, be it a trumpet, saxophone or the still very sexy vocal performance. But the scale is now more real – there is someone standing in front of you with a 3d gestalt and it is a human being – nearly in full size – well done Koetsu!!!

The presence emphasis is hardly detectable anymore – but it is there – a tiny, tiny bit of it enables the Rosewood Signature to produce a string tone you will never forget. The Rosewood Signature has a complete grain free treble section, a very, very smooth performance, you get a good dose of that magic sparcle without any analytical touch, it is enough treble energy to make the whole sound very balanced. Everything is so masterfully voiced, that you do not be aware of all the tiny anomalies which differentiate the Rosewood Signature from the total neutral Lyra carts (Lyra is just an example – you can also use Air Tight, My Sonic Lab or Transfiguration).

The big dynamic swings are no problem for the Rosewood – it can follow even the most demanding passages with great ease, The Rosewood still favours of the release,of a given tone over its leading edge. The cart is more about the beauty of the tone than the birth of the latter. It shows a tremendous color palette – and the sheer excitement of the music. The micro dynamic redering is amazingly well displayed, again it might be the fantastic silent ride the cart is able to achieve which results is a very, good signal to noise ratio that makes it easy for us to detect all the tiny details in the music. I would call this a totally unforced kind of resolution which does not need a shift in the treble or air region. The Rosewood performs naturally and with a wholeness which puts the gestalt of any composition in front of its molecular structure. The rhythmical performance is voiced in a special sway, which gives you a clear perspective of the groove in the music but at the same time you get this magical flow, which seems to be able to show you to any given time the most important part of the music. That makes the listening experience very easy and relaxed – even with demanding or complex music.

The Rosewood Signature is all about the Koetsu magic – nothing more and nothing less!

 

The Ursuhi Wajima

The Wajima has a lot of what the Rosewood already brought to the table – but you get nearly in every criteria more… more tightness in the bass, more neutrality in the whole spectrum, a lot more dynamic resolution, and also much more smooth treble. Is it the silver cladded coil wire or is it the Urushi lacquer – or maybe both – but to which degree??? – I cannot tell you – because the Koetsu portfolio avoids a direct comparison of just one of the parameters. It is astonishing in which way those two ingrediences shift the sound performance to a whole new level. The miracle of the Wajimas voicing lays in its ability to show all the beauty the Rosewood is capable of – but garnished with all the High End bells and whistles. If you compare both of these gems, yo will easily detect the increased resolution – and this is not a little bit more, it is a whole new chapter. Sugano San managed to show us all that without loosing the holistic gestalt. The treble and air section is something, nobody would expect from a wood body Koetsu – airy and open, free from any colouration and very, very smooth and grainless. The treble is able to give us a tree dimensional touch, which makes cymbals and a snare drum not a flat event, instead of that, we feel a dimensional corpus sending its sound waves towards us. The bass is also different – gone is the mid bass emphasis, instead of it we get now a deep and fast bass performance which is still very, very colourful and rich in its tonal gestalt. But it acts in a faster fashion, so that the Urushi Wajima does not anymore evaluate melody over rhythmical structures – both is shown in a wonderful balanced performance. The leading edge gets more attention, while at the same time it is not decreasing the ability to render the release of a tone till it is vanished in silence. Amazing!!!! The stage is wide open – as a window and we can see all the details from the far extremes left and right towards the center as also an amazing view into the third dimension. Centerfill is traditionally a Koetsu strength – the Urushi makes no exception here, but the center section is so very well integrated into the whole stage, that I would call it a perfect rendering. What some people will miss is the sexy up front vocal performance – and yes – this is one of the reasons why hard core devotees own more than ONE Koetsu….

The Urushi Wajima leaves the fun segment of the Koetsu line up – we are now accommodated in the adult section….(not what you think….) It is a precise tool, a complete cartridge and beyond this, it is able to give you all the magic a Koetsu is so well known for.

In my book the Koetsu Urushi carts are the pinnacle of what Koetsu is all about – not ignoring, that a stone body cart might even be a better performer – but this is a complete different chapter which detaches some of the typical sound attributes from this legendary brand.

The Koetsu Urushi Vermilion

If you opt for this special version of an Urushi cart, you must own a phono stage with a lot of clean gain. If you use a tubed phono stage it has to be one of the high gain models, because if you try to compensate the low 0,2mV output voltage with a higher turn ratio of a step up transformer (1:30 or even higher) you will dampen the cart more heavily. With a 1:20 the cart “sees” 117 Ohm, with a 1:30 SUT the cart will be dampened with 59 Ohm – which will kill most of what the Vermilion is about. Sugano San constructed the cart with a single layer coil structure to reduce the moving mass, so the Vermilion is able to render the leading edge in a different style than the other wood body Koetsu carts will do. And this is the first thing you might detect – the Vermilion is constructed to give us a growth in speed and attack rendition. It is maybe the first Koetsu in the line up which shows the rhythmical aspects in the music with a tremendous accuracy. The miracle is – you loose nothing of the ability to render the beauty of the tone – it is like driving a Mercedes S Class but with a motor designed by Porsche…..I love it!!!! It is like squaring a circle what Sugano San achieved with the Vermilion – chapeau! If you can use a 1:20 Step Up device with a high gain tubed phono section, without any noise, it is like a miracle. All the characteristics of the Urishi Wajima are now paired with a tremendous rhythmical precision. The bass has somewhat more impact and the treble and air are more pronounced – again without the tiniest amount of grain or harshness, this little red devil is sooo smooth – but it shows you an impressive resolution. Mybe it is the first Koetsu in the portfolio which is able to render heavy metal music at its best – there is no stress even in the most compressed wall of sound sections of such music, a full distorted electric guitar sounds amazingly real, as also the lower end of the frequency spectrum punches in our stomach and we will have a big smile on our face. That said – the Vermilion is also a statement in rendering big orchestral work – even the most complex passages are performed in a casual fashion, that is on par with the best carts you can buy.

The Vermilion is in its special way the most unlimited Koetsu cart of the wood body family – and yes – I do not think that the Platinum Signature does it in a better way – it is just a little bit different. My advice is to get the platinum magnet structure with the stone body carts – this is a suit which fits perfectly. The wood body range has its pinnacle performance in the creation of the Urushi cartridges and something very special can be found with the Vermilion.

Thank you Sugano San for all the great music!

stay tuned

E. Strauss

This essay is a follow up to the first part The Marantz CD94 – Part1 (the drive mechanism) which described the outstanding quality of the drive mechanism from Philips (CDM1 Pro). In this part (II) I will share some thoughts and tweaks  around the DA converter section of this classic vintage player.

Modern days

As you might know the CD 94 MK I is fitted with the Philips TDA 1541 A multibit ladder dac. This is a legendary DA converter – it never got any better, just cheaper. The audiophile magazines told us all the past decades, that every new converter generation gained a much better sound quality, than the previous one – which is completely wrong. The truth is, modern bitstream DA chips already imply everything you need to get a decent analogue signal out of your digital source, be it a CD or streamed digital data. There is not much more to do for the manufacturer as to built a proper power supply, often they use two – one for the analogue section and one for the digital stages. They design some nice casework, a good styling and a tremendous accurate clock – in which some of the more serious companies do a real good job. Any manufacturer uses nearly the same stuff. Some differ in doing excessive upsampling, some offer a different clock design, and most of the serious models do a sort of overkill in the power supply department and multiplying the number of converter chips to get a higher accuracy (Accuphase). Only very, very few models are in existence, which do really something innovative, Playbackdesigns with their FPGA DA converter technology comes to mind, Aqua with its modern implementation of the last multibit DA converter generation (already NOS stuff) and maybe those modern interpreatations of the classic TDA 1541 Philips converter, we will discuss here, done by High End manufactures like Zanden or AMR. Some companies think it is a good idea to construct the analogue output stage with designing a tube circuit –  in most of the cases, it is just a buffer stage, which should colour the sound of the player. Serious tube output stages are very, very rare, companies like Acousticplan and Lampizator must be named here.

Some facts

Lets talk about some “digital lies” first…..rubbish that is repeated thousands of times which makes it not more true. Lets start with some facts:

Any conversion process will degrade the digital signal!!!!

That is hard stuff – because what is meant is every change in the source data integrity will degrade the sound. That is a matter of fact for up sampling, down sampling, oversampling (which is NO interpolation!!!!), changes in bit depth were it does not matter if we try to make out of 16 bit 24 or vice versa….EVERY CHANGE messes up the integrity of the original data.

There is no way – even for streaming services, to better the sound of the 1980ties Eurhythmics Album “Sweet Dreams” – other than a new mastering process with the original master tapes. If the original master is digital, which happened throughout the 90ties (last century) with DAT machines, and later hard disc recording workstations, the game is over – because we once converted analogue to digital – and now it is digital – and there is no way – other than converting the files to higher sampling rates and / or bit depth, which seriously degrades the original file in favour of some streaming clients, who think – “ohhhh my…..now my favourite Prince album is available in pure DSD…..It is customer´s fake!!!!

Most of the stuff at streaming platforms produced in the end of the 80ties and through the 90ties have seen a very poor AD conversion, and is just up sampled (converted) – because most of these productions had only a digital master – so there is no other way than a new mix – if the session tapes or data on a hard drive (end of the 90ties) are still available – otherwise a remastering could only deal with what was AD converted in those years – mostly not worth the money and the work!

But why was there such a bad AD conversion quality present in the first yers of the CD era???

My own story

Let me tell you a story from my own experience….I worked 25 years in the music business as a producer and engineer. One day – it was 1993, I left my studio with an analogue master under my arm to enter my favourite mastering facility in Hamburg. The mastering engineer took my analogue tape, and told me the record company wants to have, both vinyl and a CD – so we started to measure the Studer A80 mastering machine and routed their outputs to the mastering desc a very, very high end analogue piece of audio jewelry.  I took a seat and enjoyed my mixing work – everything sounded familiar to me – a good sign – because nothing is more confusing, as if you cannot detect your own mixing work while sitting in the mastering process. The competent engineer behind the desc started with some tweaks, correcting mistakes in equalisation I did in my mix, we got rid of some emphasis in the lowest midband, gained some nice sparkle on top, so that the cymbals sounds very open and expensive. It sounded fantastic and I got more and more relaxed, because this guy worked miracles on my mixing work – Ekki was very, very happy.  After the whole sound adjustment process we transferred the the signal to the Neumann cutting lathe – and had a very nice result. Lets call it a day….!

But than the whole mess started – because we also had to create a digital master for the pressing plant…..The industry in those days brought out the CD format, an international standard, which is  in existence till the present day. Everything seems to be fine – but it was not! Because as we would witness two decades later  with the development of the SACD the commercial audio industry forgot the professionals – those people who have to create the content, the industry wanted to sell.

Instead of a very elaborated audio workstation, we had the Sony U Matic system – a technology based on a drive, which Sony originally designed to record video data on it, a processor and a pair of lousy AD and DA converters. We connected the Studer master machine to the U Matic AD converter, the signal went trough the processor and error counter (something which is non existent in modern digital days….) – and digitised the formally analogue master. The output of the Sony U Matic DA converter was now routed to the monitors – and I thought I had to kill myself. Gone was the sparkle, gone was the natural midband, gone was the warmth, gone was the recorded space – I witnessed a flat, cold, dead and ugly sound – but that was the modern high end format of those years – stunning!!!!

In my example above, I did my mixing in the studio fully analogue – so, there would be a good chance,  with better high resolution converters available today to remaster it again to develop a true high bit, high sample rate digital stream – which would not have been possible if I had used a digital 16bit / 44.1 master. You get the point???

Today it is a matter of seconds to convert any digital signal to something which looks impressive – modern computer technology with the world class audio software on them is able to generate out of a 16bit/44.1Khz file a 196khz, 24bit data stream – but you do not gain anything – instead of that you loose quality. Lets introduce the term “BIT TRANSPARENT”. To have a bit transparent signal in terms of its original source data is the best quality you can get!!!!!!

A lot of people wonder, while the old 1988 Prince CD sounds much better than the high resolution file available at several streaming platforms – now you no why that is the case…..

So why do we choose the CD 94???

The Maranz is very well built, it has a good platine layout, a fantastic drive mechanism and a lot of space for all the tweaks we have to do, to make a giant killer out of this audio grandpa. What that means is – that NO old Marantz CD 94 from the past in its original condition used as an integrated CD player will sound very good or reference class like – far from that! – So how can we unleash the whole potential….????

 

The TDA 1541

The Marantz is equipped with this DA converter legend – as I said above, it does not get any better than this – but first lets talk about the different TDA 1541 versions.

Philips had a grading system with their DA converters – the worst specs got the name TDA 1541 R – and the R stands for relaxed! – This Chipset was normally sold to companies who made very cheap players – so they wanted to have a nicer price tag on the very expensive TDA 1541 chips (which is way, way more expensive than ANY converter made today).

The next quality level is the TDA 1541 A – which was the standard grade chipset, which Marantz choose for the CD 94 MK I. – If we open the hood of our CD 94 MK I we will find exactly this chip which is soldered directly onto the board.

The high end converter types from Philips were the single and even more so, the double crown TDA 1541….called S1 and S2 and featured a stamped crown on their surface (or two). Be careful – today are a lot of single crown and even more so double crown fakes on disposal at ebay and other sellin platforms…as such a single crown TDA 1541 will set you back of around €250,- it is a good idea to know for sure if it is an original version or a nice artwork of some freaks….

