julesd68
27-10-2011, 20:26
The Source is the best turntable I have ever heard. :)
Here's the story. I first got into hi-fi as a spotty teenager in Manchester. In those days Manchester's best hi-fi shop was The Music Room. They had a great selection of gear with very friendly service even if like me, you only had a few quid to spend. I just loved going there.
I always remember walking into the store and seeing The Source for the first time, which they had in pride of place, on permanent display / demonstration. It's funny - I fell in love with it even before hearing it and knew that I had to have one. :stalks: Problem was, that the basic deck was £900 and another £700 for the Oddysey tonearm. That was top dollar back in the day. I ended up walking out with something more in my budget - an old STD 305S which I kept for many years, whilst never forgetting where I wanted to get to.
So about 25 years later I have a radically different system and my deck is the most excellent Pioneer PL-71. Second-hand Sources are few and far between; I have only seen one in the past few years. So when I saw the chance to get one of the early decks for £400 without arm from someone I knew on various hi-fi forums, I snapped it up without haggling. It was finished in black, not the Mahogany or Oak that I always lusted over, but it was still a Source.
So what arm to choose? I contacted John Gordon who designed the Odyssey arms for Source-Odyssey. And a most helpful chap he is too. John told me that he was soon to take delivery of some old ex-dem Odyssey arms that he would refurb for future sale. This sounded most appealing. But I soon felt that I just couldn't wait to hear the machine in action!! I started scouring all the forums and ebay for old favourites like the Mission Mechanic and Zeta, but these are so difficult to find that I thought I had best get a current high-mass design. I then saw an ex-dem Kuzma Stogi on the Midland Audio Exchange website and could not believe the price - it was more than 50% reduced! Turns out that the arm had only been out of the box to take the photographs of it. John reckoned the high-mass Stogi (looks a bit like the old Zeta) would be well suited to the Source, so I didn't hang around and got the credit card out sharpish. When I got it out of the box I was immediately impressed by the finish, engineering and literature supplied. Now I am a cable sceptic at the best of times, but I wasn't complaining about the Cardas captive cables and locking plugs ...
Next job - getting it nicely set up . I gave this job to a local dealer that I know and trust completely - Adrian at Audioflair. He has always done the business for me - he mounted the arm and swapped over my trusty Nagaoka MP-50 cart from my Pioneer PL-71.
After I got it home I put it on my rack and just stared at it. It looks so gorgeous and the arm looks like it was meant to be there in the first place! I just love nearly everything about the deck. The design of the solid hardwood plinth is so gorgeous - it has a timeless, classical appeal to it. The top-plate is pretty cool aswell - "Tempered steel painted and top coated in proprietory suede finish in grey" (!) It has three brass inverted isolation cone feet. I love the look of the immense "phosphor-bronze" platter. Nice. The gold finish on the MP-50 is a bonus, co-ordinating very nicely with the platter.
But of course, the most important thing is the sound. I have only had the chance to listen to one track so far, due to half-term childcare duties and family staying. I chose Khachaturian's "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" as my test record - a wonderful old Decca recording - SXL 6000. For the uninitiated, this was the theme to the BBC's "The Onedin Line" and most beautiful music it is too. I know this disc very well on my PL-71 and had actually listened to it that morning to keep it fresh in my mind for a comparison. The first thing I noticed was that the sound was noticibly "cleaner" than the PL-71 - almost like listening in high-definition. As expected, Adrian had set up the arm and cart just right - I then realised that the instruments, especially the strings, sounded more realistic and closer to the live experience, than with the PL-71. Whilst the PL-71 is no slouch with the soundstage, the Source feels even bigger and more focused, especially in the bass. That's the extent of my listening so far and have got another test record standing by, Rush's "Tom Sawyer", in addition to my usual staple diet of classical.
So what don't I like about it? Lugging it up the stairs. The Source is built like a nuclear bomb shelter and is back-breaking work. You could use the platter for weight-training. It also has a little fault that was common in early Sources, I have learnt from John Gordon. When powered up in "neutral" the platter very gently creeps round - the switch doesn't completely cut off the power to the motor board. I don't want to be leaving it on 33 and switching it on and off at the mains - my plugs are all hidden behind radiators and furniture, so I am looking for a suitable fix. Luckily John has again been immensely helpful and even provided me with a pencil drawn circuit diagram that he made when re-designing the circuit all those years ago!! What a top man. :youtheman: Here's his blog for anyone interested - http://odysseytonearms.blogspot.com/
It has been a long wait to re-discover The Source but I hope it will be with me for many years to come. Won't get to do any more listening till next week but in the meantime I can just sit on my sofa and drool over it. :drool:
Here's the story. I first got into hi-fi as a spotty teenager in Manchester. In those days Manchester's best hi-fi shop was The Music Room. They had a great selection of gear with very friendly service even if like me, you only had a few quid to spend. I just loved going there.
