It lives!
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Pretty 
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A stunner!
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Not new but has been repaired after being out of action for over a year. The arrival of the SPU Royal N meant I needed a few more loading options - the Fidelity Research XF-2 is a low impedance model and it does get a good sound out of the SPU but I just felt there was a bit more to be squeezed from it.
It’s a ridiculously complicated thing for just an MC head amp but at this point in the 80s Pioneer clearly said fuck it let’s throw everything we have at it.
Overall it seems to find more space and air, whilst lowering surface noise, which I can’t get my head around.
Will put the ART-1000 back in over the weekend and then it will be easier to compare SUT to Head amp.
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Get that XF-2 up for sale immediately 
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First person to give me £3k 
Thorens TD350 & SME 309, no impressions yet as my ears are still bunged up from a recent cold… The supplied felt mat really is not very good, not even concetric with the platter. I think a nice cork one might be ordered soon!
Thorens TD350 / SME 309 by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
Thorens TD350 / SME 309 by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
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Slowly climbing back to a system that’s a bit more performative. I’ve been lucky enough to retain my friends marantz MA9 S2 mono blocks, which in this setup are hugely over the top!
But I moved away from the creek, which was excellent but quite “British”. Fairly polite and a touch lean. I picked up the audiolab 8200DQ on pink fish, and what a great bit of kit. As good as any ESS DAC implementation I’ve heard, but with a proper analogue preamp built in, and quite a good one at that.
My favourite feature is that you can choose to run the digital inputs with a digital volume control, but it automatically switches to the analogue volume control when you change inputs. Best of both worlds imho, and superbly well implemented
It did however, leave me with no phono stage. So today a Gold Note PH5 arrived.
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£8 and veils are lifted, surface noise reduced, sounds great
May be just a good day for the stereo and prolly needs a bit more work than shoving under the mdf sheet that’s too big but continues my journey of isolation making improvements for a lot less than new gear
Well chuffed, who knew an inner tube at 4psi would work such wonders (will have to try different psi later too of course)
Dick never sounded so good, I can almost understand what he’s saying
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Max Townshend?
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Superb
Have you filled it with normal air or nitrogen? Or cryo treated nitrogen?
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A while ago, I had a lump of slate. 40kgs? Then my 50 kilo Hørn8ng Sati on top of that, with 4x innertubes underneath. You could really hear a difference. It was a full time job keeping air in them though. 
Under there somewhere!
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Have you set your speakers up yet?
Instagram lifestyle choice 
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That’s when I get estate management involved
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I’m actually really excited to sort it out in a couple of weeks and get the Snells set up. Itching to get the vinyls out since the weekend!
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