Montesquieu's setup

[Joe]

Vintro or Ageret?

[Reffc]

Love the plinth Tom. Nice and understated unlike much of the bling around these days.

[montesquieu]

Interesting discussion and certainly got me thinking ... my intention has been neither vintage nor retro, just a particular system philosophy whose details have evolved over time but which I've been reaching for pretty much since I discovered hifi.

For example:

The speakers came from my own (dare I say it considerable) experience of Tannoys ... yes I could have bought some new ones but I believe the old ones on balance have the most to offer. (My current pair are not really a great saving over a s/h pair of modern Canterburys, but they don't really give away much - if anything - either in performance). The cabs are new (vintage inspired but built to modern standards) but the drivers are from the early 70s. DCs in big cabs just do something special that no other speaker can quite match. It's both a starting point, and an end point.

The Raford amp is 100w of KT88 power from 1968 - possibly the very amp late Beatles amps were mastered with using Tannoys, certainly it was the main workhorse of Decca at the time, also with Tannoys - but when put up against a current EAR 534 it sounded essentially identical - which is as it should be. The last thing I want is an amp that sounds like an antique.

The Ikeda arm replaced a near identical sounding FR64S - same designer 40 years apart, and for fun I was able to check out the fact that most of the bits are interchangeable - it's a modern recreation of the same arm. (Thought the SME M2-12R I think is better than the vintage 3012 on innumerable counts). More to the point both exists to work with low compliance cartridges, such as SPUs or modern re-interpretations of the SPU ideal like the Miyajima cartridges.

I guess my goal was more about a reaching for a particular sound - Tannoys with proper amplification, a TT that did low compliance cartridges properly - and most of all, functionality, the specific functionality I need to listen to my own collection of music.

If this is retro, then fine, I can live with the label. It's certainly vintage in places but I truly think (this from attending shows and hearing the 'latest thing') that while new ways of doing things are still being discovered, a lot of old things have been largely forgotten, or simply can't be done any more at small, modern scale due to tooling cost for low volumes (the TD124 falls into this category).

Yes I'm sure a really good (equally good), interesting system could be assembled based around, say open baffle, or single driver horns, or electrostatics - but it would probably end up entirely different. As would something built around high compliance cartridges (in which I have precisely zero interest), or focused on hi-res digital file replay.

For me it's important that I can take off some 1970s vinyl that I've been enjoying to the full, swap a cartridge, whack on a 78 from 1932, and get a stunning sound, or change cartridge again and use my kit to tweak the EQ of a 1951 mono recording to sound like it's a live radio broadcast. That might not matter to some people, but making these physical objects sing gives me a real kick.

[petrat]

Needless to say, I agree with all this ^^

So, what's the verdict on the SME M2-12R?

[montesquieu]

Needless to say, I agree with all this ^^

So, what's the verdict on the SME M2-12R?

Very happy with it. Really brings the best out of the SPU Royal N in particular. Subjectively seems a shade weightier in the bass than the Ikeda arm as well.

The internal wiring is silver litz, apparently (I didn't know that). I'm consequently pondering having some right-angled RCAs put on the AN-V arm cable I have kicking around instead of the 5-pin plug, to see if that adds anything - don't know anything about the standard arm cable with it. Paul if you read this - I've been meaning to email you!

[Mala]

Insanely good looking deck, and setup! Great stuff!

[Andy831]

Lovely set up Tom.

[RobbieGong]

Vintage , retro, potatoe, potarto .... doesn't matter to me,
Lovely set up

[montesquieu]

All finished?
OK! - time for that music bake-off, Tom.

How's are dates in July looking? Agreed it's time! Long delayed.

[danilo]

Very nice setup pictured there. I'm envious :-)
Curious about that Settee shaped room treatment though.
Seems as surprisingly close to the pore old Tan's output.
Took a Loong time / significant efforts to fine tune My room sounds.
Obstacles / Furniture, even 10' in front of the Speakers had significant effect.
Which is why I'm even asking .