Beatles Mono Box Set listener review

Let me start with WOW and continue on.  I am amazed at the stuff that the stereo mix of the early LPs hide!  Some of the music behind the scenes is sort of hidden by the stereo mix.  I get a larger sense of the musicality of the Beatles from the mono mixes of the songs.

I decided to use my Qinpu tube amp and my PSB Alpha T-1 speakers to hear the most from these CDs.  I am amazed at how front and center the sound is!  I am very happy that I got the mono box set instead of the stereo one!  How revealing, I am hearing things that I never heard on their songs before; and I am a HUGE Beatles fan, and have listened to these songs at least 1,000 times each before! 

Instead of the opposing vocals responses being in the other channel, they are behind the vocals.  I am impressed and what a difference in the interpretation that the listener would get from experiencing these songs the way that George Martin and the Beatles meant them to be heard.

Why CD and not the LP box set.  I do not wish to have these wear out from playing them a hundred times each, LP is still a fragile format and I would only get the LP box set after acquiring the CD box set to listen to over and over.  To pull out the LP mono box set would be a special treat and I may only listen to it a half a dozen times or so as that special treat! 

I love LPs, however I understand their limits, and each time you play them you wear them out just a little bit.  I do love things that last forever, thus the CD box set.

I also feel there is less distortion in the output in the mono versions.  I have noticed, now after hearing the mono versions, that there is a bit of strain as the mix equalizes the channels in volume and makes the vocals sound a bit strained.

Highly recommended!  Best in class!  I have acquired the Meet the Beatles US release in original mono on LP and I am very excited to listen to it when it comes with my Grado mono cartridge.  I will listen to it on the Tube Amp and PSB combination and compare.


It may be time to get a higher end Mono cartridge.  I like my Moving Coil Denon cartridge for Stereo, I should get something just as good for Mono.



Keep Listening!

Jeff

Qinpu 2.5Wpc Flea-Watt Tube Amp and PSB speakers

I love having options!  I took this little Qinpu Flea-Watt amp at 2.5 Watts Per Channel on vacation to drive a set of Polk mini-monitors.  It did a great job!  It went quite loud and sounded quite good.  I use this amp at home usually to drive some Paradigm mini-monitor V.5s.  It again, does a great job.  However I installed banana plugs today on my speaker connectors for two of my speakers, (One set of my speakers does not recommend banana clips when bi-amping), and I moved the speaker wires from the Paradigm to the PSB Image 6Ts.  It sounds awesome!

The banana plugs make moving the speaker connections just about as easy as using a speaker selector switch, with no electronics in between.  I will listen and see at some point if there is a difference in sound when connecting my speakers directly to the amps and moving the wires instead of using the Adcom speaker selector switch that I have hooked up to two of my amps currently.  I have been using the speaker selector switch for some time now.

I was surprised by the amazing sound earlier this year when I used the Qinpu with the PSBs so I decided to re-visit the combination in case I was just dreaming.  I was not, the sound is quite excellent, albeit not very loud coming from this combination.  I listened to a couple records and so far have been very impressed with the depth and sweetness of the sound.  At lower than loud volume levels the sound is captivating, nice and warm and very revealing.  Quite a bit of bass from this little amp!  The highs are sweet and solid, and not too bright; I was worried about the sound being too bright from this low power amp.

I am going to listen to the combination of the Qinpu and the PSBs for a week or so and see if I still think it is sweet sounding.  As of today, I think it sounds just a little bit better than my McIntosh MC250, which sounds pretty nice with the PSBs.



Thanks
Jeff


Update 03/23/13:
This little tube amp has impressed me so very much and turned me onto tube technology.  I decided to upgrade to a more powerful tube amplifier, the new one has 7 wpc.  This Quinpu amp will be moved to my office and travel with me as my vacation amp as it is an awesome little amp!  Beware, this is a gateway drug type of device, once you hear it you will be amazed at the detail and great sound this little amp gives at modest volumes.  Well worth the price at $150.

Take a stereo on vacation?

Yes, I take a stereo and a radio on my vacations.  I alter what I take based on who I am traveling with and where I am going.  I find that having music available to be played at a decent, good sounding volume level is a necessity when traveling.  I was able to get a couple days of listening in on both of my summer vacations this year.  I get a bit tired of only having the music they play on the radio in northern Michigan and need a variety!  I also take one of my Zenith Trans Oceanic radios, either the 3000-1 or the 7000 series radios.  I like the reception from both of them as I can pick up AM and SW from all over the place! 