Keep in mind, the double crown TDA 1541 is very, very rare. The one and only CD player ever made with 1541 double crown TDA chips was the Marantz CD7 – which is in my opinion one of the best players ever made – but if we are finished with our Marantz CD 94, we are soundwise very close to this audio legend – in some parameters better, in other the CD7 is unbeatable!

What we need is a single crown TDA 1541 converter – and that means also, that we have to unsolder the old A version, and instead of directly resolder the single crown version onto the board, we should opt for an IC socket, were we can plug and unplug the new converter chip if needed.

 

Recapping

The change from a TDA 1541 A to S1 status is not the most important tweak, we have to deal with….far from that. Starting from here, you are dealing with serious electric circuitry – a basic knowledge of electric engineering is essential, and all of what you do from now on is on your own risk – please read that twice!!!!! – If you never managed to get a proper solder point forget all of the following modifications and buy a good record player!

The Marantz CD 94 is now 30 yers old – most of its time it was stored in a dark cellar because his owner upgraded it with something new (more correctly, the Marantz shares half of its “celler time” with other old digital players, which are all “upgrade victims”…think about how many CD players you owned….;-)))) All caps – and I mean ALL of them will be far away from their original specs. Most of the players which were retired, had problems with reading a CD – the owner thought it is a worn out laser mechanism – but it is not – in 99 from 100 cases, it is the electrical side of the drive mechanism – not the laser itself or the mechanism. So we have to unsolder EVERY cap and  resolder later on the best quality we can get today, which is not such a complicated task, because the quality of modern electrolytics gained immensely in the last decades. To get the work done in a proper fashion. You need the service manual – which you can find on the web (cost free) and you should be able to read a circuit diagram – of course.

I would opt for Panasonic FC caps in the power supply, in all the digital circuits SANYO OSCON is a very good idea – because they behave very stable at different temperature conditions…Be careful – OSCON cpas are widely available in SMD (surface mounted devices) versions – to find the standard mount version is often not an easy task – but they are existent. In the analogue stage I used Rubicon, and Cerafine, as also Elna Silmic caps – if you can find Black Gates – and have the money – feel free to buy them – but they are nearly vanished even on selling platforms like ebay.

PLEASE – do the recap work section by section…and if you are tired – leave the solder iron alone and go to bed – because every electrolytic capacitor is directional, and if you are tired it happens that……;-)))) Do function tests on a regular basis, if you are finished with one section – if there is a mistake, you will have a much better chance to find the problem fast and easy.

If you replace the big power supply caps (5 of them not only the big twin towers) I would opt for slightly larger capacity – and I mean slightly (10 % ) otherwise the original power transformer cannot handle your nice tuning!

The biggest improvement

After the recapping is done you have the rare opportunity to listen to a Marantz CD 94 in quasi new condition – and you will be impressed – there are more CD players in existence today which sound much, much worse than that old machine. But until you tweak the player any further there is no chance to play in the same league were the best players are at home….

The Marantz CD 94 – as most of the other TDA 1541 players have one serious problem in common, and this is the power supply regulators – or better, the amount of them. One regulator in the original design handles nearly all digital stages – and here is our biggest problem. The TDA 1541 needs a daughter chip which is called 7220 – and this thing pollutes a lot of digital rubbish in our rail which supplies also the DA converter, the clock and digital periphery. So we have to take care of that. As you might noticed, every Philips design in this period of time had those cooling fins at the back of the players. In the original design there are 3 discrete power regulators attached to those cooling fins – and we have to double that! Our goal is to give the TDA 1541 a separate rail – without any influence of the “dirty” 7220 – and we will do the same with the 7220 itself und the clock.

So we have to design 3 new power regulators (discrete) and connect them with the corresponding parts on our circuit board bypassing the original power traces, so that all 3 devices (TDA 1541, 7220 and clock) are directly fed with their supply voltages. We are must mount the hot transistors of our discrete regulators to the same cooling device as the already existent three original regulators. To distribute the clean supply voltage, use good quality solid core copper cables, and twist them tightly to gain some shielding.

Now we have reached a lot more sound quality – the truth is – you wont think it is still the same player….it is that impressive!

Further improvements

If you like, you can install now  a new high end clock – there are different manufacturers in existence, I would opt for a Tental Labs solution…which fits perfectly into the CD94. They supply their clock with a good manual and it is an easy task, if you already managed our journey to this point.

The analogue output stage

Now things become very interesting again…You can decide if you want to get rid of the whole de emphasis circuit, because (I bet??) you will have not a single CD in you collection, which is coded with emphasis (which was a very old technology in the first years of CD production to gain SR ratio).

What you seriously have to do, is get rid of the 4 poor op amps soldered directly onto the board. To do so, buy some very good quality IC sockets – because (I know you very well) you want to experiment with different OP amp designs. Keep in mind – just pulling out one Op amp and replace it by another one is not the way that game works, because EVERY high bandwith OP amp today needs its proper implementation – so read the papers….and do your homework!

A good choice will be the Burr Brown OPA 627 single (all 4 OP amps are single types). You can also go full throttle and buy some discrete OP amps from companies like Burson Audio – and if that is not enough, you can use Daniel Weiss devices from Switzerland – they are very, very good, but also very expensive – and they need proper implementation, which means a complete redesign of the IV stage and filter design!!!! – Which is a lot of work and needs serious know how.

I opted for Burson Audio, which are way better than any integrated OP in this player (not always the case) and not even in the same galaxy, than what was used in the original design of the CD94!

All Philips TDA 1541 implementations (there are two exceptions) have a DC offset at the analogue output section of the IV stage – which we have to get rid of. The way to do so ist a coupling capacitor directly in front of our output sockets. Here you have to calculate the capacity of the cap – which determine the lowest frequency your player will be able to produce…a figure around 22mF would be perfect. You can search for some really good caps in the high end accessory market. Keep in mind, that you need for the best of them (and the most expensive ones) a lot of space, which you don´t have. And – if you use a big, big silver foil mega hyper cap – you will have very long connection legs, which is not a good thing! I used Mundorf tin foil caps, which are not so big – and fits very nicely into the player – but there are much more options on the market – do not go mad here – it is just one single detail!

Next step would be to get rid of the RCA terminals Marantz used in this player – do not ask me why – but that is the cheapest rubbish you ever have seen. Buy some good tellur copper RCA sockets and solder the output coupling caps directly to the sockets – and you are done! Further improvements can be achived if you change the diodes in the rectifier section of the player. It is also a good idea to deactivate the headphone amplifier of the CD94.

One last word……as all these modifications means a lot of work that has to be done, do yourself a favour and buy only good original parts, leave out ebay and any cheap offerings, their might be a good chance to get copies of the original stuff…..

The Sound

Now you experienced what it means to implement a TDA 1541 near to perfection – there are way more tweaks you can do – but what I explained here are the most important ones – to go any further is another story maybe for part III???.

I had the chance to compare the Marantz CD 94 to the lates Naim triple 5 streaming DAC (also a ladder dac design!!!), as also the smaller Aqua DAC and the second best Plaback Designs CD player – and guess what – our old Marantz machine is in the same league. It does not sound equal – of course not – but it is the same level of quality. What we always have, if we implement a TDA 1541 near perfection, is a once in a lifetime digital treble experience. The TDA sounds creamy, smooth and has a tremendous resolution. This resolution has nothing to do, with a tilted up, analytic top end –  this treble is natural, real, and relaxed. I am not a big fan to modify the Marantz CD94 with a tubed output stage, because this modification makes things too soft, too polite – and as I use a full tubed amplifier system behind the player, it would be too much of a good thing. What you also will detect is a tremendous bass performance. The bass gestalt is powerful and deep – really deep, as also tight and very agile – it is one of the most impressive bass performances of any DA converter which is in existence till now. This bass gives your analogue rig a good workout, only the best cartridges (also very expensive) can muster the bass quality of this vintage (modified) CD player. In the midrange we will miss some of the 3D magic our analogue front end is capable of – but that is often a matter of the different mastering techniques used with the media CD – because it has to be very loud (loudness war – another story, I will write about in the future) – so you will face a completely compressed sound on the CD, which is not so much existent on the vinyl mastering of the same production, because such loud and compressed signals are not easy to cut into vinyl. What you also miss is the attack accuracy a Lyra cartridge can give you – but there is a tweak for that at the end of this essay. To make a long story short, the Marantz CD 94 in its modified incarnation sounds close to an EMT TSD 15 cart – BOOOOOM!

The last tweak

Everyone is talking about Non Over Sampling (NOS) today – it is the newest fashion to get rid of oversampling artefacts, which degrade the pure digital signal (time domain). Oversampling was at the very beginning of the CD era a trick from Philips, as they had just a 14 bit DA converter to offer, while Sony could develop a true 16 bit chip. This is the reason why Philips introduced oversampling – to get 16 bit resolution out of a native 14 bit DAC – and they succeeded. Later on, the situation was comparable to the run for the highest megapixel camera. People do not understand digital technology, they have no knowledge about pixel pitch and all the problems a higher number of megapixel will bring to the game – more is always better – and so we will face in the next years 48mp digital cameras – and nobody knows why a 24mp file looks much better.

The same was going on in the late 80ties and beginning of the 90ties – as multibit DAC technology was the latest fashion. We witnessed the oversampling race…

It starts with 4 times and ends with 16 times oversampling processes…what the people did not realise: With every increase of the oversampling factor, the industry had to work seriously on the speed and accuracy of the clock. DSP technology was not developed in those yers, so instead of that the industry used quarz PLL clock systems. The sound of these  player generation got worse – because of clocking inaccuracy (jitter) – but the consumer had his higher oversampling rate – GREAT!

We can modify the Marantz CD 94 / TDA 1541 to be converted into a NOS DAC without any digital filtering – it is an easy modification, and many, many websites describe, how that modification is done. What you gain is more timing accuracy – because every steep filter (digital or analogue) will deliver a sort of pre ringing (and ripple). You get 3 cycles (worst) in front of the natural leading edge of a tone.  Once you compared the same player with and without oversampling, you will be stunned. Interestingly enough the US company Wadia discovered exactly those phenomena already a long time ago….

But nothing is gained without something we loose –  the frequency linearity of our player will suffer after we converted the CD94 to NOS – which means we get a drop in treble energy around 3db at 20Khz with a soft roll off. So you have to choose, accuracy in the time domain versus frequency linearity in the treble section. I opted for the timing accuracy and did everything I could do, to get the last drop of openes out of the player, which is also the reason, why I did not imply a tubed output stage at this point. Finally you get a very, very serious CD machine with all the above discussed tweaks and modifications. If there is no vinyl available, you can easily buy the CD and enjoy it immensely….and that is, why I did all that work….

Happy listening

 

E. Strauss

 

 

There is something special about Japan, tradition and modern high tech are often separated with only a very small distance from each other. The attention to even the smallest detail in some of the best products coming from the land of the rising sun is outstanding – and on the other hand you have mass market products, ugly and very cheaply made. A land full of extremes and contrasts, stuffed cities and beautiful zen gardens amidst them, meditation and extremely noisy gaming rooms, young girls dressed with school uniforms to animate…. and buddhist monks, shinto shrines and fast food…..you get the picture.

In the past the Japanese industry copied the stuff from the western world – the camera industry comes to mind – and especially German Leica, Rolleiflex and Contax models. But once they got the idea behind a construction, the Japanese engineers had the ability to increase the amount of features as well as the quality and they achieved a better result than the formerly copied product. At that moment there was no German camera industry anymore (Leica survived almost…) and Nikon with their legendary F and F2 models took over the complete professional camera market. If those people do something really seriously, they are able to achieve superlative product qualities.

Imagine – at the end of the 70ties (last century) Sugano San (the father) came up with something like a Koetsu Red (read Rosewood Signature) cartridge – it was nearly comparable with the presence of the space shuttle in the 19th century….

A line contact stylus, boron cantilever, smarium cobalt magnets, 5 ohm DC resistance and healthy 0.4mV output voltage, bodies made from rosewood, lacquered with Urushi, or even milled out of  solid stone…imagine that at the end of the 70ties…..it was THE ULTIMATE CARTRIDGE!

If we google Koetsu cartridges today, we will find a lot of forum entries, mostly comprised with misinformation, or completely wrong statements. It is a good source of amusement for the analogue lover….. If wie google Koetsu Black, we will find statements like -“great for voices – rolled off at the top and muddy bass” – than we see a picture of such a Koetsu Black mounted in a Rega RB 300 at the same thread…….on another forum a respected guy is telling us, that the golden flakes dressed upon the Urushi lacquer will result in a much heavier cartridge housing….bullshit!!!!

All forum “informations” have in common that a Koetsu is soft at the treble, has a muddy soft bass and great mid frequency response with a strong emphasis in that section, while it is a bad tracker, which is not able to track the 70 mü torture track on a test record… and is extremely sensitive to VTA adjustment. Some say these cartridges have a ridiculous stiff suspension others claim exactly the opposite, and some others think the VTA must be up at the back of the tonearm – and the majority claims down at the back may be the only way to get a proper sound. Not to mention the different suggestions regarding the termination of the carts – the range goes from 30 Ohm – 1 Kohm or completely open, which means normally 47 Kohm…..Maybe it is time to explain some things???

The Differences

Lets start with some information regarding the different models…. All Koetsu carts have something in common….They all share 5 Ohm DC resistance, and they all share the same diamond cut, a custom made variation of a line contact stylus,  made to Sugano Sans specification by the Japanese specialist Ogura (which is also used by Lyra with a different profile leaving out the Lyra Delos which uses a Namiki needle). They all use a classic magnetic circuit wich includes a traditional yoke construction.

