Schroder sq and the new talea

Hi Lew,

As far as volume is concerned, I left it to Frank and Joel, who knew the musical selections. With the Atma-sphere's stepped attenuators, it was impossible to obtain an exact volume match.

I'm still recovering from the show, and I'll revisit the other comments in this thread in the coming days. Your observation was an easy one to address quickly however.

My biggest regret (as I posted in the "meet and greet" thread) was to let "team Schroeder" show up at the last minute with a piece that we had to spend time positioning in order to eliminate hum - at everyone's expense, and in a room being heated with OTL's and Dave Slagle's Tequilla and beer.

Frank put me in a difficult position when he advised Joel and me at 4pm on Saturday, that his sample of the A90 wasn't consistent with his earlier experiences of the cartridge. The arm had yet to be mounted on the Stelvio-II at that time.

Frank proposed that we might round up a second sample of a Dynavector XV-1s, a cartridge he has on more than one occasion diplomatically stated was not his preference.

Perhaps Frank can comment further.

In an attempt to give Frank every opportunity to shine, I let him in the door with a wonderful, $20K LCR phono stage designed by Jeffrey Jackson (being exported to Asia by Artemis Labs). 30-50 people were inconvenienced for 40 minutes as a result of this late (but wonderful) entry.

Those who expected a definitive outcome were amply forewarned, but having said that, I would have liked to have been able to maintain a bit more consistency between the two rigs.

If you trace back through the other threads on this forum, you'll note that I requested that we begin working on equipment compatibility on Thursday night, and locking it down by Friday night at the latest.

Had I taken a hard line on this, we would have listened to only the Talea, and I would have come off as shutting the Schroeder out of the picture. I was in a difficult situation in this regard. Perhaps I should have taken a hard line on this.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Thom,
I think as long as people enjoyed themselves and are adult enough to deal with and understand what went on, I think you did no wrong by letting it go on, even if it may not have turned out to be the comparison some hoped for. From Mosin's comments (#3 comment in the thread), one doesn't get the feeling Frank and Joel are wrapped up in angst as to how things turned out. And as Dgad points out, whoever owns one but not the other tonearm still has a tonearm which until recently was thought of as top dog or which for many people is now (or still) top dog. Bravo to you for making the effort to allow two top tonearm designers to put on a well-considered and highly anticipated display of analog reproduction prowess. I am sure that many who attended were afforded a taste of the possible and went home dreaming that some of the 'losing' tonearms start showing up on Audiogon at half price. I, for one, would have loved to have been there.

Dgad, I'm not sure if you were referring to the Talea or making a general statement. There were no gimbal bearing arms in the session. The Talea is a unipivot.

All of my statements are generic. I am aware about the A90 variation. Heard it from quite a few users.

Jtinn,

I never mentioned who told who what. Got me confused on that.

I have never owned the Talea so I don't have anything good, bad or otherwise to say other than it looks cool. It might be an excellent arm but I am happy enough to not feel the need to look further for tonearms at this time. If someone wants to lend me one to try I have no problem comparing it. But it will take me time. Any of my comparisons take time. About a month to become familiar with the sound, setup variables, etc.

But honestly a show like RMAF to do a shootout of anything will be limited. The room, speakers etc. You know when you heard great or good sound. But to attribute bad or poor sound to anything is quite difficult. Almost the same speaker in 2 different rooms w. different electronics had huge differences. I didn't think the Artemis room to be special. But I have no familiarity with any of it to know better.

"But it will take me time." That is what I expected, but to date it hasn't taken anyone more than about 5 minutes. FWIW, YMMV, etc.

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