System Update: personalized custom auditions

J. wanted to hear his Lampizator Golden Gate DAC in our system – mostly because we all thought it would be a lot of fun – while auditioning the Acapella Audio Arts Cellini loudspeakers and Acapella La Musika integrated amplifier.

Lampizator seems like an extremely high-quality company, but we are very, VERY happy with Emm Labs‘ and Audio Note UK‘s digital solutions [also extremely high-quality companies :-)].

The Golden Gate DAC has a builtin linestage so we have many options here:

  1. Set the Golden Gate’s volume knob to unity gain and go directly to the La Musika integrated amplifier’s linestage
  2. Set the Golden Gate’s volume knob to unity gain and go directly to the Audio Note UK M9 Phono preamplifier driving the La Musika integrated.
  3. Use the Golden Gate’s linestage [and volume control] and go directly to the La Musika integrated’s amplifier stage
  4. Use the Golden Gate’s linestage [and volume control] and go directly to the Audio Note UK Kegon SET amplifiers
  5. Set the Golden Gate’s volume knob to unity gain and go directly to the Audio Note UK M9 Phono preamplifier driving the Kegon SET amps.
  6. did I forget something?

We needed more than 3 shelves on our equipment rack, so we setup the Harmonic Resolution Systems‘ (HRS) MXR equipment rack. Precision machining [think: very high-end turntable] on an equipment rack. Who woulda thunk? Such a pleasure to setup.

Can a person HAVE more fun? 🙂

Audio Federation to show at Axpona 2018

We will be showing at Axpona 2018 in room 440.

That is 440 people, right next door to Odyssey [i.e. Klaus] and Raidho [i.e. Lars, et. al.], just around the corner from The Voice That Is [i.e. Doug] and High Water Sound [i.e. Jeff]. Lots of good sounding rooms nearby 🙂

The goal, the plan, the hope is to show:

—————————————————————-

Acapella Audio Arts Cellini High loudspeakers

Acapella Audio Arts La Musika integrated amplifier

Audio Note UK Fifth Element DAC [ 🙂 ]

Audio Note UK CDT-Five transport

HRS equipment rack [probably the 3-shelf SXR with outboard M3X platform for the Fifth Element’s Fifth Force power supply]

Audio Note and Acapella cableage and power cords.


This is our first Axpona. Looks like we are doing this instead of the LA Audio show [hey, I just work here ;-)]

See ya all there!

< For all of our Bay Area fans …. we’ll also be back in Boardroom 5 at CAS, end of July, … intending to bring the analogue rig to that one, yum. >

System Updates – finally, home.

We’ve been moving stuff around a lot lately.

Here we have the Audio Note UK TT2 Deluxe turntable running into the M9 Phono pre-amplifier into the Audio Note Kegon amps into the Acapella Audio Arts Cellini High speakers, all on HRS equipment racks.

Yum.

After we found the right power cord and umbilical [between the M9 and it’s power supply] combination it was more than yum. It was revelatory.

It allowed our ears to go back, way back, when we had the larger Acapella Triolon speakers [and a bigger room :-)] and do a mental comparison. We heard that old system so many times… never will forget. And this system, really optimized like this, was of-a-kind compared to that sound. The Cellini High is ‘exactly’ like the Triolon, with the handicap of having a smaller horn [not as efficient and notes don’t blossom the same way] and smaller base unit [bass not as open and deep] and several other things of a more minor effect. The point is that we are darn impressed. And so happy that we can have most of THAT old sound here, in this space.

[Oh. I guess I should have mentioned that for many reasons, most of them seriously stupid, this is the first time we put the Kegon amps on the Cellini High. The Kegon’s 20 watts on the older models of the, similar in profile, Acapella Violon speakers would not have worked well at all. Also this was the first time we tried the Sogon umbilical – instead of the Lexus – with the M9 too. Oh, and the SOOTTO power cord on the M9. It was a day of wonderful discoveries]

When a person downsizes, comparisons like this can make a person feel sick. But for the first time in a very long time, we really felt like this was home.

Of course, a couple of those cables had to be shipped out the next day – fate has to have the last laugh – but we now know what we need to order next… 🙂