Here is, in what they differ:

Koetsu Black Goldline

The only Koetsu with an aluminium body structure today (the original Urushi carts made by Sugano San the father were also based on an aluminium enclosure…) which has also a different form factor compared with the more expensive models. The body is somewhat smaller and has a different gestalt at the front of the enclosure – here we will find a angled cut, which makes us able to observe the cantilever very easy, something which can not be said about the classic Koetsu body shape of the bigger models. The Black has 0.4mV output and 5 Ohm DC resistance, which is achieved with 6n pure copper windings on their coils, and a smarium cobalt magnet. The suspension is somewhat different than the more expensive models – it has a compliance of around 13cu, which makes it compatible to lightweight tonearms, which is also addressed by the aluminium enclosure wich is more heavy than the Rosewood Standrad. The Body has no threaded mounting holes – so you have to deal with tiny screws and even smaller nuts. The cartridge features now silver cartridge pins – older models have golden ones. The modern Black (Goldline) has nicely chamfered golden lines at the edges of the body, which is represented in its name. The bottom of the cart is sealed with the classic thin sheet metal strip with the famous Japanese writing engraved.

The Koetsu Rosewood Standard

The Standard has the same body form factor as the black – we do not get at this point the longer body with the nearly straight edges, which describes a traditional Koetsu model (leaving out the first longbody Koetsu carts) ….but in this case the body is made of rosewood which gives the cartridge its name. The Standard has already the suspension, we will find on the “bigger” Koetsu carts – so it is much stiffer that that of the Black Goldline – between 8 and 9cu….which means, we need a heavier arm! That is very important, because the whole cart is lighter than the Black – so the body structure does not help us with the need of a proper tonearm mass which should reach around 18g (effective mass)! Here we have the first of a long row of common mistakes – a Koetsu Rosewood Standard is not a good match with a SME Series IV or V nor is it in any way compatible to a Rega or a Linn…..if you match the cart with such tonearms – please read the forum entries about rolled off treble and muddy bass…..;-)))) The Rosewood Standard has no threaded mounting holes  either – so you deal again with tiny screws and even tinier nuts….All of its ingredients are equal to the Black Goldline – except for the suspension and the body material.

The Koetsu Rosewood Signature

With the Signature version of the Rosewood model we get now the traditional Koetsu body shape – gone is the lifted section at the bottom of  cartridge front – but,  be aware – the body is not a straight rectangle construction – the form of the underside is not  parallel to the top of the cart. Again we will get 6n pure copper coils, the stiffer classic Koetsu suspension, 5 Ohm DC resistance and 0.4mV output and again no threaded mounting holes. But Koetsu put on underneath a better quality control and uses more pure materials with the Signature version. What we can see as a costumer is just the traditional body structure which has now the very famous scoop at the bottom plate which protects the enclosure from dust.

In my book the Koetsu Rosewood Signature is the first true Koetsu in the line up – the Standard and even more so the Black Goldline gives you a taste of what you can expect using the Signature. This statement is true for such people, who have a heavier tonearm, for installations which uses an 8 – 12g arm, the Black Goldline would be a much better choice. The bad thing about the Rosewood Signature is its price tag – if I claim that at this point the famous Koetsu sound starts in its purest fashion – it is a very expensive entry level – which it is.

The Koetsu Urushi

There is no sich thing as THE URUSHI – because Koetsu delivers different models – leaving out the Koetsu Urushi Vermilion, which I will talk about in a minute. All of the other Urushi cartridges are technical equal – what differs is the amazing lacquer artwork in the traditional Japanese Urushi fashion. Some of the models are made with very old techniques, and they are named after the Japanese cities in which these techniques were invented – examples are the Wajima and the Tsugaru. Others use a more modern twist to the old traditional techniques, the Sky Blue comes to mind. Urushi lacquer is a natural product which is won out of tree resin. It needs a long, long time to get fully dry and as it gets dry it gets harder and harder. Underneath the Urushi lacquer – you might guess it already, we will find – a rosewood body….so the Urushi carts use the same material and body form factor as the Rosewood Signature – the difference is the lacquer technique which gives the body a different behaviour regarding mechanical energy transmission and resonances! Technically there is also something new to discover….we still have a 6n pure copper coil but in this case it is caldded with silver. The cladding process could be explained if you imagine your girlfriend or wife putting on her sexy nylon stockings….. So the silver is not melted upon the copper nor is it a hybrid material mixture – it is still pure copper with a very thin cladded silver layer on top. The magnets circuit uses still smarium cobalt material as we get it also from the entry level Black Goldline, but – SURPRISE!!!! we will have now treaded mounting holes – THANK YOU KOETSU!!!!!

The Koetsu Urushi Vermilion

The only Urushi which differs completely from all the other beautiful carts in this range is the Vermilion….It is easy to detect – because it is the one and only Urushi which is made out of the special red Urushi lacquer which we will also find in traditional Japanese tea equipment, tablets or old jewelry boxes. It has also a slightly different form factor around the engraved section were the mounting bolts are located – the Rosewood Signature as also the other Urushi carts have a straight half tubed engraving  – the Vermilion has a sort of triangular cut out at this section of the body. Technically the Vermilion is a total different beast, than all the other Koetsu carts we already discussed. The DC resistance is still 5 Ohm – but the output drops down to very low 0,2mV – which is caused by a single layer 6n copper coil (no silver cladding is used), were the other Koetsu carts use a double layer coil construction. In addition to that Sugano San opted for a different magnet material – the Vermilion uses an alnico magnet circuit, wich raises the weight of the cart noticeably, compared to the other wood body models. The little red beauty is the Koetsu with the lowest output voltage – so make sure, that your phono stage can handle that thing. If you think about using it with a tubed phono stage together with a step up transformer – you need a high gain phono stage with around 45db of clean gain!

The Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum

With the Rosewood Signature Platinum (RSP) we face a completely new technical chapter in the Koetsu line up because the cartridge uses platinum magnets…Those magnet material has a legendary reputation as all Lyra aficinoados will confirm. Think about the original Lyra Parnassus – and more so the Olympos which used the magnets of the Parnassus and is till the present day a true legend in the world of cost no object cartridges!

Based on this point every Koetsu cart uses this magnet construction. The choose of platinum magnets causes a drop in the output voltage from 0,4mV to 0,3mV, while still having 5 Ohm DC resistance. The housing of the RSP is again Rosewood as the Standard and the Signature uses it either – but in this case Koetsu chooses very old wood qualities. The RSP is the most “cost effective” way to get a platinum magnet Koetsu….which tells you something about the other platinum carts in the portfolio…..

The Stone Body Koetsu

Now we climbed up the ladder to the top, which includes also a price tag, were people, who are not involved in High End audio will buy a nice little car for the same money we have to spent at this point. If you tell your family members, that you bought a Koetsu Blue Lace Diamond Platinum for € 15 000,- there is a good chance, that your wife will incapacitate you….a white jacket and a nice soft cell included….

The complete motor system is equal to the Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum, which we already discussed above – the big difference is the material of the enclosure. Koetsu uses semiprecious stone. The price range differs with the rareness of the material and the expenditure to mould a cartridge enclosure out of the stone. We will find at the “bottom” of the stone body range the Onyx – and at the absolute top we have the legendary Blue Lace and the Coral Stone – the letter is so beautiful, that I cannot avert my eyes if I have the chance to look at such a damn sexy thing!!!!

The Diamond Cantilever

The Koetsu customer can order a diamond cantilever as an upgrade with every Koetsu model – while such an option will cost around €4000,- it makes no sense to think about it until you reached the stone body range – and even there it is a tough decision…..I mean 4000,- …..there are people who buy a complete HiFi system with far less, than we have to spent for this diamond cantilever!

Mono

Another option is the opportunity to order every Koetsu cartridge as a mono version – in such a case the output voltage will be halved, which might be a serious problem with the Urushi Vermilion model (0,1mV). Koetsu uses the same construction with the mono models as with the stereo carts, but there are naturally only 2 coils in the horizontal plane. So it is not a fully dedicated mono cart regarding the sensitivity of the cantilever, which is able to move also in the vertical plane.

If you read all the differences till that point you might think – there are only 4 different models in existence – the Black Goldline with its softer suspension, the wood bodies including the Urushi models, the Vermilion with its single layer coil structure and the platinum magnet types. And yes if you do not look close enough at the tiny differences that might be true. At the end Koetsu offers us a very, very scaled product portfolio.

If you read my article about the Lyra Etna, one thing is more than obvious:

Koetsu detected as one of the first cartridge designers the influence of different body materials. And Koetsu was also one of the first designers who found different possibilities in voicing a cartridge with coil materials and different magnet structures. A direct comparison of the various models to detect the influence of the body material or finish (read lacquer) is not possible  – because Koetsu changed also other parameters. The Rosewood Signature has a pure copper coil while the Urushi models use a silver cladded coil structure, and the Vermilion features a single layer coil as also different magnet materials.

The end of the myths

Lets talk about some facts and get rid of the myths, presumptions and special stories…..

Effective Mass

A lot of people who own a Linn, Rega or SME tonearm to name just a few – claim that it is not worth to buy anything better in the Koetsu lineup than the Black Goldline – which might be true from their personal perspective – because they do not own a tonearm which is able to function flawless with the other models in the lineup. If you pair a 9g effective mass arm with a Koetsu Urushi than you will detect, that the treble is rolled off and the bass is muddy and does not reach out to the deepest octave. The cartridge with its suspension reacts with the effective mass of the tonearm as a dog and its its tail….if the dog is too lightweight and the tail is heavy the dog is not anymore moving his tail – the tail is also moving the dog….you get it???? – So if we use a cart with a 9cu compliance with a 9g tonearm ist is not only the resonance frequency which gets now up to around 13hz – which might not be the biggest problem – more important is how the mechanical energy which is send from the cart into the tonearm is handled. The wood body carts help us there, because the rosewood damps a good portion of the implied energy – but if the body structure gets harder – read more direct coupling, the things get worse. A stone body Koetsu does not damp any serious amount of mechanical energy with its body structure – it acts in this parameter nearly as a Lyra cart. The Urushi carts are in between the rosewood and the stone bodies – if the body is old and the lacquer did harden over the years you have a glas like coating above your cart. Sugano San the elder used a Fidelity Research FR64S Tonearm with his creations, this beast has an effective mass of over 35g….!!!! – Todays Koetsus are not anymore as demanding in this regard – but from the Rosewood Standard on – it is not a good idea to use a Tonearm with 9 – 11g – ist is recommended to push that figure up to around 18g – and gone is the muddy bass, and the rolled off treble!!!!! The dynamic abilities gain even a greater amount of quality, and the whole thing tracks very, very good. I never got any mis – tracking from a Koetsu cartridge dropped on everything else than a test record. even the most demanding soprano voices are rendered without any harshness or stress!

Termination

A lot of people use 1Kohm and even 47 Kohm for the Koetsu carts – in most of the cases to compensate for the soft treble gestalt (incompatible tonearms)….What you will get now is a human voice were the body has a certain natural distance to your listening position, but whenever the vocalist sings some treble implemented syllables, like S or SCH or T – than you have a miraculous beaming of the whole performance towards you – the singer is moving front to back dependant from the frequency….this is not anywhere near the real thing – nor is it nice to get such isolated, synthetic treble energy. In my book a Koetsu needs something around 100 Ohm – by the way –  the cart reacts immensely on proper termination. Do not concentrate just on the treble excitement – the bass is also heavily affected – with 1 Kohm it sounds mostly uncontrolled and muddy – so you get both horror stories with just one parameter – in your face sibiliants and a muddy uncontrolled bass….Please keep in mind – if a tonearm is not compatible with its effective mass and energy distribution, there is NOTHING you can gain – it es if you put a very big Garrett turbocharger in your 1,5 l Diesel….and wonder why there is this ugly black smoke coming out of your exhaust…. If the basic things are not addressed you can stop your attempt to get a proper sound out of your Koetsu – look elsewhere.

The critical VTA

Yes it is true a Koetsu reacts in a distinct way if you change the VTA – but it is also true for every other cart which uses such a sharp cut….so the Koetsu is nothing special here!. Put a record on your table, it should be music with a voice in the mono centre of the soundstage and some naturally recorded instruments, which reaches out to the far right and left of the panorama. Now listen….with the tonearm leveled parallel to the record surface.

What you will hear is:

The Bass is on the lightweight side of neutral – less impact, soft tone and very difficult to follow.

The upper mids and lower presence is rendered in a unnatural forward sounding way, the singer stands directly in front of you – it is very very up front – a thing – some people like…

The treble and air is nearly completely masked with the lower presence around 4Khz – so there is no real sparkle and no air….

What we normally would do is to rise the tail of the arm to get more treble – but raising the arm gives us no real treble and no air – it gives us more presence – first it starts with the lower presence and as much we raise the tail of the arm we gain more higher presence – we can tune the presence section of the spectrum – but we cannot gain real treble – nor air!!!!! – As we do so, the soundstage suffers seriously – we have no real width anymore leaving alone some pin point accuracy at the extreme edges of the stage. And the bass will suffer – it is now woody and not deep anymore…..

So – raising the VTA is not the right direction – lets try it the other way round….and BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!! – There it is – a slightly tilted down rear end of the tonearm and the sound becomes wide, and the bass shows now heft and structure, the emphasis in the presence  is now much more domesticated – and we are able to detect a good amount of natural treble and air, as also a dramatical improvement in resolution. Now you have to find the sweet spot which depends on speaker position, your room acoustic (hard but true – we spent so much money on carts and phono stages – but the real deal is the room acoustic) – their will be a point were you get the widest stage AND a clear center focus – no high mid and lower presence emphasis and a full bodied bass with a nice tonal structure. The sound is now very, very natural and realistic, and in a special way seductive and immensely beautiful. And yes a Koetsu is not a Lyra or a Transfiguration – it is something else, which is in itself fascinating, delicious and very, unique – this carts could generate a drug like sound. Nothing sounds as a Koetsu – and I mean NOTHING!!!!

