Why will no other turntable beat the EMT 927?

Dkarmeli,

only the BV's image appears similar to Kevins Vox Olympian. Ingredients, size, X-over and sub integration are completely different. But on this later more. I see you have a pretty good understanding of a good listening room. I also got the experience when travelling around the US (but not only here) that the room itself seems of minor importance to the good audiophile guys.
Nevertheless it is always an arangement you are doing with your family and your life style. So I do understand.

I sold my Micro Seiki SX 8000 II last month. It will arrive very soon on your continent. I loved this machine, was the first owner and it is a supreme table some even try to copy today. I did some tunings on my blue micro which brings it somehow in the same musicality.

Regarding the Fidelity Research 66s I think we have two groups of Audiophiles. Those who know this arm pretty well, who are owning the matching table and wo did build it up perfectly and some others - they might outnumber the first group. Anyway thanks for your good hints and options you are describing. I will take them into consideration.

Thuchan said, "I understand why most analogue friends don't believe in the quality of digital reproduction. Nevertheless if you ever get deep into it the dCS stack it is an overwhelming alternative, or not?"

You're opening a can of worms with me Thuchan but since you asked for it here it is;

The problem isn't as much the quality of digital playback but rather the digital's qualities, see the link in above thread. You can massage it as much as want to but you're not going to change its nature. From day 1 the CD was designed with inherent limitations by the engineers and copyright paranoid media companies like Sony. The production chain is highly flawed and loose so the best that you accomplish is more tweaking and that wont change anything meaningful. CD is a truncated facsimile a much larger file. Upsample it, reclock it digital lens it, green bands, demagnetize, shark oil, snake oil or any other band-aid you want to attach it, it still remains the down sampled, i.e. reduced quality commercial product and DIGITAL. This blog article is tweaker's porn. What are you hearing? The clock? The up sampling? The power cord? the digital cables? Was the CD a direct transfer from analog master or was it an oversampled 24 bit remaster which is another tweak? and the list goes on. So your analysis of this clock is really analysis of whole lot of different variables that have nothing to do with the source. I'm sure that you realize that once you introduce your first "AUDIOPHILE" tweak to your system you have altered the parameters. Audiophile power cords all have overt characteristics and coloration, after you put one in, your system takes on a new character and that character gets stronger with everything additional cord from this point on every modification or tweak that you make is predicated on the power cord's overwhelming character and not your components. You're basically chasing your tail at this point on. Every cable and every tweak introduces another character that you end up offsetting with further tweaks.Its a never ending money pit.

Maybe this is where you and I differ in our final approach. For me, specially at these price points, if the equipment doesn't perform as advertised I'd get rid of it and replace it with one that works right. My philosophy is understanding the basics and nature of the subject to get the fundamentals right and only then one might make some adjustments to taste, like glass platter vs felt. In your shoes if I had spent years building a listening space and then have an expensive custom tailored speaker system installed, I'd never compromise it with resonators and traps. I'd spend that resource figuring out what went fundamentally wrong and fix that before applying patches that will ultimately lead to more aids. This is how I see the digital clock, another patch but not a cure.

Thuchan said, "I understand why most analogue friends don't believe in the quality of digital reproduction. Nevertheless if you ever get deep into it the dCS stack it is an overwhelming alternative, or not?"

You're opening a can of worms with me Thuchan but since you asked for it here it is;

