Audiomecca Mephisto

Buyer remorse? Spellbound, and then sort of cursed. On a brighter note: the best upgrade to this transport I have found is to sit it on a very solid support. (Perhaps a square meter of solid concrete would be best.). If the support wobbles, you can forget about it: you will have a 2-D soundstage and reduced dynamics. Yes, Khrys, that is what the puck is for: instant excorcism.

If the puck exorcizes the extra 'c' in "excorcism" then it might just be worth it.

I´ll wave the puck over my next Word Document and see if it performs a spell check. Maybe somebody should perform an excorcism on the title of this forum: it is Audiomeca (one "c") ... Re. 2-D soundstage on the Mephisto II: the rear part of the Mephisto II soundstage widens and deepens with a Shakti Stone planted on the plastic power unit. A good tweek if you want to give the timpani a little more air to breath in.

After a further six weeks of experimentation with the Mephisto II transport, I want to retract one statement I made before and give some tips on tuning and modification. First, the retraction: adding a superior PC does significantly improve the Mephisto II. I tried the NBS Statement PC again and I got very positive improvements in imaging precision, timbre, and extension. I think there was a phase or power problem in a previous experiment. --Also, I have decided that the best commercially-available support for this unit it is the Ensemble Honeyplate. Use the 4 cone spikes on the bottom of the Honeyplate support and then rest the Mephisto II on top of the three cones on top with the back cone in the slot the furthest away in the plate to create the biggest triangle. Be careful with the positioning of the transport doing this as it can easily miss one of the cones! Putting this assembly on a solid support or a TT platform with inverted spikes will yield increased presence, dynamics, and liquidity, with the only downside being a slight thinning down of the overall sound. Also, I have added dampening material to the inside of the unit between the CDM 1 and the sides of its aluminum container in order to take care of any stray resonances from the motor. Again, be careful with the positioning of the dampening material as it can impede the CD from turning if placed wrongly. And, finally, the Shakti Stone works so well on the power unit because it is largely unshielded. I would advice shielding this unit yourself--it is easy to open up and work on. I have even played with the idea of replacing the power unit completely with a better DIY one. Once I carried out the modifications I described above, I was finally satisfied with the Audiomeca Mephisto II unit.

The Mephisto responds well to revisions to the power supplies as well as clock and output....