Further adjustments

As with every sharp stylus cut the Koetsu reacts very  sensitive about all the typical parameters. So take your time to adjust the cart in a proper way. That is more easy said than done, because you cannot see the damn cantilever. Use a good protractor and different magnifying glasses to get the geometry spot on. Do not use the body with its straight lines – the cantilever is the only thing that counts!!!! With the azimuth use as a starting point a pencil mine which you should place on top of the headshell and not on top of the body – it might work with the Black Goldline and also the Stone bodies and the Rosewood models – but with the Urushi carts, there is a great chance, that the lacquer is much too uneven to get a proper result. After you have adjusted the azimuth basically, put on a mono record on your turntable – switch the cartridge connection cables of one channel and swith your preamplifier to mono…..Now you should here nearly nothing – because the two channels should be 180° out of phase and canceling out any sound coming from the two channels. You will here some treble signals coming through – that is normal and nothing to worry about. But if you detect some serious signals in the mid spectrum or more problematic the bass, you have to dial in the azimuth in a way, that you get the maximum of cancelation between both channels. As you see, you do not need a Fozgometer or a measuring computer….you can do it with just a mono recording. And you know now, why a mono switch wich your preamp is hopefully equipped with is something very, very useful. After you are finished with your azimuth adjustment – do not forget to reconnect the tonearm cables in the proper way….;-))))

 The little details:

Please do not use any aluminium cartridge screws as also no Delrin or heavy dampening plastic stuff – a good idea is brass, copper (even better) or – the screws Lyra sells – which are amazingly good. Please avoid also nuts made out of aluminium, which is important if you use Koetsu carts with no threaded mounting holes.

If you mount the cart – please do not overtighten the mounting bolts – you can deform the body structure and it is seldom conductive soundwise to use brutish force!

If you use a step up transformer  a 1:20 might be the best choice – if you already bought the Urushi Vermilion – make sure, that your tubes phono MM stage can handle the small amount of output this specific carts has to offer. Talking about SUT´s – the Michael Ulbrich “Monster Can” (see my Lyra Etna SL essay) will be an amazing performer – I must confess, that I never had a SUT which mated so well with any of the Koetsu cartridges – it is amazing – in particular the bass performance is astonishing! – THANK YOU MICHAEL – WELL DONE!!!!

Use a cable with a very low capacity from the SUT to your phono stage  – which is also important for your tonearm cable (in one future essay I will come bak to that…)!

One last word

Maybe you observed on the used market some very nice Koetsu carts – mostly the mega expensive stone body carts are on offer for a big, big discount. You start reading the description of the used cart (hopefully given in a truthful way)…. “Koetsu Burma Jade – only played 100 hours, retipped by VdH – better than new…..”

Please be aware that no retipped Koetsu will sound like the original one – not a remake from Benz Micro nor one from VdH. I do not say that this carts are bad or worthless – but it is not anymore what it was. There is just one retipping company which is able to get as close to the original as possible, that is Ana Mighty Sound from France! But why should I use a retipping service if Sugano San is still alive and happy to take your order for a complete overhaul of you beloved Koetsu??? – Koetsu does not do any retippings – they do a complete remake – which is a fine thing – because you get after the procedere a brad new cart with a new unused suspension, new cantilever, new stylus – everything is brad new – they just leave your body like it is (which is also a good thing….). And they have a fair price politic for such a complete remake – and it does not need a year – it is done in 2 or 3 months. If I have spent €10 000,- on a stone body, I would not hesitate to give the cart to those, who once built it. That is the only chance to get back, what you have payed for – because – once again – no different stylus shape, no different cantilever material, length and shape and no variation in coil material and thickness will recreate what the cart once was. You get something which might plays music – but it is not anymore a Koetsu!

Which brings us to a different kind of online offerings…..an original Koetsu Urushi made by Sugano the father from 1984 in brad new condition – never played – and the price is…….ta ta ta taaa €6000,-!!!! Why would I buy a cart from 1984 – if we all know that a suspension will harden over the time – even if the cart was never used (which is a very common term today – may it a description which says  ” never played” or “not even burnt in” – or “150 hours but 5 years old” because the owner has several carts….and so on….) keep in mind every cartridge changes its technical parameters in the suspension over the time. Such an old Urushi might have a compliance of 5cu – and can hardly track any piano tone…..

There is no other cartridge type were we can observe so much bullshit as with the famous Japanese Koetsu!

If you want to have one – wait until you have the funds to buy a new one. In most of the cases it turns out as a much cheaper solution and it is even more delightful to start your journey with an original and masterfully build gem!

At the end it is one of the very rare true classic carts which offers a one of a kind sound aesthetic and is unmatched till today, because no other manufacturer comes even close to that particular sound experience.

…..happy listening

E. Strauss

The construction:

If we compare the Lyra Etna SL with its more expensive stablemate, the Atlas SL, we will discover that both cartridges share the same basic technical ingredients. Both feature the same line contact stylus cut, the same diamond coated cantilever as also the same coil technology and stylus material. They even have the exact same technical data except the weight of the whole cartridge. While the Atlas is made from one solid billet of Titanium, the Etna uses just a core structure made from this very rigid material. The side elements are made of special grade aircraft aluminium press fitted with the inner Titanium core structure additionally damped with some bronze inlets, a technology that Lyra started to use in a slightly different way with the Kleos cartridge.

The Sound:

It is somewhat a once in a lifetime experience to get the chance of comparing the sound difference between two cartridges which differs just in one single construction parameter – the body structure. This is a mindblowing experience, because it is hard to believe that just a body structure could make such a tremendous difference in the sound aesthetic which we will detect comparing the Atlas SL with the Etna SL. While the Atlas stretches the frequency extremes like no other cartridge I know, the Etna features one of the most natural mid band spectrums I am aware off. Do not think the Etna SL is rolled off at the top or has any weakness in showing anything less than the deepest octave of recorded music – far from that. But the Etna SL has such a pure and natural midband performance, that you are more aware of what happens in this frequency section, than listening to the explosive bass or treble performance the Atlas is capable off. The Etna breathes the tone, the Atlas trows it at you – both is an amazing experience. If I listen to Pop music, Electro, even Jazz, the Atlas sucks you into the performance with his sheer heft and tremendous speed and agility. The Etna SL in comparison has more flow, more natural Gestalt and an amazing integrity of the whole frequency spectrum. The dynamic abilities are also outstanding, but the sound does not so much explode in front of you, instead it unfolds a never ending colour scheme of tones and moods. There is a wide and deep stage, a tremendous realistic rendering of the recorded space – and on top of that you get a string tone to die for. The vocal performance is more integrated, than with the Atlas – there is more a human being in front of you – what you loose is the last drop of resolution and a very, very tiny bit of air around the singer. What you get instead is the body of the artist – you get a different kind of resolution – a resolution, were tiny shades of different moods, while the recording session took place, vary the vocals. Every tiny bit of feeling  – or – the soul of the music!

Lyra does not offer a small Atlas with the introduction of the Etna – Lyra gave us audiophiles a different view of the same picture. You can choose if you want to have the thrilling experience of the Atlas or the richness in midband colours of the Etna. It is unbelievable that just the different body structure could alter the sound of an otherwise identical cartridge. Jonathan Carr showed us, that body material and the structure can “voice” a cart in very different way. I think the monoblock Titanium structure of the Atlas allowed the cartridge motor to get the highest attack precision without any kind of smoothing out those first few milliseconds, while the Aluminium / Titan structure of the Etna emphases the resolution in the mid band – and rounds even so slightly the the leading edge.

Mating the Etna SL with a phono stage – tubed or transistor, as well as finding the right step up transformer might be challenging. If a cart has such a fantastic mid band purity, the last thing we would want is any colouration in this very important range. I opted for a tubed phono stage, and with this decision, you start to think about the right tubes to choose in this regard. Mullard and Amperex are well known for their low midband emphasis (Mullard MC1 Long Plates) and a certain offensive character in the presence department of the sound  spectrum(Amperex Foil D Getter Long Plates). To find really uncoloured tubes of the ECC family lets you think about Telefunken and very old Valvo ECC83 (M1 or MC2). Both tubes can give you an uncoloured midband performance while also having a tight grip on the bass and a sweet unforced treble aesthetic. With a tubes phono stage there is in most cases the need for a step up transformer – the Etna SL has a very low inner resistance and give us just 0,25mV, which calls for a 1:20 or 1:30 step up device depending on the gain of your phono mm section.

That brings me to one still relatively unknown transformer made here in Berlin by Michael Ulbrich and his company Consolidated Audio. At the beginning of 2019 I got my copper wound nano 1:20 transformer – and the pairing with the Lyra Etna SL is nothing short of spectacular. Michael succeeded in designing a SUT which is very, very transparent to the source. All starts with a speed this device is capable off, so that you get the last ounce of the leading edge – and – very important, the clicks and crackles are just very, very short signals – there is no tendency to lengthen those on the time axis. A short click is, what it is – there is no rounding, no smoothing and no side effects. This ultra fast reaction lets us “hear trough” all the clicks an crackles on our beloved vinyl. As I also work on vinyl restoration, I did some tests and comparisons regarding this aspect with other well regarded step up devices. If you transcribe the vinyl record to a digital workstation, you can measure the attack performance versus the timeline. What I found out is, that most of the SUT I had in for comparison do a more or less rounding on the leading edge of a click or the signal. With the Consolidated Audio SUT all those little nasties are clearly differentiable from the music – they get out of our musical awareness – awesome!

The “Monster Can” is shielded very well against electromagnetic interference – you can place it wherever you want – even near a power transformer there is no hum. All the typical High End rituals, like dressing the cables, finding the right position in your rack (most often the hum is gone if you hold the SUT in your hand, were no rack shelf is in existence;-)) are forgotten…Just find a place were you have enough height in your audio furniture, because the thing is big – really big!

With the “Monster Can” Michael Ulbrich also gave us the possibility to terminate our cartridge with resistor plugs. Between the input and output section you will find one extra RCA terminal per channel to plug in those resistor equipped RCA connectors. The built quality is outstanding – and the attention to detail second to none. The “Monser Can” comes with very smooth rubber feet – so any isolation platform is obsolete – and those feet hold the heavy thing securely in its place. All terminals are of the finest quality as is the built finish of the whole enclosure.

Sound-wise this thing is close to a wire with gain – do not expect an overly warm and coloured SUT sound – the Consolidated Audio device is very, very transparent – maybe the most spectacular aspect is the pureness of the mid frequencies as well as the unlimited bass fundament which it is able to produce. There is a complete absence of any harshness or artefacts – just music. Well done Micha Ulbrich, WELL DONE!!

If you pair the “Monster Can” with a low capacitance cable between the SUT and the input of your phono MM section, you are in for a treat. The Lyra Phonopipe does an impressive job in this regard, and the Etna SL begins to breathe. The string tone is spookily realistic, creating a 3D impression of the musical performance. Listen to a well recorded piano and you might think the damn thing is standing in your room – amazing!  If someone would have told us 15 years ago, that such mega performing carts, step up devices and tonearms would be available…..

It is very interesting what a huge step some of the cartridge manufacturers are meanwhile able to muster. The biggest downside is a very steep price tag such beauties have in our days – the race towards the € 20.000 is on – and we will see if this limit will be reached this or the next year. That is one of the biggest problems in the serious music reproduction industry – because young people, listening to music via their mobile phone and a docking station will be shocked if they enter a HiFi shop today and become aware of the sometimes completely over the top price tags. Lyra created one big exception from this course – they brought the Delos onto the market, the fist cart in the line up with the new specific damper technology. The Delos is also not cheap, but what J. Carr developed for €1300 is amazing! – In other words – it needs a very, very fine record player and tonearm to unleash what the Delos has to offer. And the price tag – a hint for all the crazy “what´s best” guys….the price tag says nothing about the quality of this awesome cart. If J. Carr would double the price – it would still punch above his weight.

Happy listening

 

E Strauss

 

 

If there is anything I would call the best phonographic cartridge…..

it would be the Lyra Atlas SL!

Normally it is very difficult to speak about “the best” in terms of audio equipment – because “the best” is most often system dependent and also personal preferences are a big deal in ranking such devices. But nevertheless, in this special case I would establish “the best” and here are the reasons why:

Construction:

Jonathan Carr of Lyra is one of those rare cartridge developers, who raised the bar with every new generation of high end pick up systems his company brought to the High End market. May it be the legendary Lyra Parnassus, the Lyra Titan i or today the Atlas, all these cartridges refined the performance of analogue sound reproduction tremendously. Jonathan seems to be one of those exeptional people in the audio industry, who are not satisfied with what is possible today and he is also able to think in a more radical way than others in terms of technological development. The new Lyra Atlas SL has a bunch of technical specials which are not seen in any other cartridge.