The problem isn't as much the quality of digital playback but rather the digital's qualities, see the link in above thread. You can massage it as much as want to but you're not going to change its nature. From day 1 the CD was designed with inherent limitations by the engineers and copyright paranoid media companies like Sony. The production chain is highly flawed and loose so the best that you accomplish is more tweaking and that wont change anything meaningful. CD is a truncated facsimile a much larger file. Upsample it, reclock it digital lens it, green bands, demagnetize, shark oil, snake oil or any other band-aid you want to attach it, it still remains the down sampled, i.e. reduced quality commercial product and DIGITAL. This blog article is tweaker's porn. What are you hearing? The clock? The up sampling? The power cord? the digital cables? Was the CD a direct transfer from analog master or was it an oversampled 24 bit remaster which is another tweak? and the list goes on. So your analysis of this clock is really analysis of whole lot of different variables that have nothing to do with the source. I'm sure that you realize that once you introduce your first "AUDIOPHILE" tweak to your system you have altered the parameters. Audiophile power cords all have overt characteristics and coloration, after you put one in, your system takes on a new character and that character gets stronger with everything additional cord from this point on every modification or tweak that you make is predicated on the power cord's overwhelming character and not your components. You're basically chasing your tail at this point on. Every cable and every tweak introduces another character that you end up offsetting with further tweaks.Its a never ending money pit.

Maybe this is where you and I differ in our final approach. For me, specially at these price points, if the equipment doesn't perform as advertised I'd get rid of it and replace it with one that works right. My philosophy is understanding the basics and nature of the subject to get the fundamentals right and only then one might make some adjustments to taste, like glass platter vs felt. In your shoes if I had spent years building a listening space and then have an expensive custom tailored speaker system installed, I'd never compromise it with resonators and traps. I'd spend that resource figuring out what went fundamentally wrong and fix that before applying patches that will ultimately lead to more aids. This is how I see the digital clock, another patch but not a cure.

Dear Kmccarty,
yes,I did it exactely this way, soldered the resistors and tested, took them out and changed resistors. Following more or less the formula I ended up for instance for the Goldfinger v2 in the Cobra arm (coupled by XLR) with a 850 ohm Vishay resistor. This seems to be a perfect match for the Boulder.
If you have many personality cards you can easily start a try out approach, going around the formula prescriptions.
in this case soldering is really the way to go. Which carts are you running? Maybe I am able to give some hints from my tests. Good luck!

Dkarmeli,
i respect very much your position on analogue vs. digital - and yes here we may have different experiences, especially when it comes to a dCS chain with a perfect clocking system and the DAC set to master function. Regarding the system's capabilities you're writing that every component has an impact on each other. Very true! In a complex system like mine it is a challenge you have to deal with.
I assume you know very well that the power supply for a dedicated listening room needs to be tackled very carefully. I therefore not only built up a complete separate current system for my listening room (with a remote fuse block) but also divided my system's power supplies by three diffferent big lines. The digital system runs to one, the amplification to another one and all other front end units like anlogue to the third one. These lines run in encapsulated pipe tunnels inside of the concrete ceiling from the fuse block in another room to the specific three outlet positions for the system. all distributions within one line will never interact with those of the other lines.

Regarding room tuning I avoided using any fixed installations other than a high record board on the one long side and a high CD board on the other long side. the rear wall is covered by a high book shelf. This way reflections are managed and deleted in a very natural way. You see no glass surfaces in this room other than a skylight area at the rear side, and a small window at the right long side's front which can be covered by an automatic curtain.

Controlling the first reflections in front of the system a special suspended wooden ceiling with a complex internal structure not allowing building up running waves is mounted. Also frequency related dispensers are used at the front ceiling. These are used on the bases of measurements taken and carefully placed. That's all. I think not so different to your overall philosophy.

Regarding the clocking system of the dCS chain comprising the dCS clock as well as the Rubidium clock this is not tweaking how you call it. I look at it as the technicians at dCS do as well as an optimizing approach to a nearly jitter free transportation of the digital signal. Of course I agree it may sound from my description like I am doing a big experiment on certain units of this chain which obviously is the case somehow. btw. i do this in analogue chains with its many variables as well. i am just curious finding out the interaction of parts of a system trying isolating the weak points/parts.

From your understanding of the digital medium I get the impression you will not enter this arena at all which is in line with your philosophy. Nothing wrong about this. From my point of view it is worth engaging with CDs and SACDs.