We need to make room and are selling some gear that is just the kind of stuff that some of you may be interested in:

Edge NL Reference 800 watt pyramid amps (demo)
Soundlab Ultimate 1 electrostatic loudspeakers (demo)
Walker Proscenium Gold Signature turntable (demo)
Marten Coltrane loudspeakers (used)

These are all the top performers in their particular category - more or less just like everything else we carry. There just aren’t that many of these that come on the market at demo/used prices. If you want one of these, now is the time.

The Edge NL Reference amps are sitting waiting for a new owner. We need to make room people, the Kegons, both pairs, the Ongaku, the Lamms, … We got amps coming out of our ears….

They are up on Audiogon if you are interested.

The Soundlab Ultimate 1 loudspeakers are playing music while waiting for a new owner. We got amps coming out our ears and speakers coming out our…. ears too. We got four systems and still we always have at least a couple of great speakers just sitting around for months on end.

The Soundlab U1 are still the best electrostatic speakers and are up on Audiogon.

The Walker Proscenium Gold Signature turntable is ready for a new owner. Also on the infamous Audiogon.

Here are some photos of the pieces that come with…

We have the compressor and large damping chambers up on a bookcase in the room next to listening room #2

The compressor.

The large damping chambers

The Walker motor controller.

Another view of the motor controller.

The small damping chambers sit nicely next to the rack.

A closeup of the small damping chambers

A pair of Marten Coltrane loudspeakers that we had here a long time are available - the owner is moving and is selling their entire system. It is not on Audiogon but please, if you are interested, contact us immediately.

OK, back to our normally scheduled programming.

We’ve been spending most of our time downstairs.

We set up the Audio Note TT3 Reference turntable next to the Walker Proscenium Gold Signature turntable.

It has been back-and-forth, Walker –> TT3 –> Walker –> TT3 ….. both through the Lamm LP2 phono stage into the Ongaku integrated amp and the Kharma Mini Exquisite loudspeakers.

How do they compare, you may ask? In raw terms, the Walker is an audiophile’s dream come true and the TT3 is a music lover’s dream come true. Since we are music loving audiophiles, we can’t really talk about one being the ‘winner’. The TT3 is more dynamic, more lively, more engaging… more youthful. The Walker has a lower noise floor, is more accurate top-to-bottom, a more mature sound.

In fact, the idea would be for us to make them sound a lot more alike [which we have to some extent already] - to get a more musical cartridge for the Walker [we are using the Blue Magic Diamond - not so bad obviously, but there are better, unfortunately more expensive ones out there that are generally considered better]. And conversely, to dress up the TT3 with a rack with more vibration control, to correspond to the Walker’s air suspensions [even though the RixRax with HRS platforms comes close, HRS’s MXR rack still laughs at this setup].

Upstairs we still have the EDGE amps on the Coltrane Supreme loudspeakers, with the Lamm ML2.1 amps waiting for us to get our act together and replace the EDGE.

We have our new HRS SXR 3-shelf rack next to our HRS MXR 4-shelf rack.

Look at all that black!

Neli cleaned everything up, but this is two days later and already some Rocky Mountain dust has found its home on our stuff again.

We’ve appropriated some platforms / shelves for our playtime downstairs.

The Brinkmann Balance turntable.

Right now, we only have one phono stage, which the TT3 and Walker share. Even after our Audio Note M9 Phono arrives, we will only have two phono stages. But we have THREE turntables [well, four, but the little TT2 uses the little Audio Note Oto integrated’s phono stage].

We also do not have rack space for digital on the RixRax equipment rack in listening room 2.

What this means is that our Walker is up for sale on Audiogon [Neli is still glaring at me, because this was really my decision]. If anyone is interested…. be sure to think it over… it is not like they appear on Audiogon everyday [in fact, almost never. And for a good reason].

Next : Audio Note SOGON interconnect versus Audio Note SOOTTO interconnect versus Audio Note PALLAS interconnect. And a CES 2008 retrospective.

Well, it is probably not called ‘Walker Wash’. Actually, it is definitely not called that.

But this post is about the Walker LP Cleaning Process Process Process Process.

It is officially, the Prelude Record Cleaning System.

The short and sweet is: It is a four (4) pass process. I hate that it is so labor intensive. I will personally hardly ever spend the time doing it. It works better than other, more commonly practiced processes. It opens a new world of music enjoyment for formerly unlistenable / unnatural sounding music genres.

It comes in some nicely labeled bottles. And I know one has purified water of some sort. Blah Blah Blah.

Neli uses 3 different brushes, all labeled according to their purpose in life.

Look, I did not clean the records. They had already been cleaned carefully by others. And then the Walker Solution was applied by Neli and Kevin. I just got to hang around and listen to several before and after results.

The results?

It made a previously, well - you know those kinds of jazz fusion bands that sounds like a cacophony of instruments slightly out of tune? Not exactly penetrable if you know what I mean. Cleaning with the Walker stuff made it sound like maybe the musicians did, after all, have some kind of plan in mind, perhaps even were accomplishing what they had planned. It was now possible to hear and follow the various, the SEVERAL various, melodies all happening at the same time, intertwining and playing off of each other.

It still wasn’t going to make the top 40 pop charts - but given that its purpose was more to be playful and complex and subtle and a little disturbing… it actually worked.

But before cleaning it with the Walker stuff, it was, uh, garbage? Can I say that? You know, Noise. I always thought that some bands just put out pure noise because, well, boys aren’t that particular sometimes, right? We just want to bang on cans and garbage-can lids and whatever…

Well, now, *dammit*, a lot of this really quite innovative and provocative music might just need an LP and 4 passes of cleaning on the Loricraft with the Walker cleaning fluids.