Lets start with the enclosure Carr designed for the Atlas – he used a single billet of titanium and milled it in a way, that there will be no parallel or symmetric surfaces or structures anymore. The reason for this radical design approach is to reduce any resonances a cartridge body is prone to. Think about the fact, that just a very small percentage of mechanical energy a cartridge tracks, is converted into electrical energy which we can use with our phono stages and step up transformers. A cartridge is a very inefficient transducer. The major part of the sampled energy a cart gets from the record grooves is mechanical energy which resonates in the cartridge body itself and has to be directed in the most immediate way away from the stylus tip. If that is not implemented in the construction, those energy portions will interact with the tracking process itself, and we will hear a smeared sound, a sound with phase anomalies and distortion. Carr addressed both problems in his Atlas cartridge – he constructed the cartridge body in the bespoke new unsymmetric way, to avoid standing waves and resonances, and he developed a very efficient path to enable the implied mechanical energy to travel directly into the tonearm tube. To reach the latter, he uses a knife edge system in which the whole motor assembly is press fitted to the cartridge body, and to make the energy path even more efficient he constructed the most rigid contact principle in which a cart can be mounted to a headshell system of our tonearms. The Atlas SL gets in contact with the latter with a small surface area at the top of the cart, which is milled out of the solid titan billet used for the cart’s body. So the specific surface pressure is raised by a large margin with a given torque applied to the mounting bolds. Think of putting your hand under your girlfriends or wife’s feet, if she wears sneakers as opposed to high heels….it would make a tremendous difference…..you get it now ;-)))

The material titan is also part of the whole idea behind this cartridge, because titan is a lightweight but ultra dense and hard material. It is very capable of transmitting energy, and if it is used as Carr did with his Atlas cartridge – just one piece with all complex structures and form factors implied – you will get the most rigid construction with an amazing firmness to weight ratio.

But Carr does not stop here….he implied a unique damper technology into the new generation of Lyra cartridges. The idea behind this unsymmetric damper technology is based on the precise observation of the coil placement in the magnetic field if we put vertical tracking force on the cartridge. Normally the coils will be deflected with vertical tracking force applied to the cartridge – so the angle between the coils and the magnet structure is not 0° anymore – we will loose efficiency and will gain phase anomalies. This is one of the reasons why cartridge manufacturers give us a certain maximum amount of VTF (vertical tracking force) – because of exactly this deflection angle.  In a traditional constructed cartridge we have to find the best compromise between tracking performance and vertical needle deflection – read magnet to coil angle. With the unsymmetrical damper the angle between the coils and the magnet structure is widened if the cart is lifted above the record – it looks weird if you see such a design for the fist time, because the needle looks in a way broken…..but it is not of course. If you put the needle slowly onto the record surface and observe this action with a magnifier you will realise that the needle together with the coils will be placed perfectly aligned if the correct amount of VTF is applied. Therefor the VTF “window” Lyra recommends is extremely narrow – so a good digital stylus gauge is a must have. And please measure the VTF at exactly the same height as the record surface will be. Dependent of the arm construction, you might face a huge difference if you put the stylus gauge just on top of your platter – or level it precisely beneath the platter at the exact same height as the record surface would be. As Lyra states in their technical specs of the Atlas, a VTF range of 1,65 – 1,75g with an optimum of 1,72g VTF  is recommended  –  you get an idea of the kind of precision we have to gain here! As the cartridge’s resolution is so unbelievably high, you will detect sound differences of every 0,2g more or less – so take your time and you will be rewarded with a perfect tracking performance and an amazingly balanced sound reproduction.

The  electrical “motor” of this high tech figment is also worth being explained, which brings me to the special magnet technology Jonathan Carr uses in the Lyra range since the Helikon / Titan I generation. In a more traditional cartridge we will find a magnet bar with a yoke system to distribute the magnetic field close to the coils. With this technology there is a certain amount of magnetic energy lost, because the magnetism must be transported via a yoke system. Lyra does that in a radically different way – they use ring magnets, which are positioned directly in front and at the back of the coils – it is a complete yokeless construction with a dramatical increase of efficiency. And of course the used magnets are the strongest neodynium types available today. Carr also modified the coil structure of the Atlas and also the Etna cartridge. Instead of a square piece of core which the coils are wound upon (soft iron), he uses a cross structure core. With the cross structure he gains channel separation better known as crosstalk between the two stereo channels. Carr uses 6n pure copper for the coils – as far as I know Lyra never chose silver – neither in their highly recommended cables (Lyra Phonopipe) nor in their cartridge designs. This fits my needs perfectly, because my amplifiers, preamps, phono stages and step up transformers are also built with highly pure copper implied, and I am not a big fan of mixing up different materials with electrical conductors trough out my system.

The needle Carr uses with the construction of the Lyra Atlas is made to his specific specs by the Japanese manufacturer Ogura. The term specific means a boron cantilever is coated with a very, very thin diamond surface. With this technology Carr achieves a material which is nearly as hard as a solid diamond needle that for example Koetsu offers to their customers as a special upgrade. But in comparison to a solid diamond cantilever the composite material chosen by Lyra offers less mass and a minimum of elasticity which reduces the danger of breaking the expensive thing. The cut of the stylus is a refined version of the line contact stylus shape, which is modified in a way that it builds a “long foot” shape which offers an exceptionally quiet tracking performance and a fantastic contact to the grooves – in other words, the Atlas tracks like very few other cartridges do, and it does it very, very quietly. Last but not least Jonathan Carr avoids any conductive material near the coil assembly to avoid stray fields and electrical interaction between his magnet / coils structure and parts that are not involved in the process of transferring mechanical into electrical energy. This is the reason why you will see a lot of specially made non conductive plastic materials used in the whole construction. It all starts with the green enclosure, in which the front ring magnet is housed and ends with the mounting plate, in which the rhodium plated contact pins are fitted.

Entering the SL….

The standard Atlas version has an electrical output of 0,56mV combined with an internal impedance of 4.3Ohm. Since recently you can also order the Atlas in a special SL version – that stands for single layer, which addresses the amount of windings used on the coils of the cart. The Atlas standard has a dual layer coil structure were the SL uses just one layer of copper windings. This results in a serious reduction of electrical output (0,25mV) together with 1,52 Ohm internal impedance – and of course in a halved moved mass figure. Other than a standard Atlas cartridge which can be used with nearly any active phono stage, the SL version needs a very very quiet specimen – which is not easily achievable with a tubed RIAA stage – and also not an easy task if transistor technology is implied. So the Atlas SL is predestined to be used with a step up device in front of a high performance moving magnet phono stage. And as you can see in the technical specs I described above – we can use the same SUT, which fits an Ortofon SPU…..opposingly a standard Atlas likes to be mated with a 1:15 or maximum 1:20 step up transformer. A different, more exotic way to amplify such an ultra low output cart with its extremely low internal resistance is a phono stage that does not amplify voltage, instead the unit works as a current amplifier. Such devices work extremely well with low impedance carts, because Ohm’s law will tell you, that such cartridges are bad voltage suppliers – but good ones, if current is needed. My Air Tight ATE 2005 phono stage uses a current amplifier made with a Class A transistor topology as a head amp in front of the full tubed moving magnet RIAA stage – so I have two variants of amplification principles at my disposal.

Mounting and compatibility:

A cartridge which is cultured around the idea of the fastest and most rigid mechanical energy transfer needs a tonearm that can handle all of this. At this point the tonearm – market is divided in different classes. We will find tonearms like the famous SME V, that represent a category in which the manufacturer uses an arm tube of a very rigid construction (one piece magnesium tube), but with less ability to absorb energy – instead the initiated energy will be reflected – something which counters the design principles of Lyra’s Jonathan Carr, who did everything to avoid exactly this scenario. The SME series V needs a cartridge mounted under its headshell system, which does help the arm with energy absorption – a Shelter Accord comes to mind, which uses 5 layers of carbon for the contact area between cartridge and the headshell system.  The SME V combined with a transducer like the Lyra Atlas will sound smeared with a treble section that is overly analytic, abrassive and nervous – the bass performance seems to be impressive at first glance – but if you analyse it more carefully, you will detect a lot of coloration and also some amount of distortion. This very famous tonearm was designed at the end of the eighties, it was designed with completely different cartridges in mind than a Lyra moving coil will represent now – so use these arms with what they are designed for. A SME series V combined with a Van den Hul Frog is a good match – to name just one example…..

Another tonearm class might be able to handle the tremendous mechanical energy the Atlas cartridge sends into the armtube – but the bearings are not up to that task. Every little bearing shatter will now face a rigid transmission line to the needle (no armtube can dampen such a kind of energy) – and also vice versa. You will hear a thin, harsh and overly nervous sound reproduction.

You already got it – the kind of Formula 1 cart the Atlas is will expect a tonearm, which is constructed around Lyra’s core design principles. And as you also might expect – there are some designers on the market, who use Lyra carts to construct their equipment (amongst others), Alan Perkins of Spiral Groove / Immedia comes to mind, Frank Schröder, Bob Graham and Willi Bauer of Bauer Audio to name just a few! As you already know – I am a big fan of the Frank Schröder designs – and the Lyra Atlas allows me to explain one more time why this is the case…

Frank uses special treated wooden armtubes – natural wood is a chaotic structured material which is nearly impossible to recreate using synthetic materials. God “constructed” wood with such a complex structure, from the molecular composition to its macro formation formed over millions of years, it is  a hard to beat material in terms of damping and energy absorption. But it has also a lot of disadvantages a designer must address. Wood reacts to climate changes, humid conditions, and wood has in its natural form a specific sound. Frank Schröder is surely the father of wooden tonearms which are prepared in such a way, that external conditions do not affect the material itself anymore – and at least as important – those armtubes lost their specific sound completely.  A very time and labour intensive treatment with different liquids like solvent, oils and coatings are used to fill up the kapillar structure of the wood. The different wood types Frank offers to his customers are justified to reach a specific effective mass. They are not meant to be musical instruments or tone controls, but the choice of certain wood types will let him build a tonearm with a specific effective mass without changing the basic material and its fantastic attributes. And of course – there is also the option, if more than one type of wood will fit the needs, that a customer can also change the look of his tonearm, which gives these arms a huge variation of different appearances. As every single arm is completely handmade by Frank himself and his trained hands – you will get a unique product. Frank’s legendary magnetic bearing tonearm will also imply other design aspects, which are very important if you think about a cartridge design like the Lyra carts. The magnetic bearing is completely free of any stiction, shatter and resistance – it is a bearing which is ingenious in its simplicity and execution. As Frank will offset the two magnets implied in this construction, there will be the possibility to dampen the  arm with the implementation of eddy current. The amount of damping can be widely adjusted by changing the size of the gap between those two magnets, which gives the user a tremendous flexibility, regarding the precise match of the tonearm, and a specific cartridge in terms of damping mechanical energy. In simpler words – these Schröder tonearms are a match made in heaven with the Lyra cartridge construction described above. Recently Frank has developed a new type of headshell plate that is made of a certain aluminium “foam”, which works as an energy barrier without applying any energy reflection. These headshell plates can increase the ability of his tonearms to deal with even more implied mechanical energy.

To give you an idea about perfect energy transmission of a certain vinyl system – shut down your amplifier – put the needle down on the record surface and reduce the distance between the toneram and your ears….. do you hear some music??? We call that phenomen “needle talk” – an unmistakeable sign of energy which excites the tonearm and its mounting surface by the needle tracking the groove. The lower this “needle talk” phenomenon is, the better the amplified performance will be. If you get excited about what you will hear without any amplification and your toe is tapping with the groove of the unamplified music –  you should seriously rethink your cartridge – tonearm combination….

Adjustments:

Such precise and in a certain form unforgiving carts like the Atlas SL need a lot of attention to detail while mounting and adjusting them into the tonearm. As the Atlas features a very sharp stylus cut – it tolerates no mistakes regarding proper geometrical allignment. A good template must be used, extra diligence will be necessary in adjusting the zenith of the geometry – small mistakes are not accepted by the stylus cut Lyra uses in its top class of cartridges. If you will detect, after some hours of playing time, that your brand new Atlas cartridge will collect a strange geryish dust around the cantilever and the white Japanese Washi paper which protects the whole motor assembly, you should re-check your alignment, because the dirt is vinyl dust – and you start to degenerate the quality of your records – as well as the cart itself.

The VTF was set at 1,74g, wich gave me the best tracking performance with a profund bass, with no compromised performance in the treble and air spectrum and also the micro dynamic skills the cart has to offer. The VTA was set level to the record surface with a 180g pressing, and was adjusted accordingly, if thinner records were used – normally I am not a VTA maniac – but the Atlas reacts very sensitive to this parameter. The Cartridge was mounted in my Schröder Reference SQ and also in the Schröder CB tonearm with usage of the standard Certal headshell plate and the newly developed aluminium “foam” plate. For amplification I used the Air Tight ATC1 HQ full function preamp with a MM gain of 43db and an Air Tight ATH2A step up transformer, which was set to its 1:30 ratio with results in 29db of gain, while the cartridge “sees” 52Ohm. The ATH2A uses Hashimoto HRX step up devices internally, which were a fantastic match with the Atlas SL cartridge. To compare the performance with and without a step up transformer, I also used my Air Tight ATE 2005 phono stage, with its current amplifying class A transistor head amp, that offered me 30db of tubed mm gain and 34db from the head amp system itself!

The SUT installation gave me a total gain of 72db while the active MC preamp of the ATE 2005 phono stage offered a total amount of 63db gain, which is on the low side of the scale, if a cartridge of less than 0,3mV is used. As the ATE 2005 is a very, very silent hybrid design, it was nevertheless a fantastic performance, that was slightly different than the sound of the SUT – MM combination.

The use of the new aluminium “foam” headshell plate of the Schröder tonearms raised the total performance in terms of stability of the reproduced stage and created a top end completely free of any grain or harsh artifacts – amazing!

