The Grand Wazoo's Garden of Earthly Delights

[Beechwoods]

(I was actually searching for a photo of a desert roadsign to Tonapah for Beechy - see Zappalogue thread). Of course, it was on a backroad, so I didn't get weighed

Are you sure it wasn't the weed, whites or wine that somehow caused it to slip your usual filing systems

Thanks Mr Wazoo

[Spectral Morn]

I love seeing photos and hearing about where people have come from, on their audio journey. You have certainly been on a journey. Did you ever think you would end up where you have stopped now Chris?



Regards D S D L---Neil

[The Grand Wazoo]

Are you sure it wasn't the weed, whites or wine that somehow caused it to slip your usual filing systems

Thanks Mr Wazoo

Probably all of them actually!
................BUT THEY SHOWED ME A SIGN!!

[The Grand Wazoo]

I love seeing photos and hearing about where people have come from, on their audio journey. You have certainly been on a journey. Did you ever think you would end up where you have stopped now Chris?



Regards D S D L---Neil

Maybe next week I'll delineate the main parts of my entire journey, but no, I would never have guessed that I'd end up with almost all semi-vintage gear. I'd never have dreamed of owning two Mark Lev power amps & I'd never heard of Mirage speakers (most people in UK never will).

The nice thing, I think, though, is that I'm still in touch with where I've come from. For example, my daughter owns my first amp, which is up in her room - She's got a Thorens TD160 & her computer, MP3 player & Korg stage piano that she plays through that. I still own the old Radford, with which I will never part, and the SD OBS's.

There's an old Cyrus 2 knocking about somewhere & all the old recievers & tuners help me realise that music is the important thing - & you can get music out of the most humble set-up imaginable. It's nice to have a big hi-fi that sounds impressive but when push comes to shove, I'd rather have good music to play through crap gear than crap music to play through good gear - every single time!

[Marco]

I'd rather have good music to play through crap gear than crap music to play through good gear - every single time!

Marco.

[The Grand Wazoo]

My Zeta tonearm has been in my system for longer than any other component & I honestly can’t see myself changing it unless disaster befalls it, or I come into some serious spare crispies.



Was this the first of the battleship tonearms? It was certainly one of the priciest when it came out. There’s nothing wishy-washy about this arm – both in build and sound quality and it’s best suited to low compliance MC cartridges (effective mass 16g). It weighs a bleedin’ tonne and is too much for some suspended TT’s. The originals came with a cable that was designed for use in microphones and was connected via a non standard plug. The fitting is to the Audio Technica / Linn pattern, but with 6 bolt holes instead of the usual 3. The bearing housing is massive – I mean huge and the bearings are of great quality. There was a spell where quality control went a bit by the wayside & some examples gave the Zeta a bit of a reputation for having sticky bearings, but a good ‘un is great.

The counterweight was a clever design, consisting of an alloy shell containing up to 3 different disc shaped steel weights with rims, allowing a bewildering combination of possibilities. You can put combinations of weight with the rims to the back or front of the weights to allow the mass to lie towards the front or the rear of the counterweight stub, depending on what you need. The whole lot is bolted into the shell and a cover bolted over that. The weight can’t be dialled in, so you need a balance for setting tracking force. When you’ve done that, you lock the whole lot down with 2 Allan bolts. Bias is set with a little wheel on top of the arm pillar and you do it by ear or with a test record.

Sound quality is ………err……..forceful shall we say. If you put this arm into a suitable well matched system, it will slap you round the chops repeatedly, yelling “Listen to this you wimp!” in your ear. Bass, rhythm and dynamics are the real strong points, but you can also hear into the mix due to fantastic resolution so that separate elements of even the most complex passages of music can be analysed. The treble is clean and sweet and the midband is superb. I’ve heard it described as a bit rough in the mid-range, but I think this is a result of poor matching. It works really well with the Koetsus, and I seem to remember some of the Goldbug cartridges being fantastic in a Zeta (who remembers those wooden bodied beauties?).

I bought my Zeta in a mad cross-country dash one Saturday morning when I was supposed to be doing something more important.