Whether spending the time to apply 4-passes with other cleaning solutions would also work this well, I don’t know.

Even if other solutions did work as well, it would still make this nirvana of uber-sounding LPs almost inaccessible to me, because, well, it is just so unlikely that I am going to spend the time doing all this cleaning. I mean, hello? How many years do we get? And I am going to spend them cleaning LPs?

But… well, just maybe, MAYBE, I’ll Walker the new Radiohead LPs I am getting for Christmas.

… and maybe DSOTM. … and Amnesiac.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

You saw the Brinkmann Balance turntable photos, and now you’re gonna get the Walker photos. Know ye that these are not of the Walker Black Diamond turntable - which debuted quite recently (we do have some pics of it in our RMAF show report last month).

The Walker turntable sits on a Rix Rax Grand Hoodoo equipment rack. It sound better here on the bare maple than on a Fondato Silenzio base on the maple - we tried, twice, in very different rooms. We haven’t tried a HRS M3 Isolation Base yet - it would have to be custom built because of the weight and size of the Walker.

Magic Diamond’s Blue cartridge. Peraps best described as ‘analog tape-like’.

For those of you clammering for more! more! check out these galleries: Walker Proscenium Gold Signature Photo Gallery and Walker Proscenium Gold Signature Unpacking and Setup Photo Gallery. This last gallery of photos was taken with an old camera - not quite as luxurious and detaled as the newer cameras… but you get the idea.

Enjoy!

[This was originally written early this year (with some minor editing in the last few minutes to make less incorrect my English) but was not posted at that time after seeing the Postive Feedback review of the Walker that appeared simultaneously with the writing of this post - making it seem too weird, if not plain redundant, to have yet another piece on this turntable. But since we are discussing these very same reviews and turntable below - maybe it is time to finally get this out of my drafts folder (I have been seeing it for the last 10 months or so, every single time I post anything on this blog… )].

There was a lot of chattering and hoopla’ing about the $90K Continuum turntable that was shown at CES 2006.

Then there was more skuttlebutt when Mike Fremer decided to buy one for himself.

Steve Hoffman’s Forum

Romy’s Forum

And now a rumor that Mike Lavigne wants to sell his $70K Sirius III and get one too?

Well, far be it from us to be against people spending lots of money on audio equipment… but this is all so strange as we were really underwhelmed by the sound of the Continuum at CES 2006, and I was also underwhelmed by it at HE 2005 (though Neli liked the system there well enough). [P.S. We also later gave the Peak Consult / Berning / Continuum room at HE 2006 best of show, and, though we were still underwhelmed by the table, they had setup a very nice system there]

After CES we both kept saying to each other “what is going on? The Continuum seemed no better than our $20K Brinkmann!”.

At first I thought that I just did not have the experience to pick out the sound of these turntables in a system - even though I can pick out the sound of a digital player fairly well. I mean - $90K - it has to be great, right? But then I remembered what the Walker sounds like in unfamiliar systems. I have always been able to hear what IT is doing.

Then we thought about an even more outlandish idea: that most of the turntables in the $20K+++ range sound a LOT alike.

Then I read on Romy’s site that he is thinknig along the same lines:

The Foolishness of Analog People

What does ‘a lot alike’ mean?

It means that the difference in sound between a component and another is less than or equal to the difference caused by adding or removing a tweak in the system.

But some components out there are different, they do not sound like others and stick out as being something special. For example: Let’s talk about CD Players.

[Let’s not. But you might imagine this could get us all into a lot of trouble - even though the three brands of players we have here all do something special - many out there do not]

It is like Romance novels or Science Fiction movies - one person has a good idea and then a 1000 people copy it.

One might argue that sounding generic is a good thing. And this argument might be interesting.

We chose to carry the Brinkmann turntable because of the exceptional build quality, ease of use, attactive and streamlined appearance, and excellent support network. And, of course, how it sounds.

And as far as value goes - its sonic quality, at $20K, is in the same class, based on all the systems we have heard so far, as the Continuum, $80K Blue Pearl, $75K Vyger, and also the Sirius III if MikeL really thinks the Continuum is better. In fact, I think a really tweaked out VPI TNT is in this sonic class. Sorry.

OK, I can here you thinking out there. Mike Fremer had the Brinkmann, and now has the Continuum, and he says that the 5 times more expensive turntable really sounds better. Well, I am one of the few people who thinks Mike does indeed have ears. But. But his room is broken and his system is broken. What sounds optimal in his environment may not, in general, be optimal outside his environment. Also, as a reviewer, he has other motivations. Nothing sinister or anything - but he is a professional and needs to think about his readers and his career.

If you really want to know the truth, the only turntable we have heard that generates an immediate response of ‘Now THAT is Analog’, no matter what system it is in, is the Walker Procenium Gold turntable.

Now, I hesitate to say that. Lord knows Lloyd Walker does not need more encouragement . And we shivver to think we are adding to the overwhelming wealth of disturbingly unbalanced copy on the Walker line on both the Positive Feedback and 6moons sites.

And, like everything else, the Walker does have its issues.

But we have to say it, if you really want something that actually sounds better than anything else out there, that can’t just be achieved by a new cartridge or vibration control device or a better interconnect….then get a Walker.

It is not that there is anything wrong with the megabuck tables that I can see. Someday we may even carry the Blue Pearl or Continuum. They are quite beautiful and impressive.

Let’s put it like this: There is a lot, Lot, LOT more difference between most $20K speakers and most $90K speakers than most $20K turntables and most $90K turntables.

Unless it is the Walker.

Yeah, that is what we wanted to say. Maybe I should just delete the rest?