MARPA MUSIC

Confessions of a Vinyl head

My first turntable since picking up the vinyl bug was a Garrard Zero 100SB which I used with a simple Ortofon cartridge in

combination with an Audioanalyse PA4 amplifier and Tannoy 609 dual concentric speakers. The Garrard is a nice turntable

which can be tweaked in all kinds of ways (see the excellent info at TNT Audio) but the system as a whole didn't have the

clout I wanted and my friend Rudolf Bruil advised me to try a Sony PS-X70 turntable via a Tandberg 3002 preamp into a

Technics SE-9021 power amp. At the beginning of 2005 I decided to do something about the poor resolution of my system and,

after some surfing of the web, started by getting a pair of Yamaha NS-670 speakers. These are 1970s 3-way consumer speakers

derived from the cult NS-1000 studio monitors which featured specially designed mid- and treble units using beryllium. The

Yamaha NS-670s are amazingly fast, informative and musical speakers and their arrival set me off on a mission to find suitable

amplification. They love valve gear so I went on the internet in search of affordable solutions. After toying with the idea of various

second-hand solutions as well as a couple of Chinese built designs I came across an 'out of the ordinary' site going by the name

of Eminent Audio which had a neat little Preamp called the Vitale that came with an excellent MM Phono stage as standard

(perfect!) and it had also received rave reviews in Hifi News and HiFi World. I also discovered that this wonderful piece of gear

was built by the legendary Glenn Croft. His avowed mission was to design amplification which would recreate as accurately as

My current system is a Sony PS-X70 turntable and Denon DCD-1560 CD player feeding the Croft Vitale preamp and an

upgraded Quad 303 power amp into Yamaha NS-690 speakers. I use Missing Link Interconnect Cables using Eichmann 

plugs and Eichmann Cablepods at the rear of my speakers to improve the signal paths. The "finishing touch" in my system is a

combination of the The Universal Record Stabilizer Weight and the Universal Record Stabilizing Ring, both designed by

audiophile and musiclover Rudolf Bruil. Visit his site Soundfountain (an extensive and invaluable source of audio and analogue

hints/links/aids, info on turntables, cartridges, equipment etc.) to read more about the Record Stabilizing Ring & the Record

Stabilizer Weight: both are, in my opinion, unmissable aids to vinyl reproduction. They improve tracking, speed of transients,

solidity of vocal & instrumental images, depth of soundstage and aid the flow of musical information.

After a few weeks of 'running in' the thing simply sounded so good that I could hardly get up and move away from my

listening chair (to look at my email etc) without being drawn back again by the musical performances conjured up in my attic

listening room. Mozart and Britten string quartets, the wonderful sounding Debussy Cello Sonata and other chamber

music, orchestral music and opera sound equally fine. Jazz simply swings and sounds the way it should - musical,

rhythymical and timbral elements are presented in a wholly natural, almost matter of fact way (aural honesty/the heart of the

matter) as if it simply couldn't sound any other way. Rock music sounds better than it ever did, singers are 'there in the room'

and all the different threads of mixes and electronic music are revealed with no problems whatsoever. Not to say that what I

now hear doesn't reveal the other areas of my system that could be improved on but rather that, despite the 'minusses', there

are simply so many 'plusses' that any criticism seems churlish in the face of such heavenly music.I eventually threw it the

'ultimate test' - a Melodiya recording of Prokofiev's War and Piece opera which kicks off with a huge choral piece that my

old system couldn't cope with at all. The Vitale and Yamaha NS-670s had no problems with it, revealing with apparent

ease all the strands of the choral and orchestral writing. Even when the wailing soprano Galina Vishnevskaya appeared on

stage the system didn't go into shock and gave a very natural presentation of her voice with its 'particular' sound qualities

without exaggerating it in any way. I was gobsmacked. Since my initial purchase of the Yamaha NS-670s I've been lucky

enough to pick up two pairs of their bigger brothers, the NS-690s, as well as another two pairs of NS-670s which I am now

using with my PC and for other audio and DVD duties. I reckon I've become rather addicted to their sound. Everything simply

comes to life in front of my eyes with this combination - in fact, as the weeks and months have passed, it's as if the Vitale has

Click on the logo to visit Rudolf Bruil's highly informative and invaluable

source of audio-hints/links/aids. If you're a vinyl addict I recommend you

check out his Universal Stabilizing Ring & his Record Stabilizer Weight.

These are excellent products and essential additions to your turntable - they

really are the icing on the cake of your analogue experience.

Ed Saunders Audio Site

For all your Shure replacement stylus needs I recommend