Who will survive? One last table til I die.

I haven't heard the Airy 3 yet (didn't know there was an Airy 3 and what are the differences?). I haven't even heard the Airy 2 broken in yet, and I am still living with ongoing changes in the cartridge. In a couple more weeks, the cantilever and suspension will probably have had enough playtime for me to start the fine tuning of the LP system. Then I can comment more accurately on the Airy2 and how it mates with the JMW. Right now I can say it has a wide and deep soundstage, great imaging, incredible low level detail retrieval, good transients, good tone. My bass and impact seem a little lacking, but I think that is cartridge setup and speaker positioning changeable, so...

I should also admit that I committed the cardinal sin of critical component listening: I changed more than one piece of equipment at the same time. In fact, I changed four. I had just installed the Airy2 1000RS cartridge, and played about three records total, when I got a great deal on a VPI TNT HRX. The HRX comes with arm already installed, the JMW 12.5. This arm has a terminal box and does not take din/rca phono cable like all of my previous arms did, so I had to get another interconnect to use as the phono cable. The original owner of the HRX was using a Cardas Golden Reference IC, so I just bought his.

Thus, in a matter of weeks, I changed cartridge, arm, table, and cable, going from the Cosmos/SMEIV/Koetsu/Cardas('96) to the HRX/JMW/Airy/GoldenRef. Given those changes and the set up and break in period I'm still going through, I'm not really sure what I'm hearing yet. And other than the cartridges, the system parts are not interchangeable and can't be switched back and forth to isolate the specific changes caused by each piece.

Another bit of the puzzle, the support for the turntable, is also in transition. Previously I had the Cosmos on a seismic sink on a wall stand. The HRX seemed too large and too heavy for that, but I was assured the wall stand could hold up to 500 lbs. I still needed a platform large enough to place the HRX on, though, and finally got a Black Diamond Racing The Source shelf (32x20). Once I reinforce the connection to the wall, I will put the tunrtable on the Source shelf, the shelf on BDR cones, and the cones on the wood platform of the wall stand. Sometime after Thanksgiving I hope to have a better idea of the actual sound of the new equipment. Then I can start adding the BMI power cords I have burning in the basement.

I'm now soliciting opinions on Airy set up tips, phono stage (now internal CAT III), phono cable (now Cardas Golden Reference).

Suttlaw, if you are looking seriously at alternative phono stages, I encourage you to listen to an Aesthetix Io Signature.

For a phono cable, I'd encourage you to listen to the Omega Mikro Ebony. It's not shielded, but if it works in your environment, I think you will be very pleased with the neutrality, speed, resolution and transparency of this cable. http://www.walkeraudio.com/omega_mikro_cables.htm


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I've read great things about the Io Signature, but$2735 for one meter of the Ebony IC? Wow.

Ah, but the sound is "Wow" as well. When we first tried it here my wife was listening and really liked it, but we were still tuning the system and we swapped it out for a while: was she ever an unhappy camper until we put it back. Everything else we did, she kept saying: "But it's not the Omega Mikro Ebony, you've lost the magic." And she was right.
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Since I believe the phono cable is the most important wire in an analogue based system, and the one I am most likely to be willing to overpay for, I shall now have to add the Omega Mikro Ebony to the short list. I admit to being totally ignorant of this line of wires until Rushton's post.

A website I found did not mention any phono cable, only the Ebony interconnect. I am assuming that this interconnect is used for both phono and line, which I always find troublesome since I have assumed that the signals from each were different enough that a cable should be optimized for either phono or line.

(As a barely related aside, oddly enough, I miss the little din connector I've always needed on my tonearm cable; its delicacy seems more symbolically suited to the subtle art of coaxing music out of microscopic scratches in dead wax than the cruder RCA plug that replaces it.)

Just out of curiosity, Rushton, what were the runners-up to the Ebony? And what other wires do you use in your system?