Tonearm recommendation

There is a world of difference between the SFP-1 in any version and my unit, the Phono 1. In addition, I have the SE+ upgrades, which includes new PS lytics, new Vishay resistors, and New V-Cap TFTF and OIMP coupling caps.

It appears my budget has been increased to the 10K area, so I'm sure this is going to murky the waters somewhat.

I had the Sonic Frontiers Phono 1 and I put every shade of lipstick on that Pig and even sent to Chris Johnson for cosmetic surgery with every upgrade possible. Countless dollars spent, dozens of tubes rolled and in the end, it still was a just a Pig.

With a budget of $10K, I would highly recommend investing some of that money into a new phono stage as that will give you a greater return on sound improvement than changing out the excellent FR66s.

Hello Testpilot,
I am keeping the FR66s, and I do like my SF. But I'm always willing to try other things. I've got a Fully balanced op-amp kit from Twisted Pear in house that I'll be building w/ battery PS when I find the time to do that.

Got any recommendations on a different riaa. As long as I've got an audition period w/ return, I'll try anything reasonable.

thanks,                     Crazy Bill

Nandric
Dear Chris, You provoke me with your Slivovitz I provoke Stringreen with his violin. No disputes without provocation
and no intersting discussion without disputes. BTW what kind of (ex) Balkanese are you when you don’t
drink this stuff (aka ’’plum brandy’’) ?

Dear Nicola

I think you missed a few provokes here .. 8^0

regarding violins and your mention of the guitar and harmonies. My daughter plays piano and my son the acoustic guitar. They are both amazing instruments, but this violin that you described as anemic, shrill and shabby looking... has the power to make me fall to my knees and cry.

http://ultraanaloguerecordings.com/wpsite/sample-tracks/

listen to the Vitali Chaconne sample track - 7th from the bottom. 25 seconds in.

I guess it all depends on who is playing it and where on the chin it is being held ?

re; Slivovitch - you make it sound so sweet. Are we talking about the same thing?
the stuff I am talking about can clean out your veins. If I wasn’t enjoying the endorphins high from running, I would just not run and drink that colorless looking water instead. My knees are now my biggest liability. (Achilles Knees ?) Red Wine goes well in winter. Beer in summer.

sorry for off topic post Crazy Bill.

Dear stringree: Appreciated.

The ignorance in the people makes that when any one shows them something they are ignorant at once puts at defensive and if they can't understand it then go inside in a deep frustration like almost all the gentlemans here.
They have no real arguments other rthan express their deep frustration. Additional to that they are not willing to " hear "  and are so frustated because their high ignorance level on the subject that even fall in insults.

Other problem is that they want to beat me in the discussion and because they can't do it and never will and not because I'm right ( because I can be wrong. ) but because they don't understand the overall subject and have no arguments to " fight ".

Understand northing about even with facts and clear evidence that all of them are wrong with the CT0517 ( Chris. ) post where he made the comparison to find out those distortions through the master tape recording and he detected those distortions and not only him but the gentleman experience I posted and even Dgarretson did it it does not matters if he likes those " alive " distortions because I'm not talking here what we like but what is right, that's way diferent.

Again your post appreciated.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R. 

Well, Raul can certainly speak for himself.  Except I'm afraid when he does it sometimes throws more kindling on the fire.

So consider this, English is not his native language.  And to make matters worse I suspect he does not review his own posts closely so that typos or spell-check sometimes alters what I assume may be his intent.

I had the chance to meet Raul when he visited the US some years ago.  I found him to be a gracious and considerate person.  And obviously one with deep passion for music and the home reproduction of recorded examples.  This passion results in his having direct experience with more different audio components than most us have had or likely ever will have.

So you can read his comments/suggestions and take them to stimulate your own experiments, or dismiss them as you see fit.  There are posters here and on other sites who I simply skip over because I've learned we are too far apart in our perspectives that my reading would be of any value.  Maybe a few here could do that with Raul if that's how you feel.  Peace!