How to Increase Turntable Height on High WAF Rack

Johnnyb53:

Thanks for your comment. And I agree. IMHO, I found the Ayre/DPS overall to be pretty even with the top of the line SME and the top of the line Spiral Groove.

The auditioning I did of the Ayre/DPS was with the standard tonearm that the Ayre/DPS comes with. You/others may already know this but if not . . .

. . . William Bauer of DPS takes a stock Rega 250 tonearm, guts it, HIGHLY modifies it, and that is the tonearm that comes with the table. So it was intriguing/startling to me that the Ayre/DPS with an obviously modest tonearm compared so favorably with the SME and SG, both of which were set up with far, far better tonearms (insofar as $ directly translates into better performance, which we all know is not always the case). I considered but decided against having the Ayre/DPS prepped for a better tonearm since it already sounds so great with the standard tonearm. I can always switch to another tonearm down the road. The one that is most interesting to me at this point is not yet commercially available. According to Don Better, Mr. Bauer is developing his own tonearm for the Ayre/DPS. When it becomes available, those who purchased the Ayre/DPS with the basic modified Rega 250 tonearm can get 100 percent of their money back for that tonearm against the purchase of Mr. Bauer's new tonearm. The cutout requirement for his new tonearm will be exactly the same as for the modified Rega 250, so it will essentially be plug and play. I definitely plan to audition his new tonearm when it comes out.

Of course, and now getting back to the original thread topic, I still don't know if I will be kneeling, bending, whatever in front of the Ayre/DPS when I use it! ;->

My wife has suggested genuflecting (sp?) and offering alms before each use.

Sigh . . .

I knew from the open house that the std. arm on the Ayre/DPS is a modified RB250. I was mightily impressed. At the previous year's open house I had heard a SME 30 with Series V tonearm, and it was remarkable how much the Ayre/DPS had that same surefooted, yet deeply natural and relaxed presentation. Very involving and musical. I don't know how they wring that much performance from an RB250, but as you said, I saw no reason to look further.

They were demoing with a Lyra Helikon. Excellent match. Most of the open house was featuring digital sources, including some 24/96, which is significantly better than Redbook. Yet, there was a group of us that huddled in the Ayre room spinning vinyl until the open house closed down. That Ayre/DPS is really hard to turn off! And we weren't just listening to 180g audiophile re-pressings. We had a lot of fun listening to some of those $10 Original Jazz Classics as well.

Johnnyb53:

I have listened to the Ayre/DPS with the two top of the line Dynavector and EMT cartridges. I chose the 2nd best EMT cartridge pretty much for the same reason I went with the modified RB250 - more than good enough (incredible, actually) performance for the $. That pretty much sums up the way I feel about the Ayre/DPS as well!

Prior to selecting the Ayre/DPS/EMT combo, I was learning pretty heavily in favor of the much less expensive Well Tempered Amadeus. That is really a remarkable turntable and tremendous sonic value for the $. But in the end, the things you heard with the Ayre/DPS - natural, relaxed, involving, musical, hard to turn off - I found all of these to be quite a bit more evident with the Ayre/DPS than they were with the Amadeus.

However, there were two things I liked better about the Amadeus - the tonearm (a thing of beauty, visually and sonically) and the bass response (marginally better than that of the Ayre/DPS).

Symposium ultra shelf will look great and improve sound !!

Ebm:

Thanks for letting me know about Symposium! Just started researching their web site. So far I like what I see and read! Do you have one or more of these shelves, or have you heard them on someone else's system? I am interested in them for both the TT and for an amp stand.

Thanks in advance for any more information you can share!