If you use such a headshell plate together with Frank’s magnet bearing tonearms, you are able to raise the gap between the magnets a little bit more – without any sign of underdamping – which results in a more open performance with a tremendous quality of transient reproduction and tonal pureness!

The Sound:

What struck me most in the first instance was the quietness in which the Lyra Atlas SL tracks the grooves. There is – a clean record provided – nearly no noise from the tracking process itself – the only thing you will hear is the tape hiss of strictly analogue recorded music without any noise reduction system like Dolby A or SR (recordings made before the mid seventies). The next thing that blows your mind is the tremendous, really shocking ability of this cart to start and stop with the flow of the music. This thing is so amazingly fast that my brain was often too slow ;-))) – It is as if someone connects you directly to the musical performance – a sort of direct to brain technology. And this is exactly what we will have if we listen to live music. There is no delay in reaction if you do not sit miles away from the sound source – the Atlas SL will place you in the first to third row of a concert hall. The rhythmic precision makes me speechless. drum attacks, piano, orchestra percussion, bass attacks and slaps – ohhhh….it is so unbelievably real, that it feels spooky in a certain way. The difference between the SL and normal carts from Lyra is profound. A standard Lyra lets the attack explode in front of you and is always better at the rendition of the leading edge than it is with the sustain of a tone – it excites you with a pure and tremendously precise rhythmical Gestalt of the music, but it suffers a little bit in showing the beauty of the tone itself. The SL version can deliver both – transients do not explode in such a dramatic and of course also very exciting way – they will be delivered softer in a very special manner. To understand that – let me give you an example. Imagine you are trying to cut your finger with a scalpel – you have to use a certain amount of pressure to make the blade split up your skin. The sharper the knive is – the less pressure is needed. Now lets change a very sharp scalpel to a device the biologist uses for microscopic preparation – a special tool called “Ultra Microtom” – this thing is able to split a sleeve of paper into 400 slices…..!!!! – And in such an “Ultra Microtome” way the Atlas SL shows us the attack – there is no pressure needed anymore – the performance comes as natural as breathing. It is so fast – even faster than the standard Atlas – that our ear does not get a form of energy conglomeration while reproducing an attack – there is no further energy needed – so the explosive character changes. And with that the balance of the reproduced sound changes too – because now attack and release have a tremendously natural relationship. The excitement while listening to such a very, very rare sort of performance with a cartridge results from the comparison to the real thing:

Our memory tells us what is real and what is a reproduction of reality – it does this with pictures, and also with sound. With the Atlas SL your special excitement comes from the fact that your memory is so loaded with all the extremely complex information collected during your whole life on how reality sounds in comparison to a reproduction, that your brain cannot devide between those memories and what you are hearing here and now.

I mean – this is really a glaring finding. A cartridge which is able  to fool our memory full of experiences of the real thing in terms of reproduction of attack and release of recorded tones, so much so that we cannot differentiate anymore – wether we are hearing a real performance or a recorded one (a good recording is of course mandatory) – this is a gift we have to send a BIG THANK YOU to Jonathan Carr and the whole Lyra team!!!

The Atlas SL does not stop to impress me with its performance of attack and release or sustain of music – there is much more – MUCH MORE!!!!

The cartridge gives us a sort of unforced resolution that is astonishing. You can differentiate the violins from the violas and those are perfectly seperated from the celli – a sort of phenomenon you can only have in very good concert halls like the Berliner Philharmonie, if you sit close to the sweet spot of the orchestra. You can follow the musical performance with the score placed on your knees and listen while reading the accolades, enjoying a spectacular ride through the micro-structures of a composition. But you can also relax, sit back and listen to the whole beauty of the music – the cart enables you to zoom in and out whenever you like – an educated way of listening is not necessary – it can be done by everyone! It is a sort of resolution that frees up our brains while listening – less work has to be done by your brain to correct things you hear, which do not fit in your tonal memory. The space around the different instruments and instrument sections, the kind of resolution between a note and silence is spooky. You can get deep enjoyment while listening to the most complex music – because it is not a dense wall of sound anymore, it is an organised and perfectly arranged composition – there is not the slightest sign of compression or stress in such passages – the Atlas SL sails through the most demanding passages with an ease and gracefulness it is hard to describe. The pin point accuracy is even more spectacular – the instruments of an orchestra, the vocalist and even synthetic instruments are placed, if the sound engineer does not change his panorama position, as if they are nailed on their position. The phase coherency is outstanding, which makes the whole Gestalt of the music so real and great!

To give you a picture for a better understanding – which brings me to the title of this essay – the Lyra Atlas SL behaves like a Shaolin fighter. Complete mental strength, absolute precision and discipline together with a tremendous speed of motion and power our eyes (read ears) can hardly follow – combined with a graceful Gestalt – that is what the Atlas SL is all about. The cart sacrifices its character to support what it is made for – to bring music to life! This is an exceptional gesture which divides the absolute top class of cartridges from the lesser ones – and the Atlas SL stands out even at the zenith of what is possible with a needle tracking a record groove today!

It is obvious that the Lyra has a very balanced performance in terms of frequency reproduction. The very, very important mid band is as liquid and neutral as it can be. There is not the slightest coloration detectable – well done!!!!

The bass performance waived every little touch of being more impressive than it is captured in the microgrooves of our records. No slight low mid or upper bass bump, no deep bass augmentation – nothing. Instead of this, the extension in the bass spectrum is without any limits – the bass itself is ultra fast and articulated – the tonal substance is frightening and – yes I know it is boring – it sounds sooooo REAL!

Presence and treble both need some explanation – gone are the times were a Lyra top performance cart was a little bit over the top in the higher and highest frequency range – now we face a neutral tuning of the presence and treble region, which is not muted or damped or rolled off. The modern Lyra carts get their treble excitement from dynamic resolution and the ability to render a tonal substance even at those frequency-extremes. A cymbal is never an acoustic event like white noise, instead of that you get a very, very fine detailed picture of what and how the drummer is playing on his ride cymbal – frighteningly REAL.

Step up transformer or active gain stage??

With the use of a step up transformer the Atlas SL gains a little bit more a holistic expression, the treble and air range is more integrated as is the midrange, which is also perfectly linked up to the presence and treble section of the spectrum. The whole picture is a tiny, tiny little bit warmed up. The ability to render recorded space is astonishing and there is not much on the market that could do this better – than a good transformer combined with an Atlas SL. The expanded rendering of the acoustics of an orchestra hall is done in a style that you close your eyes – and there seem to be no walls in your room anymore. Sometimes little details come from angles were no speaker is placed, and you get goosebumps…. It is also possible, that you think someone entered your room or flat – more than once I dropped the volume and asked my wife if she is back from work – but there was no answer – and I was alone with my Lyra Atlas and my record… Small details are rendered in such a realistic way that your brain is often not able to realize if it is coming from your record or if it is generated in your room by someone else – spooky – but GREAT!

When I use the active head amp of my ATE 2005 phono stage the picture gets a little bit different. Now the Atlas SL shows a more neutral character with some more sparkle on top and maybe also a little bit better dynamic range, especially in the deepest bass regions – but less good micro dynamic Gestalt. The big swings are reproduced in a more spectacular way, just like the pinpoint accuracy and the space between the instruments. But the ATE 2005 lacks slightly the holistic performance of the step up transformer. The performance is more savoured in an intellectual way, while the step up transformer will give you a little bit more the heart and soul of the musical performance.
With Singer Songwriter and Classical music – as also Jazz I would prefer the combination with a step up transformer – if you listen to Electro, like Kraftwerk, Trentemöller or James Blake, the ATE 2005 will be my phono preamp of choice, the more accurate and slightly shinier performance fits the needs of such music perfectly as does the spectacular bass performance.

Some people could miss the analogue warmth in the presentation of the Lyra Atlas – its neutral Gestalt and the ability to disappear as a transducer might not fit the bill off everyone. It is not the analogue sound you might know or adore, it is something new, something really outstanding, that we have to get used to. The Atlas SL is not fighting against other cartridges anymore – it defines a new chapter in analogue reproduction, which can compete with any new media, be it high resolution digital streaming machines or the last development in sound reproduction technology itself. It is not about being the best cartridge in the world it is about making a statement in terms of music reproduction in general. It is as close to the mastertape as I have ever heard it from a cartridge!

If you want to have more analogue Gestalt, more sexy midband performance, maybe more texture in this frequency region, and if you miss some of the so exciting punchy bass hits – than Lyra has also something for you. No – I do not mean the Lyra Olympos, which starts a whole new chapter with Lyra transducers, and is for a large group of Lyra fans the best cart they ever brought to the market till today (if you could get your hands on a donor Parnassus and its platinum magnets). Jonathan Carr realised the euphoric reaction to the Olympos – and he apparently knows how to dial in some different sound aesthetics in his products (an ability I admire!!!) – so he finished his 5th Generation of Lyra transducers with the successor of the famous Lyra Titan, which is named after the legendary Sicilian volcano Etna! – I think you already got it….I mean if Carr is using this name for a cartridge – it might give us an idea, what he had in mind….and the best news for us Lyra devotees – also the Etna is brought out in a single layer version – the Etna SL.

But that is another story for another day…..

 

Stay tuned

 

E. Strauss

 

 

 

The forgotten tube

If we analyse the HiFi market today, searching for an amplifier witch is constructed around the 6L6 GC penthode, we have to face the fact that there is near to nothing on offer. In the opinion of many HiFi and High End enthusiasts this tube is made for musicians and their guitar amplifiers – not good enough for serious listening purposes.

This is completely wrong!

Some of the most respected Mcintosh tube amplifiers used the 6L6 GC, the amazing Mc30 monoblocks come to mind or the Mc240 stereo amplifier. The 6L6 GC has one great advantage compared to KT66 or KT88 as also EL 34, you can get new old stock quality without searching for months and spending crazy sums. The supply will vanish in the next couple of years but here and now there is still a great chance to get a matched quad of nice vintage 6L6 GC tubes.

The 6L6 has a very long history till it reached its last incarnation the GC variant, which is the most powerful example of them all. The tube was originally made for military applications and for that reason it is a very robust kind of a tube, the construction had to withstand a lot more when used in applications of the US Air Force, as we would ever could think of in our music reproduction systems. There is a good chance that a vintage set of well matched 6L6 GC (NOS) will work for many, many years of regular use in your power amplifier without the need to be replaced.
Something modern tubes from China or Russia can only dream of.

The Air Tight ATM4:

But all that is worthless if you won´t find a good amplifier to put the fine glass into it. One of the rare examples of exceptional modern built tube amplifiers constructed arround the famous 6L6 GC or one of their equivalent the 5881 will be the Air Tight ATM4 manufactured by the small Japanese company A&M Ltd. The founder of this company Atsushi Miura was born into the audio industry, because his father, who begun to wound transformers for the Japanese audio industry back in the 30ties of the last century, became the head of the Luxman Cooperation, a brand name well respected in the history of HiFi or High End. Under his fathers guidance, Miura made his way through the company and ended up as an audio designer, who was responsible for some of the most famous tube amps this company had to offer. Miura learned the “art of audio” from the ground up, and took over the reins at Luxman. In the 80ties the company was sold to the Alpine cooperation with now biasing towards the more commercial aspects of that industry, something which Miura san was not intended to tolerate, so he left Luxman and founded his own brand, A&M LTD, with the brand Air Tight and Acoustic Masterpiece.

A living legend:

Miura san is one of the last living legends in the famous Japanese tube scene today, which had to suffer so many losses in the last couple of years, the passing of Kondo San as also Shindo San comes to mind. Very sad news for those of us, who want to enjoy a classic tube amplifier with that typical Japanese attention to detail and therefor a sound characteristic, which is hard to describe. Those amplifiers are maybe not the last word in neutral music reproduction, but they can deliver a sound which becomes a sort of hyper realistic picture of real music played by real musicians. Very often you can forget with these amplifiers from Kondo, Shindo or Miura San (Air Tight), that you are listening to your HiFi setup, and not to a real performance. They share all in a different way the same goal – you should relax and you should be able to take the musical performance reproduced from a vinyl record or CD for something real. To reach such a goal, there are some tricks, these old Japanese masters put into their “music machines”.
It could be a very common practice, that such an amplifier will bei the last one in your live – forgotten is all the technical stuff, all the technical reference data delivered by the most famous High End companies today – instead you get something very seldom found in the enthusiastic HiFi scene – you get satisfaction.
No “upgraditis” anymore – you relax and you start to enjoy music – instead of that typical self-questioning – is there maybe too less air around the cymbals ? – could the singer maybe need some more sparcle at the top end? – is the bass dry enough – and is it deep an powerful enough?….all that comes to a sudden end and you will listen to music.

The ATM4 form Air Tight will remind you from its outward look to some designs made in the 60ties (last century), the Marantz 9 monoblocks comes to mind. It is an amplifier with no exposed tupes, which could be a good thing if you have pets or little children…..

A very classic no nonsense design which takes his beauty out of a puristic “form follows function” appearance.
The front plate is dominated by a round bias meter (a quote from the Marantz 9), which shows the bias (DC) balance between the two pairs of output tubes. Under a screwed-in plate you will find the corresponding bias – balance potentiometers. In normal use this potentiometers are covered by the bespoke aluminium plate with the engraved manufacturers name. Left of this plate we will find an input switch, the ATM4 comes as most of the Air Tight amplifiers with two sets of line input terminals. If you just want to use two sources with these amplifiers, they could be used as a very puristic integrated amplifier. On the right hand side of this input switch we will detect two input gain potentiometers. Use them to adjust the power amplifier in terms of gain, to match the characteristic of your preamplifier – and you are also able to use this feature to match the whole amplification system to a cartridge with very high output (EMT JSD series) or just the opposite – a cart with extremely low output (AN IO for example).
The potentiometers are hand selected Alps Japan Blue Valvet potis, which are high quality parts – so there is no need to get rid of them, they are acoustically invisible, a precise gain matching feature ist worth to keep them in the signal flow!!! The second pair of input jacks could be also used together with a CD player or DA converter with adjustable volume on board. In such a case, you can skip the line preamplifier and connect the digital device directly to the power amplifier.