I’d just finished college and was about to start my first job in south-west Scotland. The morning we were due to move, I was reading a magazine in bed and absent-mindedly looking at the For Sale ads and trying to put off piling furniture into the van we’d hired. Then I saw an ad for a Zeta arm - £150. For quite a while, I’d had in the back of my mind that I should change the Linn LVX on my AR turntable for something better. I knew the AR was capable of hosting a decent arm and with a bit of modification, I’d heard them running some really exotic arm/cartridge combinations. I hadn’t considered anything nearly so rarefied as a Zeta because my budget was decidedly curtailed. But this was a chance to get some high-end magic into the proceedings………the start of something big!!

I broached the subject with my girlfriend, eminently sensible, but not completely averse to falling foul of the odd mad spontaneous whim

Question – “How long do you think it would take to drive from Penrith to Liverpool?”
Answer – “…………………..why???????”

Question – “If we set off now, without breakfast, do you think we could get there & back and still have time to get the stuff in the van and drive to the new house?”
Answer – “…………………..why???????”

………and so it went on. Not for too long though because she loves music as much as me and she’s great. I know, ‘cos I married her.

Anyway, down in Liverpool, our man the seller had a mate who worked in a hi-shop & got first dibs on his cast-offs. His mate was buying something (I guess an Ekos) to replace his Ittok, so he got the Ittok & he had to move the Zeta on. I handed over the lolly & he said that I might as well have the old cartridge – a Koetsu Black!

We raced back to Penrith, got the van loaded & moved to Scotland.

The Zeta was great, the arm rest was a little damaged, but it went on the AR to great effect. That’s an underrated turntable and can stand plenty of upgrades. It was what later became called ‘The AR Legend’ and was turned into a cut down version to make the EB101. Later, the Zeta went on my Gyrodec, bought when they were the cinderella turntable, thought only to be mere jewellery. Not to me, though, I preferred it over the Roksan, the PT Anniversary and the omni-present Linn.

Later still, I had it rewired & tweaked up by the original designer, who let it be known that this was one of the first 20 Zetas he ever made – as signified by the gold coloured arm-tube.

[Spectral Morn]

Great story Chris.

I too am blessed with such a wife.


Regards D S D L

[The Grand Wazoo]

I bought a pair of these to replace a pair of Castle Pembrokes – the old stand mounted ones, which were very nice in their own way.

I listened to all sorts of other speakers at the time Magnaplanars, Tannoys, Spicas, TDL’s but these were something else. They have their bass & mid-range drivers on a flying open baffle with a box mounted bass driver that’s rear ported. They stand at 1m tall and are tri-wire/amp capable with the crossover mounted in the open section of the baffle. The baffle is arranged so that what the mid & treble drivers ‘see’ is much narrower than the total width of the speaker, because of the rear angled wings (see the photo ‘cos I can’t describe this very well!)

These speakers lasted me years & saw me through many upgrades to the system & despite using Mirage M3Si’s in my main system, I still own them. I actually preferred them in many ways to the more expensive SD1’s that I had a brief flirtation with – the drive units seemed much more integrated, giving a far more coherent sound.

They’re a little coloured, but the imaging and soundstage are so believable, that I’ve only heard electrostatics better them in this respect. There's an Audax mid unit and an 8" Vifa bass unit. The tweeter was a SEAS metal dome - later models had an isodynamic unit. They worked well in rooms of all sizes and with amps ranging from an old Radford to my big Levinsons. I know they also work well with Naim electronics (not that that’s my thing), the lightning fast character showing these off to their best effect.

There are all sorts of simple things you can do to them to get that last bit of performance out of them. The respond really well to being slightly tilted back to just the right amount– which I guess puts the drivers into time-alignment. I bolted 16 mm of steel plate onto the bases which was the biggest single improvement I have ever made to a hi-fi system & it only cost me £22.

The best sound I ever got out of them was with my 15 watt Radford driving the mid range & a Levinson doing the rest.


.......and now for the piccies.








These are great speakers, and if you ever see a pair for sale – then snap ‘em up. They go for pitifully low prices, because no-one has ever heard of them (£200 - £260 seems to be the going rate).

[Spectral Morn]

Hi Chris

I remember these....but I have never heard a pair. Sound very interesting from your description.


Regards D S D L

[John]

The Zeta is a great arm when I had one I had it rewired by Audio Orgami and it made it even better