When I go up north to the cabin I take my small flea-watt amp and a pair of Polk mini-monitors to listen to.  Placement of the speakers is a bit of a pain in the butt.  I choose the Polk's as they are front ported and can be placed up against a wall, if necessary.  I use my laptop with a music streamer DAC to play the music.  I find the sound pretty good for such a smallish setup.  The 2.5 Watts of the tube amp play the Polk's to a pretty decent sound level.  The sound is pretty good too! 

When I travel with my best friend to play video games and listen to music up north in a house we rent. I take my Sherwood 70WPC integrated amplifier and my pair of Paradigm Mini Monitor V.5s with a pair of stands.   I also bring my laptop and the music streamer, of course.  I find the sound pretty satisfying and it goes quite loud.

I have relegated the Sherwood to duty in my garage system, so I cannot bring it this year.  What I am going to do this year on guy's weekend is take the Paradigm's, a pair of stands, my Hafler pre-amp and my Parasound HCA-800II power amp.  I still plan to bring the laptop, but I want to be able to choose other sources like when I take the Sherwood.  I don't want to be switching cables all over the place, so I will take a couple decent cables to connect media players to the pre-amp and play different types of music than what I have on my laptop.  I expect the sound to be vastly improved as the Parasound is a very clean sounding amp, it is newer and it has 100WPC.  I certainly won't be able to turn it up all the way with the Paradigms, but with their decent efficiency they should go quite loud and sound very clean! 

What do I listen to when I travel?  I try and switch it up a bit, so I listen to some old Jazz, Rock, Soul, Funk, R&B, and Oldies.  I have some old radio shows that I have recorded over the years and they are fun to listen to as I have digitized them.  I have also digitized some of my old Cassette tapes that I made years and years ago.  I did this to basically be able to listen to them for years to come as cassette lifespan varies from brand to brand of tape.  I have music recorded on old El-cheapo tape, but mostly I have the old Memorex tapes then I upgraded to using Maxell High-bias tapes , some TDK's and Sony's along with some Scotch and Denon tapes that I started using when I realized that they would last longer.  Quite a bit of my tape collection is over 30 years old and they still play.  I bought a Nakamichi CR-1A tape deck a few years back to allow me to record from these old tapes.  I still had the first tape deck I purchased until a couple years ago, but it wasn't even that good when I bought it.  I plan to digitize my tape collection over the next few years.  That will take a while as I have hundreds of tapes. 

Why do I take a stereo on vacation?  Pure enjoyment!  I have found that I am less stressed out when I get some listening time every couple days.  Otherwise I get crabby and I am in a hurry to get home.  Listening to music is one of my favorite things in this world!  Thank you to all who make music, without it life would certainly suck a whole lot more!

Keep Listening!

Jeff

Record Cleaning Machine versus Tube Amp

I have been wanting to get my hands on a 10+ watt per channel (WPC) stereo tube amplifier.  I have also wanted to get my hands on a decent record cleaning machine.  The question has been, which do I want more?  The cost for the inexpensive Spin-Clean record cleaning system is less than an inexpensive 10+ WPC tube amp, but I still cannot make up my mind.

The Spin-Clean is a manual record cleaning solution which has been receiving great reviews from all over the web.  I see it for sale for $79, and I see the deluxe pack for $129.  When I did the math, the $129 was a nice price for all the extras you receive when you purchase it that way.

An inexpensive stereo tube amp, which has the desired power can run around $300.  When I do my search I see the vintage tube amps being sold.  I have been wondering about one.  My friend mentioned a couple things, vintage does mean old and it will need to have some work done under the hood.  Plus, am I certain that it is not a fire hazard?  He also mentioned something about the quality of the output transformers.

The sweet sound of nice and clean records will make my system sound awesome when playing records.  However, it could sound sweet all the time I am listening if I choose to add a tube amp to my system.  I currently have a flea-watt tube amp, 2.5 WPC.  Most people would be surprised as to how nicely it plays through even decent sized speakers.  I have some PSB Image Ts and the sound was impressive and actually is what convinced me in the first place to get more watts to see how nice a tube with some decent power would sound. 