On the right side of the amplifier we will find the bias switch, which is used to select the two pairs of tubes displayed on the bias meter. And of course there is also an on and off switch.
The rear panel is fitted with 2 pairs of RCA input jacks, and 2 speaker terminals with the possibility to configure two impedance settings. The factory standard is a 4 and 8 Ohm tap, which could be also configured internal to 8 and 16 Ohm. Last but not least we will find the IEC power socket for a dedicated power outlet cable.

Tube rolling:

If we unscrew the top cover of that amplifier, we will see a special feature – the Air Tight ATM4 is able to be comfigured as a monoblock amp (we will need two of them in this case) or in stereo operation mode. For the Mono conversion we have a toggle switch together with a switching knob both lettered with Mono or Stereo – keep in mind – usage of these switches wil presume to shut down the amplifier first.

In Mono operation mode the output power is doubled, so the ATM4 is able to handle even more complex loads.
The tubes implied under the top cover are:
4X 6L6 GC or 5881
2X 6CG7
1X 12AT7 /ECC81

It is a classic Mullard design layout were the splitter tubes (6CG7) are also used in the driver stage.
The one and only line level gain stage is accomplished by a single 12AT7 double triode, which gives us an input sensitivity of 1,5V, that means you need 1,5V to modulate the amp to its maximum output power, which reaches its maximum at 2X 24W in Stereo Mode or 2X 48W in Mono operation.
If we compare this figure with the famous Mcintosh MC40 amplifier, we have to consider, that the MAC has a maximum output power of nearly 2X 40 watts with the same output tube compartment.
Miura San opted with his design for a higher damping factor to handle more complex loads, for that purpose he used no global feedback but a good amount of local feedback implied into the ATM4 amplifier which results in  a very good “drivability”.
In other words – the ATM4 ist designed with electrostatic speakers in mind, like the Quad ESL 57 or the ESL 63 for example.
The ESL 57 needs just around 15 – 20 Watts to reach its maximum sound-pressure level – but it is everything else than an easy load.
Please read my article about the Quad ESL 57 Quad ESL57, for the closest approach to the original sound. Part 1 you will get much more information about that topic.
One of the most asked questions regarding the famous british electrostatics would be the question, “which amp is able to drive them whith ease an precision?” – the ATM4 will be one possible answer to that question.
And it is a much, much better choice as the original Quad II monoblocks designed together with the ESL 57.

Signal flow and design:

With the 6L6 GC we will face two very famous specimen of this famous output tube, the RCA 6L6 GC Black Plates and the General Electric 6L6 GC Grey Plates, double side getter.
Both are very good choices to get one of the finest 6L6GC ever made.
If we listen to the basic sound of the Air Tight, which is very, very transparent and open, I would give the General Electric 6L6 a slight advantage in terms of smoothness and a grain free treble.
The RCA variant is much more “zippy” on top, which does not correspond as good as the GE6L6 to the basic sound of the ATM4.
One of the reasons for that openess and transparency might be the legendary output transformers from the Japanese manufacturer Tamura.
Those output trannies are one of the finest options available today – and are broadly used in the Air Tight portfolio. Another amazing power tube option could  be also  the Tung Sol 5881 – the tube might look small from its appearance – but the sound is  big and bolt with a smooth sparkle on top, which Tung Sol also implied in its very famous 6550 black plates.
With the splitter /driver stage, we have to find a tube, which has an equally good performance in both stages.
There are two very good options for this tube position – one option will be the RCA 6CG7 clear top, and the other one is the Sylvania 6CG7 metal shield grey plates. The RCA clear top gives us a more sophisticated treble, there is more resolution in this frequency range and a very good ability to render recorded space. If you choose the GE 6L6 GC output tubes this will be a fantastic match. If you choose the RCA Black Plates 6L6 GC the Sylvania 6CG7 might be the better option.
The last tube we haven´t spoken about till now is the 12AT7, which represents the input gain section. This is not such an easy task as it seems to be. To get the most out of this tube position, I have to give some more detailed descriptions about this tube and the problem to find one, which fits our needs in this amplifier.

If you think about the 12AT7 you can basically divide the whole bunch of them in two sections. One category is more suitable if the 12AT7 will be used as a driver stage, such design we will find in new Mcintosh amplifiers like the MC 275 MK IV – VI.
Mcintosh skipped the utilisation of the 12BH7 which was originally used in the old vintage MC 275 as a driver tube for the KT88 and replaced it with 12AT7 in this stage.
12AT7 tubes which are very good at this specific task are the US made types such as RCA 12AT7 black plates, Sylvania gold brand black blates or Tung Sol 12AT7 black plates.
If you use one of them in an input stage of your amplifier or preamplifier, you are in for a big surprise – gone is the ability to render a wide soundstage or the ability to place sound sources in front of the speakers or behind them. The whole spatial performance will be negatively affected.
Also the treble performance and the resoulution are very restricted – in one word – it sounds bad – really bad! – But if you use one of those famous US tubes in a driver stage, it is an amzingly good choice – maybe one of the best you can get. This is one good example for the importance to know which job in a given circuit a specific tube has to do and  why the opinions about the quality of such a tube differ so much.
One person tells you a black plates RCA 12AT7 is heaven on earth – and the next calls it crap…..
This makes us aware, that we alway have to tell the people in which part of the signal chain in an amplifier we listen to a specific tube – because the conditions in different stages of an amplifier are very specific – and the same tube could be bad in one stage and shines in another.
With the Air Tight ATM4 we can nearly skip any US 12AT7 the only exception is the Sylvania gold brand, black plates 12AT7 which is a good performer.
If we dig deeper, we face now the whole European ECC81 elite at our disposal.
But it is also not an easy task to get the right tone out of these ECC81 –  at the end it is one of the most complicated tubes to roll.

Mullard had just one very good ECC81 it is portfolio –  the very old dark grey (nearly black) plates design with 3 round side holes (plate construction) made between 1955 – 1958 – and those are rarely seen today in the used market. And this Mullard ECC81 might be very good – but its sound is too polite in the treble area to work well in our Air Tight ATM4.
The exact opposite direction will be adopted by the Siemens Halske E81CC double getter support, triple mica – this is one of the most analytic ECC81 and also one of the most dynamic tubes in its class….
But – you guess it already – it is too much for what an Air Tight ATM4 might need!
There are some rare variants which can sound outstanding but in spite of hunderets of different well made ECC81 just a few options are really outstanding with this amplifier.Lets start with the cream of the crop….this might be an expensive option, and it is also a very, very rare tube – but the Valvo Hamburg made 6201 blue print, gold pin, pinch waist is a hell of an ECC81 tube!!!
Maybe this is the best or one of the best ECC81 I ever listened in an input or gain stage of an amplifier or preamplifier.
It has it all – resolution, dynamic, deeb and articulated bass, a very sophisticated treble without being too analytic, an amazing spatial sound and more so – unique qualities in the department of rendering micro dynamics and inner detail which is hard to beat!
But this little “super hero” is sooooo rare and sooo expensive – that I will give you also more common alternatives – but if you want the best – the Valvo will be my first choice!
The second best is also not very common – it is the same Valvo described above but without the pinch waist glass structure.
Beneath these exotic tubes it is also a fantastic idea to use a Telefunken ECC81.
If you can find the first series with the slanted O getter, it will be a very good choice, as it will be the Amperex Bugle Boy /Philips ECC81 with the large O getter.

Coming back to another output tube option – the tung Sol 5881 will be a very good alternative to the 6L6 GC from General Electric. The Tung Sol will deliver a warmer tone with a unique character in the upper midrange – I would call this characteristic somewhat a creamy presence with a colourful and complex sound character. The Tung Sol 5881 might be not as common as the 6L6 GC – but it is worth to search for it. Do not be surprised, if the appearance of this tube might differ somewhat from the picture above, this tube came with a large variation of base colours, and also the mica clips at the side changed over the years.

How does it sound??

The Air Tight ATM4 will give you with the following tube setting a sound quality, which is completely amazing:
4X General Electric 6L6 GC double side getter, grey plates
2X RCA 6CG7 clear top
1X Valvo 6201 blue print, gold pins (pinch waist) or Telefunken ECC81 slanted O getter.

It will perform in such a powerful way in spite of its apparent restricted output power of “just” 24 watts per channel, that you will be stunned.
Be it the Quad ESL 57, a pair of BBC LS3/5a or some 12 or 15″ classic Tannoy with Alnico drivers, the ATM4 will handle them all with great easy and with a sound quality normally not associated with the 6L6 GC power tube!
The sound is very controlled, slightly on the analytical side of neutral, you will never think of an overly warm and rose tinted tube amp – instead you get tremendous speed and accuracy.
The bass is immensely fast and articulated, and without the slightest emphasis on the upper bass region so many tube amplifiers could be characterised of . It is a bass performance a lot of very sophisticated transistor designs would be proud of.
In the midband there is this difficult to describe miracle happening, a kind of “being there” – sound, a floating midband, which is as natural as breathing. The treble has some seldom heard three dimensional characteristics with a very rich palette of different colours.
The resolution is mind blowing and to all that the ATM4 adds the ability to render recorded space in such a realistic way – that you might forget the existence of the walls in your listening room.

The treble performance is one of the reasons, why this amplifier is a great match with the somewhat dfensive treble performance of the Quad ESL 57.
Those stats do not like overly warm amplifiers – to get a realistic top end, you have to match the ESL 57 with an emplifier, which sounds very open and uncompressed in that area.
But if there will be the slightest glare in the high frequency spectrum, you will detect that in less than a second with these legendary speakers.
There are so many transistor amplifiers, which seem to have a tremendous resolution in the treble – but they sound harsh and awkward. The ATM4 ist one of the very rare examples, which can easily compete with the treble performance of the best class A transistor designs at the very low impedance settings the ESL 57 brings along – but shines without any hint of grain or synthetic treble performance.
In other words the Air Tight ATM4 is one of the best amplifiers I have heard till now teamed up with the Quad ESL 57 or the BBC LS3/5a!!!

Classic design:

The ATM4 is made in a very high quality fashion.
The whole casework is made out of welded steel.
The bottom of the amplifier is constructed with a thick sheet of copper – the whole enclosure is able to shield the electronic parts inside of the amplifier – the copper bottom plate has also the function to isolate the amplifier from vibrations.
The casework is extremely sophisticated – all tubes are located on top of the  main case, the whole electronic is located inside of this case, the power transformer, an EI core type, is shielded and placed beneath the output trannies on the right hand side of the tube compartment.
The whole circuit is made without any use of printed boards!!!
If you open the electronic section of the amlifier you will detect top class components selected with a certain sound in mind. The whole construction is made by hand and the quality and craftsmanship is of the highest standard – those amplifiers are not cheap, but there is a great chance, that you can pass them on to your children – a timeless piece of audio gear!

Some Tips:

Air Tight amplifiers do not like to be treated in the newest fashion of upgrades achieved with “High End” gadgets and accessories the HiFi industry has on offer.
These amplifiers do not like any isolation base or replacement of their original feet with spikes or other constructions. Put them on a stable wooden piece (solid wood is preferable) of audio furniture as companies like Box Furniture in the US or LignoLab  from Germany offer to you – and they will perform perfectly.
Miura San made the amplifiers and preamplifiers in a very special way, they bring their own damping devices with them – the heavy welded steel chassis and the special applied copper bottom plate is everything these type of gear needs.
The same could be said about the usage of tube accessories like tube dampers –  spend your money elsewhere!!
Any damping gear like HRS isolation devices for example will make the sound slow and overly ripe, the leading edge sounds compressed and the whole sound looses focus and speed.

The usage of heavily screened power cables, more so with some magical boxes in between the cable structure is a also not recommended with these classic amplifiers. Use unscreened power cables or – my tip – the traditional Belden power cords and you will receive the best performance.
Keep in mind that Miura San designs his gear with pure copper only – so keep it that way – in my experience a mixture with copper and silver as a conductor will result in  a strange behaviour of upper frequencies,  which is seldom predictable. So there might be a great chance, that the newest fashion in silver cable development will end up at selling platforms like ebay.
Keep it simple – use Belden interconnects made with pure copper, or if you want to have something special, which I highly recommend, try to get some Chris Somovigo designed cables made with a copper tube inside. Chris made in the last couple of years a confusing amount of cables branded under different names like “Stereovox”, “Stereolab” or “Black Cat”.
Not all of his designs are worth to be tested – but those with the copper tubes inside are one of the best matches, you will find for your Air Tight gear.
Beside Belden and Somovigo designs, there is also the German company Auditorium 23, which developed a range of interconnects and speaker cables, which will also sound excellent!

To make a long story short – skip power conditioners, exotic power cables, silver wired interconnects or speaker cables, forget about all the expensive and exotic damping devices and platforms – my strongest advice is: Let this type of gear as it is!
It is fully developed and it does not need any help from any HiFi accessory company!
To prove that: In the Air Tight stable there is no latest fashion. It might be no surprise, that some designs Miura developed 30 years ago, are still unchanged in the companies portfolio – something which is quite unique in the audio industry!

