Schroder sq and the new talea

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.

I have yet to experience a cartridge whose essential character was not revealed to me after 5-7 hours.

It most certainly loosens up and settles in for 25-70 hours, and you should absolutely revisit your entire setup several times (including loading) during that period.

My point however, is to enjoy yourself, and only re-visit this over the coming months as your mood strikes - perhaps after every 5-10 hours of play.

Change the easily accessible parameters (fine adjust of VTF, azimuth, VTA)? You bet! They're easy enough to do with the Talea, but at the same time, don't make yourself crazy over this.

Loading is a bit tricky, as it has an effect on the mechanical damping of the motor assemply, so I wouldn't change this as frequently as the other parameters. You will change your thoughts on this as the suspension loosens up, but focussing on this too much (early on) will drive you batty. There are too many variables to get control of.

Fifty hours of listening is 150 LP's. That can take some time, and if you obsess too much, you'll lose a lot of needless hair, and most importantly, you won't enjoy your hi-fi much.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

We are now at the 20 hour mark.

The arm / cart are breaking in nicely. After some very minor changes, my wife and I are astounded.

The only downside, either really old pressings, or newer 180gram + recordings are the only truly listenable albums. We can really hear the flaws in 80's, and 90's pop / rock pressings. Oh well.