steve's system

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nostinkingloops
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steve's system

Post by nostinkingloops »

the audiophiliac featured my system last week (from 15:20), a few days before my lejonklou entity arrived:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76h9eqoyfDk

luxman pd151 turntable
luxman lmc-5 cartridge
backert labs rhumba xphono 1.1 phono stage
--> lenjonklou entity + linn silver cable (not shown in the photo)
salk streamplayer III SE
schiit yggdrasil dac
benchmark media 3b dac
border patrol SE dac
2 x ps audio stellar powerplant 3
ambrosia 2000 second edition preamp
2 x ampzilla 2000 second edition monoblock amps
ohm f5 loudspeakers
benchmark media interconnects
take 5 cryo-treated 3103 mogami speaker cables
degritter
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woofers: long-coat german shepherd dog (F), american bulldog (M)
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Re: steve's system

Post by Hermann »

Hello nostinkingloops

thanks for posting your components and welcome to the forum.

The only ones I know of are Entity and Linn Silver. The video is quite interesting, but I would have liked a musical example.
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Re: steve's system

Post by ThomasOK »

Welcome to the forum! That is a very interesting list of equipment. Even having been in the industry for 44 years there are some pieces I don't recognize. You are the first person I have heard of with the Ampzilla 2000 monoblocks and the matching Ambrosia preamp. When I started in the business we sold the original Ampzilla and Thaedra, as well as their smaller units, and they sold quite well. Despite all the interesting names Jim Bongiorno came up with for GAS my favorite was one intended for GAS but brought out when he was designing Sumo Electric Company gear: Charlie the Tuner.

Enjoy the Entity! It will be interesting to hear what you think of it compared to your Rhumba Xphono.

I have only one woofer, my Black Lab, Lily.
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Re: steve's system

Post by nostinkingloops »

hi thomas

thanks for your appreciative response. andy singer was also surprised by the ambrosia and ampzillas. i guess they're more rare than i thought. they've been the one constant in my system over the last dozen years. speakers and sources of all sorts have come and gone, but i've had no reason to move on from bongiorno's components. i'm grateful to walter lindeman for turning me on to them, although to be frank i didn't need much persuasion. their appearance sold me from the beginning.

since posting i've moved the entity to my second system where it will get more ear-time. unfortunately, the layout of the components prohibits the use of the short (1.5m) linn silver cable. the components in that system are:

line magnetic 812 iconic speakers
line magnetic 123 tube buffer
line magnetic 133 preamplifier
line magnetic 125 amplifier
technics 1200G turntable
hana el cartridge
lejonklou phono stage
parasound jc3+ phono stage
sweetvinyl sugarcube mini (click and pop remover)
stack audio link II streamer (ethernet-connected)
line magnetic 32 dac
borderpatrol SE dac
oppo 95 blu-ray player (modwright modifications)
geerfab d-bob breakout box
benchmark media interconnects
duelund speaker cable
shunyata venom 16 power-conditioner

at this point (~8 hours of listening) i'll echo the description given by my dealer don better: the entity is intensely *musical*, by which *i* mean (i can't speak for others) it comes closer to getting tone and timing "right". that is -- especially noticeable in the case of small ensemble jazz and jazz vocals -- it comes as close as my equipment permits of the experience of "being there", having the musicians in the room with me. of course, the 812 horns are famously wonderful in the mid-range, and dynamic as hell, and the entity feels like a perfect instrument for these transducers.

i have two images of the system on my website (nsl.com):

http://www.nsl.com/misc/lm1.jpg
http://www.nsl.com/misc/lm2.jpg
Last edited by nostinkingloops on 2022-06-23 20:37, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: steve's system

Post by nostinkingloops »

hi hermann

thank you, nice to be here. i'm learning quite a bit surfing the forum.

as far as making a video with sound i have no experience with the technology (i don't own a cell-phone) but my friend rich brown made this short video of the my second system a few months ago. the music is the ballet Les Oiseaux by Manos Hadjidakis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl08Bc_njMU
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Re: steve's system

Post by Hermann »

Thanks for sharing nostinkingloops. Very interesting system..... and room.

A former colleague who may be known to some from the PFM, Markus Sauer, owned the Voice of Theater with Shindo tubes and a Platine Verdie turntable. Admittedly not my taste, but the system had an impressively dynamic.

By the way, I don't record my examples with a cell phone either, but with a simple digital recorder and post them unedited.
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Re: steve's system

Post by lejonklou »

I love the stairs!
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Re: steve's system

Post by ThomasOK »

lejonklou wrote: 2022-06-23 23:03 I love the stairs!
Indeed! And that second system certainly looks quite cool!
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Re: steve's system

Post by nostinkingloops »

ThomasOK wrote: 2022-06-23 23:35
lejonklou wrote: 2022-06-23 23:03 I love the stairs!
me too! it was formerly the home of the architect charles forberg, son-in-law of walter gropius and one of his students who went on to found (and build) black mountain college.

Indeed! And that second system certainly looks quite cool!
thanks! i've only recently rediscovered vinyl. my record collection was incinerated in a college dorm fire in 1968, and i've been slowly replacing many of the items in that collection. fortunately, as i've discovered, second hand classical and early jazz LPs are relatively inexpensive, and plentiful. i'd forgotten the wonderfully *tactile* nature of LPs - the cover art, the liner notes and photos, and the vinyl itself. as others have pointed out (notably herb reichert at stereophile) the ritual of playing a record prepares the mind for the experience which follows. i'm not even bothered by having to get up and turn the record over! (although i was surprised to discover that early multi-record sets are numbered for an automatic record-changing player rather than a turntable - that was a shock!)
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Re: steve's system

Post by Tendaberry »

Certainly a nice looking system and I'm sure the Entity will fit in there beautifully.
Can I ask how the Click and Pop Remover functions? The best click-and-pop remover I know is a good record cleaning machine (like the Loricraft currently offered here in the sales section).
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Re: steve's system

Post by nostinkingloops »

Tendaberry wrote: 2022-06-24 10:15 Certainly a nice looking system and I'm sure the Entity will fit in there beautifully.
Can I ask how the Click and Pop Remover functions? The best click-and-pop remover I know is a good record cleaning machine (like the Loricraft currently offered here in the sales section).
i send new arrivals through the degritter for an initial cleaning. for records which look dicey i first use the record doctor to take off surface crud, then into the degritter for a bath. then anti-static treatment each time i play the record.

i find this procedure works well to bring the record to life, but it doesn't eliminate pops from nicks and scratches. i've heard that certain cartridges dig deeper into the grooves and are therefore less vulnerable on this score, but i don't have any first-hand experience to confirm that assertion.

the sugarcube does a very nice job processing out the pops and clicks without compromising (to my 73 year old ears) the sonics. that is, i can't detect any degradation when flipping back and forth between pass-through and moderate processing. in other words, applying the processing doesn't sound "digital" (whatever that means). i use the sugarcube sparingly, and only on records where the pops and clicks are obtrusive.

as i said in an earlier post, i'm a vinyl-newbie, so further experience may alter my opinions (on everything having to do with spinning black disks!)
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Re: steve's system

Post by nostinkingloops »

installed today:

dynavector dv500 turntable + dv507 507-II tonearm (my wife calls it "the terminator") + dv 17dx karat cartridge -> lejonkleu entity phono preamp.
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