Tube dampeners on ARC gear ... FREE TWEAK
Oh man Frank, Harmonia Mundi is SUCH a great label! Repertoire right up my alley, performed so well and in those ancient rooms, and in great recorded sound. You’re right, you can really hear the room the recording was made in, something I absolutely love. To hear those "period" instruments (both antiques and modern reproductions) in those rooms, the type the music was written to be heard in, performed in period "correct" style (without the Romantic era vibrato that was not employed in the Baroque era), really adds to the full appreciation of the music and it’s performance. What more could one ask for! In the 90’s the U.S. headquarters of HM in Westwood/West L.A. had parking lot sales every few months, offering discontinued LP’s and CD’s for $5 apiece. I was there every time. The cream of my music library! |
^^^ bdb24 ... My friend Warren and I took advantage of those Harmonia Mundi parking lot sales many times. Their location was about 45 minutes from my place going south down the coast highway. If I remember correctly, they sold the LP's for five buck apiece. No CD's of course because they didn't exist at that time. As a result, I have a lot of HM Vinyl. Then, years later, I happened to stop by a record store in Burbank just on a whim. Someone had traded in a ton of HM CD's a couple of days before I got there. They were asking $2.99 each. I was pretty flush at the time, so I bought almost all of them. There were a few dogs in the bunch, so I traded them in and kept the rest. I still have them in the collection. I actually had a Harmonia Mundi listening session last night. It was all CD's as I didn't feel like changing records. The debate wore me out. *lol*. The new Herbie's tube dampeners are so effective that every HM CD I played took on a new lease on life. Quite amazing actually considering that I only changed out the dampeners on the five tubes in the preamp. I'm getting so much more inner detail and textural overtones from instruments now ... and that's without subtracting anything except distortion. The improved detail isn't etched or bright in any way, just more musical and closer to real. When I get around to replacing the dampeners in the CD player, that's six more. What's that going to do? Zowie! Prior to getting into the SR Black fuses, the SR HFT's, and now the Herbie's tube dampeners over the past year, I only listened to CD's as a convenience. With these tweaks in place, I've found that I'm listening to CD's probably 80% of the time now. So many of the red-book CD's have magic in those bits. Its a lot like going from an entry level cartridge, say like a $49 dollar Grado, to one of the better Audio Technica cartridges and then discovering how much information is hidden deep inside those grooves on Mono records. A revelation, really Frank |
bdb24 ... Before I went to bed last night, I scored this on Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/262358885962 I figured for $3.10 and free shipping how could I go wrong. Yep, like I need another recording. :-) Frank |
