Schroder sq and the new talea

Thank you Ralph (Atmasphere)

I will not worry about loading until I get a better handle on the arm / cart combo.

I did take about 3 hours of slow, careful, assembly/aligning before I even tried an album.

Let me start by saying that I am unquallified to discuss the Talea 11 / Allnic Puritas combo. There is something definately different that I can't get my head around. The first album I put on was an 180 gm version of Sarah Vaughn. What I heard was too clear, too focused, too relaxed. This is something I am totally unaccustomed to.

I just listened to Dire Straits Communique, 180 gm,......, absolutely fabulous, but still too clear.

I should not have sold my ZYX Universe so quick. You should never change two things at once.

I will now go and listen to Cat Stevens 'Tea for the Tillerman', and Bruce Cockburn 'Love will find a way'. These are two of my favorite ablums. This should help me figure out what's happening.

What do you mean by "too clear"? I ask because "clear" would seem to be a desirable quality, and I don't know that one can have too much of it. Do you mean to imply that the sound is "clinical", in the way that solid state can sound if you are used to tubes? Yes, it would have been best to listen to the Talea initially in an otherwise totally familiar milieu (i.e., with the ZYX). Still got the Koetsu? Oh, and does the Talea beat up on the RS-A1? It's probably a silly question.

Out of curiosity, what happens with the early adopters who bought the Talea I? Do/did they get an upgrade?

Hi Lew,

All of the early adopters have been made a handsome upgrade offer which lasts through the end of the year. I've never seen a manufacturer participate so heavily in helping owners make a change to a new version.

Of course, the trade-in offer year will bring some special opportunities for Version-I’s to those who might otherwise be priced out of a Talea. For that, you can watch the Durand page, the Galibier Bargain Bin, as well as offerings from his other dealers.

It was never Joel's intent to make so many changes so soon, and Joel and I had more than one conversation about this release following so quickly on the heels of the introductory offering – this, coming from a fellow who took 9 years to find ways to improve his Gavia and Stelvio turntables.

As Joel worked on addressing customer feedback on the ergonomics in the Version-I, the concurrent improvement in sonics was too great to delay. With introductory pricing scheduled to expire, it made sense to release the changes for those paying the post-introductory price, while at the same time, paying thanks to the early adopters.

I can give you more background on how this evolved, and specifically what changes were made and why, but I think this is best handled in a private e-mail and not on this forum. If you're interested in my take on the differences between the two versions, you can contact me offline. I believe we may be meeting again at a customer of mine and a neighbor of yours in a few weeks, and I can cover this in more detail there.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Hello Lewm

12 noon and I just got out of bed. We where up till 4 am listening. 'Too clear' has changed to 'Wow, that's amazing'. The RS Labs A1 has been beat.

Now comes the long road of 'I should be tweaking instead of just listening'.

I will wait till the arm and cart are broken in before I start making further comments.

I am in awe of Joel's achievement.

Cousinbillyl, its always a good idea to give a cartridge a few hours of play to break in! 50-70s hours is common, only after that time would I play with tweaks. You don't want natural changes in the cartridge to create confusion.