Back to the record cleaning machine.  I listen to LPs nearly daily and when my mother asked me today how many LPs I have, I estimated it at around 1,000.  It would take a while to get them all cleaned, but I would use a label to identify on my plastic liners which records had been cleaned.  From what I have read this device makes quite a difference in any except machine cleaned records.

Right now I use a 4-brush wet method for cleaning my LPs.  I use an anti-static brush to loosen the dirt, then I go over it with a discwasher brush.  Then, if needed I will spray some awesome cleaning solution that I currently use, (Smart, available at www.needledoctor.com).  I then use my flat, felt pad to spread out the liquid on the surface.  Then I use the four Discwasher brushes, the newer ones are a different, more absorbent material than the original, so I start with that one.  Then I move on from the most to least aggressive brush.  Afterward it takes around 5 minutes for the liquid to evaporate.  Some records only need the first two brushes and no wet cleaning, others are very dirty.

So you can see the positive attributes of either acquisition.  I am still pondering which I will do.  I will have to make up my mind soon!


Any Opinions?





Keep Listening!

Jeff

Satellite Radio Lo-Fi?

Is it just me, or does satellite radio sound like crap?  I am listening to a couple stations on sirius, and I am finding digital artifacts and crappy sound.  Has anyone else noticed?  The content is nice, I can listen to anything I want, but I like to listen in High Fidelity, not crappy sound.

I got a new car and I have 6 months to decide whether to extend satellite radio or not.  Right now, listening to music, I am uncertain as to whether I should start paying to deliver crappy sound to my car.

What are your thoughts?  Has anyone else noticed this?

Vibration Absorption - The inexpensive way!

I was listening at club level volume at home one day and something that had never happened before occured.  The CD player skipped.  I had never had that happen before and it scared the heck out of me!  I thought maybe the CD was messed up, something had scratched it or it was dirty.  I inspected the CD and it was clean as can be. I take very good care of my media!  At that point I started considering that maybe my old player had seen better days and it was malfunctioning.  I took a look and everything seemed to be good, I played several more CDs that day and I was happy with the result, there were no more skips.  So I pulled that near perfect CD and placed it on the disposal pile and went about my week.  The next change I had to play the stereo at 11 was a couple weeks later.  I was cranking some 80s Hair band rock and it skipped again.  At the volume level that I had been listening to it was quite startling! Inspection revealed that this CD was nearly perfect too.

I was trying to determine what my course of action was, because I was pretty sure that the CD player was dying.  I found it quite strange that both 'skips" happened during very loud playback.  Before the first listening session where the skip occurred, I changed the location of quite a bit of my gear and moved it to a lower rack on a wood cabinet.  I noticed that it was right in the dispersion field of the speaker that I was using when this happened.  Hmmmmm......

Vibration!  Oh no!  I started looking on Ebay, Audiogon, checked out my local stereo store and read some articles on vibration control.  I was bummed because the cost of even a modest vibration control scheme, was like $50 and they ranged to the hundreds of dollars to treat more than one device.  So, I decided that I would go down a different route to eliminate the vibration.  If the device cannot move, it should vibrate a bit less, so I added 10 pounds to the top of the CD player, in the form of a dumbbell.  It worked!  At least it stopped skipping during the very loud passages.  I am not going to claim that I heard sonic signatures from the vibrations that I know were still attacking the component.  I just did not know what my inexpensive options were.

I have a fellow audiophile friend and we visit each others' houses to do listening and to learn about new music that either of us have discovered, or re-discovered.  He has a smallish listening room with a bunch of speakers mounted on the same shelves as his components.  We were in there for hours listening to all his components, through various speakers, quite loud too, and not a single piece of equipment did so much as hiccup in all that time and as loud as it was playing.  I was pretty impressed, so I spoke about my experience with the skipping of the CD with him and he agreed it was vibration that most likely caused the issue.  So I asked him how the heck he was able to have all his gear co-exist on the same shelving structure as some of his speakers.

He Showed Me!

I was floored, what an awesome solution that never even crossed my mind!  I figured that if it worked for him it would work for me since my equipment is at least physically isolated from the sound source and not sitting together.  I went to my local sporting goods store and purchased a large pack of a dozen racquetballs, yes racquetballs!  He told me to cut them in half along the mold line which is straight and use them like a cup and put each under the feet of the desired component to absorb vibration coming from the room, the furniture and some of the vibration coming from the speakers.  I did this and have not had a single problem with skipping CDs since, and I have listened quite loudly since.  Plus I got rid of the dumbbell.