All classic Air Tight amplifiers are made with the 600 Ohm standard in mind. So any of these classic power-amplifiers will have an input impedance of 100 Kohm and needed to be paired with a preamplifier with 600 Ohm output impedance or less  – to get the full frequency range this gear is capable off.
For example the very, very good Hovland HP 100 preamplifier with its unusual high output impedance will be not a good match with Air Tight power amplifiers, you will get a rolled off bass performance.
A logic step would be to mate these amplifiers with their stablemates  – the also amazing Air Tight preamplifiers – but that is another story for another day….

Stay tuned

E. Strauss

 

Impressions

Sometimes one could ask if an Ultra High End System is really made for the music lover – or if it is something like a Bugatti Veyron, a car with can deliver over 1000 PS (hp), wich needs an air break to reduce its speed within an acceptable distance and it is not able to be used in a fashion it was originally designed for – because the people who have such a thing normally do not own their own race track.

If you want to drive from A to B you will get into big trouble with such a “Super Car” – you cannot park the damn thing because you have an extremely compromised round visibility, the clutch is like a digital converter – on or off – and nothing in between – and if you have the typical stop and go situation, very common with todays traffic, it will over heat.

It is the epitome of idiocy! – But all your “friends” will be jealous because they think, that you could only take up the “super sexy” blonde sitting on the passenger seat with their impressive silicone artwork under her shirt, her sprayed lips as well as the nice Botox expression  on her face with such a monster car.

But be aware – great lovers do not need big cars…..

I listened to nearly every Ultra High End (read Bugatti Veyron) installation at this Munich High End show, and to tell you the truth, it was mostly disgusting, you had to leave the room just after a minute of listening, because the played music was extremely disfigured, the whole demonstration was not longer sustainable.

It is strange, that you have to spent several € 100 000,- to be rewarded with something, which can be so bad and ugly, that you will maybe shock your neighbour or some of you best HiFi friends with just the size and weight of such systems – but you can never  show them how your super expensive purchase will sound, which is in my book the purpose of such an Ultra High End Audio System….If you do so, playing some well known tunes with those monsterous Installations, you have a good chance to be capacitated by your family, friends and maybe by yourself….

I know, that a HiFi show is never a good place to judge the sound of a component or a loudspeaker, but I can differentiate what will be a problem caused by the given room acoustic and what a completely imbalanced sound reproduction in the whole midband will sound like. I do not judge the ability to show recorded space, nor the resolution a system is capable of – and of course below 80hz there is in most cases a more or less disastrous boomy reproduction common practice. But what I judge is the frequency spectrum from 150 – 5Khz – which is not so much affected by the room acoustics – it should be a very easy task to get a balanced midband reproduction in a price range of € 100 000,- but it is far from that!

It is interesting, that the real highlights of this years Munich High End show was none of the bespoke Ultra HiFi installations, you had to dig much deeper, and the findings were mostly very small companies, or not even that – sometimes it is just ONE developer with ONE product. The scene changed in the last decade dramatically, today real development (I mean development and not bigger, heavier, more expensive) occurs not necessarily in connection with big companies, or big money, more and more a different view at the topic is originated by “underground” developers.

Sometimes I thought that I was part of a TV – show like “The Hidden Camera” and in the next second someone would tell me, “hey this was just a prank” but the bitter truth is, there was no “Prank Patrol” (kids TV show), it was damn serious.

Maybe some rare examples of “Think Different” presented by independent, little manufacturers could give us back some faith in an industry which completely missed the warning shot.

Some of my personal highlights:

One of the best Step Up Transformer of the whole show was this thing here…. from Michael Ulbrich. The name “Monster Can” is chosen a little bit bold, but if you hear the performance, you will forget about the funny naming….

One of the most impressive turntables was  the L´Art du Son Transcription Reference from Martina Schöner. This machine showed most of the other installations, which often looked like the space ship of the “Borg” from Star Trek (Brakemeier Apolyt), how awesome pitch accuracy, weight and speed as also agility and neutrality will sound like! A dream! And yes, it is very expensive, but it was in my book the only very expensive deck, which had something like a realistic price performance ratio.

One gets confused, when a broadband loudspeaker chassis from the 30ties last century was one of the highlights of the whole show – in this case the legendary (rightly so) WE 755. Truly amazing!!!

Another great example of a very good turntable setup was the Thomas Schick 12″ tonearm combined with a Garrard 301 and a Vinylista plinth.

Something most people are not aware of – the Schick 12″ with the Grafite headshell can handle a very wide range of cartridges – and not just an Ortofon SPU or DL 103 – in this case, the arm is fitted with a Van den Hul Colibri. A cartridge which is not an easy task for a tonearm, often this little “bird” can sound very forward in the treble section. With the Schick 12″ arm the sound was very balanced!

Frank Schröder showed his latest tonearm creation the “Broadcast Arm”. It is a stabilized uni pivot design with a variable effective mass (13 – 23g). Frank mated the “BA” arm with a Miyajima cartridge, and the sound was sublime. An outstanding combination!

The turntable Frank used, was a fully restored and modified Gray Research HF 500. The sound was very detailed and natural with a bold colourful midrange and a fantastic drawing up of speed accuracy and an agile renedering of the leading edge as also a superb sense of three dimensionality.

In combination with the BC arm one of the very rare decks which could deliver a sound reproduction, which was amazingly real!

The chance to listen to an original Western Electric London Horn was assuredly one of the highlights in Munich. The whole system had a slight colouration in the range of around 580 – 800hz, it was a touch too forward in this frequency spectrum, but if you once got used to it, you were in for a real treat in the dynamic compartment. Maria Callas with one of their amazing arias from Giuseppe Verdi was so intense, so real and so emotionally touching, something at this sensual level you would hardly find with any other installation at this audio fair!

It was completely amazing, to realise that in the 30ties last century the audio industry was able to create a kind of sound, which  reproduceed music in such a realistic and touching way.

Sometimes I think it can´t be tue, that with all the computer power, the modern techniques and all the “high tech” we have available today , everything we can do is delivering some real torture, we could find in most of the so called “Ultra High End” rooms.

A side aspect of such an audio fair is also the product design we have to face today – form follows function is not modern anymore – today the designers have no more ideas, and therefor we have a lot of products, which could be probs of “Star Wars” or”Alien”.  Sometimes it is embrassing and sometimes you have to lough, it is probably the same situation which we can see within the car industries design departments – I mean – do you think a Toyota Prius is really beautiful and an example of outstanding design??

This I would call a classic design…..

Silbatone amplifiers are maybe one of the best money can buy. They are manufactured with special in house wound silver foil transformers and are designed with very special and distinguished circuit principles. They use throughout the finest NOS tubes of the audio history as also very good components from suppliers like Silvercore or Dave Slagle (Intact Audio) to name just a view.

The amazing WE London Horn System…..

A very discrete “branding”….;-))) seldom seen at this show.

Stay tuned

E. Strauss

Introduction

In Part I of the SPU story I gave you an overview about the history of the Ortofon SPU and the technical aspects to use one of these classics within your stereo system. In this episode, I want to give you a specific view of one of the many different types Ortofon has to offer, the SPU Royal (N).

A kind of blue

The SPU Royal N differs in some specific design aspects from the SPU Classic and its stablemate the Classic – E (elliptical stylus). First of all, Ortofon uses with the Royal version a special stylus, which they call Replicant 100, a derivate of the common line contact stylus shape. With the implementation of such a “modern” shape Ortofon managed to reduced the moved mass of the stylus tip, because the Replicant stylus carries nearly 50% reduced mass, than its opponent used in a SPU Classic. Reducing the mass within the moving parts of a cartridge results in betters tracking performance as also the ability to follow the music in a more immediate way. The leading edge will be rendered in a much more accurate way as it will be also the case with the presentation of micro dynamic shades of our most demanding vinyl records.With reducing the moved mass of the Royal (N), Ortofon  was able to design a slightly different suspension system, wich results in a decrease of the recommended vertical tracking force from 4 – 5g to “just” 3g. The coils of this cartridge were also modified, a hybrid construction made from gold plated silver wire is used, and therefor the internal resistance of the SPU Royal changed from the 1,5 – 3 Ohm resistance of the traditional SPUs to 6 Ohm in the Royal (N). With a 6 Ohm internal resistance we do not gain any increase in output level, the Royal produces the same 0,2mV as the Classic or Classic – E would do.

Consequences

The impedance change up to 6 Ohm has some consequences in considering the use of a step up transformer (SUT). With the traditional SPU cartridges we use a 30:1 SUT  and will get, around 29db gain with such a device. The 30:1 SUT is virtually made for the Ortofon SPU range of cartridges – but those traditional SPU carts share a very low impedance of at most 3 Ohm – and only with this impedance value our SUT will deliver those 29db of gain.With the 6 Ohm Royal (N) cartridge we will face a lower gain value, because of the doubled internal resistance – the 30:1 SUT will deliver under this circumstances something about 27db (impedance mismatch) which results in a serious drop of gain. And to make the things more complicated, Ortofon recommends with the Royal (N) a load impedance of 100 Ohm instead of 50, the latter will be the optimum load for a SPU Classic.

A 30:1 SUT is not the best match with the Royal (N). If we look at the technical specs of a 20:1 SUT, we realise, that such a SUT will be a much better partner for this modernised version of an old classic. The 20:1 SUT gives us 26db and the cartridge will “see” 117 ohm load impedance which is exactly, what we need. In terms of gain, and load impedance. We achieved now a perfect match but we have to face the fact, that we still deal with a 0,2mV cartridge which will be decreased in gain about 3db in comparison with a 30:1 SUT and the SPU Classic series of cartridges.

Lets calculate that:

Example 1: SPU Classic, 2 Ohm, 0.2mV, recommended load impedance 50 Ohm 30:1 Step Up Transformer

Input:         0.2mV

Gain:           29db

Output:       5,64mV

Example 2: SPU Royal, 6 Ohm, 0.2mV, recommended load impedance 100 Ohm

20:1 Step Up Transformer

Input:         0.2mV

Gain:           26db

Output:       3.99mV

This little gain calculation clarifies different technical requirements for both types of SPU cartridges , if we want to use a cartridge like the SPU Royal N, we must have a phonostage which is able to compensate for the lower gain values we will get with a 20:1 SUT. As most of the SPU aficionados will use a tubed phono stage, you will have to verify the technical specs of such a device – everything less than 43db is not suitable for the SPU Royal (N).

Lets do some math again:

Example 1: SPU Classic, 2 Ohm, 0.2mV, recommended load impedance 50 Ohm

Output:       5,64mV

Input:         0.2mV

Gain:           29db

Output:       5,64mV

MM Gain:  43db

Total gain: 72db

Total output level:ca. 0,8 V

Example 2: SPU Royal, 6 Ohm, 0.2mV, recommended load impedance 100 Ohm

20:1 Step Up TRansformer

Input:         0.2mV

Gain:           26db

Output:       3.99mV

MM Gain:  43db

Total gain: 69db

Total output level:ca. 0,5 V

 

Both values are under 1V, which would be the gain level of a FM tuner, in comparison a CD player will deliver an output level of 2V if it is made with the Sony/Philips specs once adopted.

And in case of the Royal (N) we will get only 0,5V which is half of the output level a FM – tuner is able to deliver. Now you will understand, why a line preamplifier is indispensable teamed up with a very low output phono cartridge.

Lets assume our tube power amplifier will handle 1V at its input for delivering its maximum output power (a very common value), than the signal we will feed in our line stage is not high enough in both calculations shown above to reach the headroom of our power amplifier, the line stage has to provide additional gain to reach a value of 1V.

With todays CD players, which often produce an output level of more than 3 or 4V, our line preamplifier is degraded to be a very expensive attenuator (In a later article I will describe that subject in depth)! But everyone should understand now, what the purpose of an active line stage originally was – this thing had to give us additional gain, as it was also designed to bring input and output impedances to common values, compatible with our source devices as also our power amplifiers!

And the sound??

As we realised with using the Ortofon SPU Royal (N ) we have to meet some requirements prior of use – a 20:1 SUT and a phono stage capable of delivering a minimum of 43db of noise free gain in a moving magnet configuration.

If both requirements are met, we will get something very special….this is not only the traditional SPU sound, there is a lot more to discover. The Royal (N) will bring to the table an increased resolution as also a refined tracking performance. It has still the bolt and holistic sound we adore so much, but the cartridge is able to show you a lot more resolution as also a better understanding of the micro dynamics of the recordings. The resolution is on par with a lot of super modern constructions but lacks to end in itself. The resolution is given to you in a very charming and smooth way, there is no shining light on this aspect of the sound reproduction,

The tracking performance is superb – the most demanding cuts are played with no hint of a grain or the slightest roughness, Ella Fitzgeralds most frightened vocal performances are shown in such a relaxed way, that you will be stunned. The ability to show us more pin point accuracy in terms of reproduction of recorded space is on par with some very good high tech carts out there. The Royal (N) is something like “Two Face” in the famous Bat Man comics. There is the classic SPU sound in its full glory, but on top of that you get a higher level of performance, and sophistication normally associated with modern high end cartridges. The Royal (N) is maybe the squareness of the circle, on one hand there is the smooth and holistic gestalt of the classic SPU, and on the other hand, their is a good portion of modern aspects which are not a betrayal of the original sound.

A great opportunity to dive into the culture of the oldest of all moving coil cartridges, a true classic slightly modernised – a masterpiece – thank you Ortofon!

Stay tuned

E. Strauss