I always remember walking into the store and seeing The Source for the first time, which they had in pride of place, on permanent display / demonstration. It's funny - I fell in love with it even before hearing it and knew that I had to have one. :stalks: Problem was, that the basic deck was £900 and another £700 for the Oddysey tonearm. That was top dollar back in the day. I ended up walking out with something more in my budget - an old STD 305S which I kept for many years, whilst never forgetting where I wanted to get to.
So about 25 years later I have a radically different system and my deck is the most excellent Pioneer PL-71. Second-hand Sources are few and far between; I have only seen one in the past few years. So when I saw the chance to get one of the early decks for £400 without arm from someone I knew on various hi-fi forums, I snapped it up without haggling. It was finished in black, not the Mahogany or Oak that I always lusted over, but it was still a Source.
So what arm to choose? I contacted John Gordon who designed the Odyssey arms for Source-Odyssey. And a most helpful chap he is too. John told me that he was soon to take delivery of some old ex-dem Odyssey arms that he would refurb for future sale. This sounded most appealing. But I soon felt that I just couldn't wait to hear the machine in action!! I started scouring all the forums and ebay for old favourites like the Mission Mechanic and Zeta, but these are so difficult to find that I thought I had best get a current high-mass design. I then saw an ex-dem Kuzma Stogi on the Midland Audio Exchange website and could not believe the price - it was more than 50% reduced! Turns out that the arm had only been out of the box to take the photographs of it. John reckoned the high-mass Stogi (looks a bit like the old Zeta) would be well suited to the Source, so I didn't hang around and got the credit card out sharpish. When I got it out of the box I was immediately impressed by the finish, engineering and literature supplied. Now I am a cable sceptic at the best of times, but I wasn't complaining about the Cardas captive cables and locking plugs ...
Next job - getting it nicely set up . I gave this job to a local dealer that I know and trust completely - Adrian at Audioflair. He has always done the business for me - he mounted the arm and swapped over my trusty Nagaoka MP-50 cart from my Pioneer PL-71.
After I got it home I put it on my rack and just stared at it. It looks so gorgeous and the arm looks like it was meant to be there in the first place! I just love nearly everything about the deck. The design of the solid hardwood plinth is so gorgeous - it has a timeless, classical appeal to it. The top-plate is pretty cool aswell - "Tempered steel painted and top coated in proprietory suede finish in grey" (!) It has three brass inverted isolation cone feet. I love the look of the immense "phosphor-bronze" platter. Nice. The gold finish on the MP-50 is a bonus, co-ordinating very nicely with the platter.
But of course, the most important thing is the sound. I have only had the chance to listen to one track so far, due to half-term childcare duties and family staying. I chose Khachaturian's "Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia" as my test record - a wonderful old Decca recording - SXL 6000. For the uninitiated, this was the theme to the BBC's "The Onedin Line" and most beautiful music it is too. I know this disc very well on my PL-71 and had actually listened to it that morning to keep it fresh in my mind for a comparison. The first thing I noticed was that the sound was noticibly "cleaner" than the PL-71 - almost like listening in high-definition. As expected, Adrian had set up the arm and cart just right - I then realised that the instruments, especially the strings, sounded more realistic and closer to the live experience, than with the PL-71. Whilst the PL-71 is no slouch with the soundstage, the Source feels even bigger and more focused, especially in the bass. That's the extent of my listening so far and have got another test record standing by, Rush's "Tom Sawyer", in addition to my usual staple diet of classical.
So what don't I like about it? Lugging it up the stairs. The Source is built like a nuclear bomb shelter and is back-breaking work. You could use the platter for weight-training. It also has a little fault that was common in early Sources, I have learnt from John Gordon. When powered up in "neutral" the platter very gently creeps round - the switch doesn't completely cut off the power to the motor board. I don't want to be leaving it on 33 and switching it on and off at the mains - my plugs are all hidden behind radiators and furniture, so I am looking for a suitable fix. Luckily John has again been immensely helpful and even provided me with a pencil drawn circuit diagram that he made when re-designing the circuit all those years ago!! What a top man. :youtheman: Here's his blog for anyone interested - http://odysseytonearms.blogspot.com/
It has been a long wait to re-discover The Source but I hope it will be with me for many years to come. Won't get to do any more listening till next week but in the meantime I can just sit on my sofa and drool over it. :drool: