Another Sunday, another small dose of single malt (Highland Park 12 year old) and another small update. The WBT's have been an instant improvement, very costly but an immediate step up in clarity and better than the silver plated/ copper spades I had bought 2 months ago from HiFi Collective. Stereo imaging with the WBT spades has come along in leaps and bounds. Probably one of my better purchases. It still surprises me that decent cheap speaker cable can sound so good with decent spades. I've been thinking about experimenting with speaker cable core diameter and I managed to find some 7.5mm2 cable at a very cheap £3 per meter, should make for an interesting experiment. I've also been hunting for some Mullard ECC35's and every so often some appear with the brown micanol base.
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These ECC35's are supposed to be the last word in the 6SL7 family but what about these
http://psvanetube.com/wordpress/stor...air-or-single/
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I'm still on the hunt for the best sounding 6SL7 for my Croft pre-amp, so the hunt continues. I'm still playing around with ideas for mods to the Sondex and the Croft Epoch but I'm having too much fun messing about with cables, valves, cartridges and all the other stuff associated with a "system". The 301 has been my work horse for many years now and I occasionally look out for a Garrard 401 motor to try out and occasionally a really knackered 401 comes on the market or someone strips a 401 down and sells it off as parts. Again, I'm still waiting, but whilst I wait I think I'm going to plump for new plinth and possibly in the Shindo tradition. I'm probably going to get a slightly modded Layers of beauty cherry jobby which looks like this :-
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I was thinking of having decoupled ebony tonearm boards made as well, possibly sitting under detatched tonearm pod which will be housed in the 301 plinth.
The 301 also has a lovely new Silver Meister mk 2 SPU which not has about 75 hours on it. I'd say the suspension has bedded down now and it's singing like a good 'un. The SPU's typically last a mighty long time and I'm already thinking of getting a FGS diamond mounted when the time comes for re-tipping.
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Well I think that's about it for tonight, more musings later!