Visit to Martin T

[John]

I visited Martin today thanks so much a fantastic hoist and wonderfull system. One of the best system I heard
We tried to get my Salvation working but the Terminator is just to sensitive A wall shelf seems to be essential with this type of TT
I brought some other gear to play with
I brought a silver cable I bought ages ago that is a bit of a giant killer and was a big improvement over a Russ Andrews cable, lots more detail depth and dynamics
We also played around with Martin wonderful Ayre CD player, simple a stunning CD player, we then heard the Bushmaster which is nice and my Tara DAC. I thought the Bushmaster was better than the Tara via the Touch when using optical. But using my laptop via Jplay took the Tara DAC up to the Ayre standards playing SACD with the Laptop just playing standard CD files!
I think for me it confirmed my thoughts that actually what is really important is transport, the difference between using the Touch and using my laptop USB with Jplay was really big

[Marco]

Glad you guys had a good time, but you kept that one bloody quiet!! ;)

Marco.

[John]

Lol u can't know weverytime

[MartinT]

Thanks, John, I certainly enjoyed your visit, your good company and your musical choices. As with all these visits by AoS members, I always learn something immensely useful and today there were two very strong lessons which I will be able to make use of:

a) As I have been suspecting for some time, and now verified by both Marco and John, my Russ Andrews Kimber-based power cords are now the performance bottlenecks in my system. John's silver power cable of unknown (eBay) origin comprehensively outperformed the RA feeding my Ayre player. Not to worry, I have made a start by ordering a juicy fat Furukawa cable from Mark Grant to feed my Power Plant P10, arriving soon. Then I will look at all the 1m RA outlet cables from P10 to the equipment.

b) Digital source really does matter. There is no doubt that John's laptop, feeding USB to his Tara DAC, is a superb front end. However, feeding it co-ax from my Touch or optical from my Blu-ray player didn't even come close to the wide open soundstage, dynamics and sheer realism given by his combo when driven from the laptop with JPlay. Digits are simply not digits, not in the real world.

We agreed that my Technics turntable sounded best of all the sources, but that has come a long way of late and the new Yannis 223.5 Phono Litz interconnect is already working its magic even before being properly burned-in. The Stillpoints LPI weight is also a positive addition.

A great afternoon's listening.

[MartinT]

Glad you guys had a good time, but you kept that one bloody quiet!!

LOL - organised a good while ago, deferred and deferred again because life gets in the way :)

[Alex_UK]

so much a fantastic hoist

:eek: what sort of party was this! ;)

Sounds like fun, anyway! :)

[Clive]

Sounds like a great time you both had!

This highlights for me how good JPLAY is but what I don't understand is how some people try it and it doesn't work for them yet others get fantastic results. JPLAY locks down a lot of the o/w so I'm not convinced it's a JPLAY issue. Could it be the the systems where it's not so great have a bottleneck elsewhere? For me JPLAY is a game-changer - it's not unique but it's easy to setup and not expensive.

BTW Salvation is great on a solid floor as well as a wall shelf.

[John]

Martin floor is solid concrete and uses Solid Tech stands I guess each room will very with this.
Martin system is transparent and has a real open soundstage so guess that helps with regards to Jplay but have no idea why some people do not seems to get the benefits from it I have taken my digital based system to a few people and it has worked on everyones I tried