Audiomecca Mephisto

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....

Rcrump, what clock and output modifications are you referring to? The clock would be easy to modify, I realize, but I did not think it was a problem when I heard this unit. What output did you modify (there are three to choose from)? What were the sonic gains?

A friend of mine had a Mephisto. I had been doing some playing around inside a G&D Transforms Ultimate transport I was using at the time and I ordered enough parts to do the power supplies in both with Harris Hyperfast diodes and Muse caps and the Mephisto came to life.....My friend was so encouraged that he sent the unit to G&D Transforms who put in the new clock and output board along with their own pore supplies to run these boards with good results. G&D stopped taking in mods, but still sells clocks and output boards. The grounding in the Mephisto is all series rather than star, but it is such a beautiful unit it was worth the work and time involved to make it work a bit better. My friend sold his Mephisto and purchased a G&D UTP-1 transport, cheap upstart that was a touch better than the modified Mephisto.....If this interests you call G&D at 602-650-1155 or email at Transforms@aol.com as the Mephisto is probably the prettiest unit out there and it can be made to perform with the best with a little time and effort......