I found this "tweak" to be one of the most effective and cost-efficient methods out there to control vibration, which is the enemy of your components, and can cause issues with the sound.  The cost was $12.99 for 12 balls.  When you consider that I can cut them in half and put them under 6 components for that price, it truely is the cheapest thing going! 

I have used my first dozen balls up, so it is time to buy some more.  I have placed them under my solid state and tube amps, my CD Player, my home theater receiver, and my preamp, I will probably use them in my other systems in time. 

Again, I am not going to say that I heard more detail, better sound or any of that malarky, although it could be true, I just have not noticed.  I am just resting assured that the vibration control will allow me a few things, the ability to play my system very loud, to protect the sound from being altered by all the vibration, and it should help my tubes last longer as they are not being assaulted by vibration when being used.

Unless you point it out, no one notices.

Keep Listening!

Jeff

Oh CRAP!

I blew it!

I did it, oh man, I bought the pre-amp that I have been looking for.  Not specifically this one, but close.  I have wanted this brand of equipment for years and years and now I have found an affordable (reasonably and relatively inexpensive) McIntosh Preamplifier.  I am currently running a Yamaha C-70 Preamp, which is AWESOME and will see duty in my office system.  It has been acting up, so I may take the opportunity to get it over to my good friends’ house and clean it up a bit and replace some of the inner electronics. 

So I was on EBay and did a search for McIntosh C and chose newly listed, I see this beauty, and it’s within my price range.  It is not perfect, it seems to have a crack on the glass and a little bit of the paper inner label material seems to be peeling away.  I will see what it will cost to get it re-done once it becomes noticeable, or if I have other work done to it.  I am going to check with my friend and see if he recommends that this unit be sent out before I even hook it up to ensure it is working properly.  I currently have a MC250 Stereo Amplifier, and found out that I just happened to purchase its’ matching pre-amp, the McIntosh C-28 Preamplifier.  They were in production at the same time.  There are two solid state amps they made at that time, one had meters, and it is the MC2105, a very cool looking amplifier!   The other is the MC250, which doesn’t even have a power switch!  It has no meters, no lights, only two RCA inputs, two special inputs, the speaker terminals and two volume controls.

The C-28 has lots of goodies that I cannot wait to play with.  It has two phono inputs, and I will need both, it has dual tape inputs, an aux input and a tuner input.  I will be able to use this unit and have a few inputs and outputs available for expansion.  It has tone controls for each individual channel which allows for sound balancing the speakers.  The volume works independent of all tone and balance controls and just equally increases or decreases the volume the same in both channels at the same time.  It has a few equalization features, but I mostly listen to music flat.  I will have a closer look when using the C-28, but I think I am losing the ability to record from one source while listening to another.  That is a feature that I love that the Yamaha C-70 has.  Other than that, I expect it to be a very nice addition to my stereo collection.

Why did I upgrade?  Well the C-70 has acted up a bit and has me questioning its reliability lately.  So I have been watching eBay while warming up and babying the Yamaha.  I ran into this at totally the wrong time, and I had to scrape together the funds from various sources to make it work.  I can’t wait for it to arrive.  I will be chatting with my friend this weekend and will seek his advice.  Watch for postings regarding the C-28.

Keep listening,

Jeff

Postscript: 

The preamp was damaged in shipping.  I am in negotiations with UPS as it will cost a few hundred dollars to repair the unit. The technician thinks I have a cracked board.  The glass was shattered and when it was operated it made some scary noises.  I am going to try and keep it and do the repairs, as this equipment is high quality and meant to last.  McIntosh also still makes the replacement glass.

Posted 3 weeks ago

Postscript:

UPS wanted the preamp back, so I had to settle for a refund.  I am not very happy and it will take me quite some time to find another preamp that I want at the same time I have the $600 to spend.  I will just keep using the C-70 Yamaha preamp until it fails and forces me to upgrade.  I may purchase a couple good phono preamps and find a nice preamp that does not have phono inputs, but has tons of other inputs.  Only time will tell.  It is sad that idiots at UPS cannot read a box when it says FRAGILE on it, and have to kick, drop and destroy stuff that people have paid money for.