2. analog
  3. 170036-156943

AnologMagik

Would like to start by saying I have no affiliation to this company or its products other than being a customer.

Deciding to jump hard back into vinyl a few months ago I have put in a lot of time and work acquiring a VPI Direct Drive turntable with a My Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent EX cartridge. They blew me away from the start and happiness was all over the house when the VPI was spinning. After a few months of enjoyment and reading many posts on this forum, I started to wonder if I was getting all the bang for the buck out of my setup. Maybe a little finer tuning could bring out a little more so I researched and found AnalogMagik. It seemed like a tool even I could get some usefulness from.

 

When it arrived and was properly set up on my turntable, I spent a Saturday morning working thru the steps and made adjustments as best I could. I was able to get close to the parameters given in the program on most adjustments. The whole process took about 2 hours. The results STUNK! The sound was degraded from the music I was hearing before I used the program. Well crap, spent another hour adjusting the table back to a better sound. Mark that up to a failure.

 

A few months go by and I had the nagging feeling that my miss adventure with the AnalogMagik program may have been self-inflicted and suffered from lack of knowledge. So, I read all I could find on the set up and how it truly works and decided to give it another shot. Last Saturday I set it all back up, put a TV in the music room to watch football while I worked the program again. Could not listen to music because I had to sit between the speakers while working the AnalogMagik program. I spent all afternoon working each step, going back and forth between each adjustment because when one parameter changes it affects all the others. Well two football games and six beers later (That's over six hours for those who do not watch football) I was happy with the readings I was getting. Where they suggested a reading of .5 or better, I managed to get it to .05, reel tight to the marks. (Sailing term) Had to leave for the evening and did not get a chance to give it a test run.

 

Life being life I did not get a chance to turn the stereo on until last night. Forgot about the Saturday marathon of adjusting. Probably beer induced amnesia. Put on a Dire Straits album and sat down to listen. WTF, why do I hear all that bass? Why do I hear finger friction on the guitar strings? Why does it all sound so much better than it ever did before? Holy Crap Batman, did I do that with AnalogMagik? Listened well pasted midnight and it was so sweet. My setup is finely living up to its full potential.


Will be listening and enjoying a lot more from now on. Thank you AnologMagik!

 




notnow0329
paladin's avatar
paladin
227 posts
 
Archie Bunker once said "you can't buy beer - You can only rent it!"
jw944ts's avatar
jw944ts
325 posts
 
$750, well maybe, but additionally having to have a windows computer and sound card…not!  Anyone want to share or rent this to me?
j-wall's avatar
j-wall
369 posts
 
I've really been interested in the software, but I can't justify the price. Even the Wally Tools seem extremely expensive, but I am interested. I'm sure it's not cheap to develop the tools and put all those years of knowledge into a product, but man they're asking a lot. 
notnow0329 OP
36 posts
 
The price is a little steep but you have to look at it like any other piece of gear in your system. If you have 10K or more invested in a turntable/cartridge you wouldn’t hook it up with $5 cables. It’s not permanently connected to your system but it's a huge part of the sound. So, if you are willing to pay $500 or more for a cable or $2K for a power conditioner, this is the same thing.
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
notnow0329, for most people it is going to be at least $850. They have to buy an ADC to digitize the output of their phono stage. Without the ADC Analog Magik is worthless. For those who are already good at set up Analog Magik might make small improvements. The question is will $850
make more of an improvement spent elsewhere? I do not know the answer to that question.

There are also some inconsistencies in Analog Magik's explanations. What good is setting your VTA to that of their test record when the actual VTA changes from one record to the next? They fail to mention this. Then there is the argument between physical and electrical azimuth alignment. I prefer physical so what they do is worthless to me. I do not mind spending money. I bought the SmarTractor alignment device. Nothing yet has interested me in buying this product and I already digitize my phono stage and my ADC has a USB output. 
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