An illustration of how challenging it can be to evaluate tweaks as a group exercise with someone else’s system: BAAS member Drew, who is a musician, had some very keen observations of what he was hearing. After sharing his thoughts on the SHAKTI-VPI products, Jason suggested that Drew move to a different seat location in the room. We listened some more, after which Drew basically said that all bets were off with respect to his earlier impressions. Moral of the story: there’s no substitute for hearing things in your own home and system, and evaluating over time. My $.02
Last up were the supports/cones, which were provided by Jason. We used these products under the DAC and preamp. Here the differences seemed to be more obvious to the group. I think most preferred the Nordost Sort Kones to the Synergistic MiGs and the Stillpoints, citing bass definition, cymbal bloom and decay and other improvements. However, the Magico QPods stole the day, presenting the greatest change to the sound of the system and the most enthusiasm for what that change was.
With this last set of tweaks, there were a lot of combinations to play with. For example, Jason tried substituting one of the Titanium Sort Kones with a Bronze version. We preferred the Titanium (lucky for Nordost; see pricing below). The last thing we tried was putting the Stillpoints and then the MiGs under Leslie’s CJ power amp. And then Jason experimented with the orientation (up or down) of the MiGs. The conclusion? It’s worth the effort to experiment with these variables; system synergy and personal preference will be huge factors in the outcome.
Back to Alón’s warm-up surprise. He played us an early Dave Brubeck Quartet recording on LP, but we didn’t know anything about the vinyl system (Leslie doesn’t have a vinyl front end). Alón asked us to close our eyes, listen deeply, and then made a switch of some kind and played the same selection a second time. Most attendees preferred the second test, with comments such as less stressful, easier, more open soundstage, fuller, richer, perhaps not as emotionally engaging. There were a couple of people who preferred the first version (the above-mentioned Drew and yours truly): the first play had a woody/wooden sound while the second seemed plasticky. And then…the reveal: Alón was playing this LP on an ION Quickplay LP USB turntable, tone arm, cartridge, and phono stage bundle, which listed for $49.99 (!) and which he purchased at Bed Bath & Beyond (!!) for $25 (!!!) during their after-Christmas clearance. The switch he made was moving the ION’s wall-wart from a direct-to-wall connection to plugging it into his PurePower 1050 AC regenerator. Whether or not you consider that a tweak, it certainly was audible. My takeaway on the ION was not anything like “giant killer,” but I did feel that – remarkably, somehow – some of vinyl’s virtues came shining through.