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Different take (perfectionist tweaker)

Posted by Ric Schultz on June 9, 2003 at 23:18:04

In Reply to: Kimber IsoMike / Meitner DSD / DiAural demo... posted by Rob Thomas on June 9, 2003 at 11:21:47:

I spent the last 45 minutes at the show Sunday in Ray Kimbers room listening to his fantastic recordings. Wes Philips of Stereophile was in the room most of the time I was there and really seemed to enjoy it. However.....I kept noticing that no matter how low distortion the sound was that it was still basically slightly veiled and compressed. The musicians never sounded like they were totally real or palpable. I heard everything he had on the hard drive including the drums, marching bands, singers, string quartet, guitar, singers, etc. I know his equipment is good, but can you imagine how much more transparent it would be if the Meitner was modified (I will be doing such later this year), the Krell preamp was bypassed, and the amp was changed to a more palpable amp with no binding posts and the speaker also had its binding posts bypassed, etc. The speaker cables were just laying on the ground! I know I sound like a tweak crazed person (I am!). But, when you do these things it makes the sound so much more palpable, dynamic, detailed and real(alive!). When I came home I put on a new SACD I had gotten at the show: AliaVox's Tonos Humanos (originally recorded in 24/96 and transferred to DSD).....of course, I had to sand the outer and inner edge, black the inner and outer edge as well as the bottom near the center hole and apply Walker Vivid......but the singers voice sounded more realistic and palpable than anything I heard in Ray's room. There is something to this keeping it simple and pure that most people in the industry just don't quite get. The system that I have is my modified Philips 963 ($1400) sitting on DH cones- on 2 inch maple- on innertube with one meter of Zcable Live 5 interconnect with Zsleeve connected directly to a prototype 110 watt switching amp. The volume is simply a nude Vishay resistor and another resistor to ground (fixed volume for best sound). Custom speaker wires are wired directly (no binding posts or spades) from the output coil of the amp into the speakers (highly modified VMPS 626Rs). Not saying that I have reached some kind of way out system, just that with modest components all tweaked out you can achieve really transparent sound.

I intend to mod both the Meitner A to D and D to A and by the end of the year and offer these mods to the industry. I am sure I can make these excellent processors much better.

BTW, the little drivers around the tweeter are actually the midrange drivers. I talked to the designer who was very nice, as was Ray Kimber. The speakers are a one off tool, not for sale. Of course, that could change.

Ray's recording technique seems very valid and I may buy an Isomike someday when I set up my recording studio.

I really enjoyed listening to Ray's recordings and most of the time I could turn off my critic and just immerse myself in these very musical selections. A couple of times I even applauded.......

Ric Schultz

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