Which in turn reminds me of a few poignant lines by the poet Lyle Lovett. In the song "Skinny Legs" from I Love Everybody (GREAT demo disc btw), Lyle sings:

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And see that boy with that guitar
He's got a blue Toyota like I always wanted
A Japanese girl in his car
It's a blue Toyota like I always wanted
Sister look at me again
You'd love me if I were a driver like him

In a similar vein he goes on to covet people's baby faces, little round butts, fancy clothes etc. The d

At last she's ready. Tomorrow is the day...

The two photos above are of my actual deck. The arm is a Breuer 8c and the cartridge is a Dynavector XX-2 Mk.II.

Sorry, sorry. It was more a case of just being very busy rather than any specific wolfish cynicism. Honestly!

So the bottom line is that I am pleased, very pleased with the sound I am getting, although the path was not exactly straight. I suffered two setbacks, both of them in a way of my own making.

The first was that I decided to go with a Breuer arm that I bought from a friend and it lacked any sort of setup documentation. While Robert is quite familiar with the Breuer, his own is of a much earlier vintage. This caused quite a bit of head-scratching since there have been several versions of the arm with different effective lengths and information about the variants is hard to come by*. Herr Breuer himself is not exactly of the internet generation so sorting this out took some time.

The second was that for a couple of reasons I decided to go for phono sockets on the deck whereas the phono input on my Boulder sports XLRs. Robert didn't have time to make up a cable the same day the deck was ready so I opted to take delivery with a stock phono-to-XLR cable he had. Big mistake. Once connected up the phono output gave a very low output level (requiring me to turn the volume waaaay up) accompanied by nasty mains hum. Things like this are always obvious in retrospect, but the cable was clearly not wired correctly . Both 'hot' and 'return' need to float, whereas this cable was apparently referencing one or the other to ground and causing a ground loop in the process. Once this glitch was sorted out things improved dramatically.

Listening to some familiar tracks however it quickly became apparent that while the sound was very good in most respects it was not up to what I know the deck to be capable of nor was it up to my aspirations. After a long discussion with Robert he suggested I try the Dynavector XV-1s which as well as being a significantly better cartridge than the XX-2 is in his opinion a better match for the Breuer.

Robert came round and mounted the XV-1s last night, hence my waiting with this report. Bottom line is that I am now where I want to be; the combination with the XV-1s really shines. As usual with this kind of cartridge upgrade it is the frequency extremes you notice first, the lushness of the bass and the purity of the treble both take a big hike. The other two big beneficiaries are soundstaging and dynamics, the entry of the flute half way though Lullaby in Paris from the Saragh Vaughan/Clifford Brown disc literally made me jump out of my seat.

My overall impression is that this is a deck that really gets out of the way of the music and just lets it flow. Several times, listening to quite diverse albums the same word sprang to mind, "liquid". The sound is smooth, liquid and musical. It is a sound that draws you in, which while it is probably a good thing also makes it much harder to pick the sound apart and analyse it. So for the moment I am very happy. I need to run in the Dynavector and also play a little bit with the VTF; there seem to be a couple of very different schools of thought on the optimum setting for the XV-1s.

Aural memory can be a tricky thing but I can say that familiar recordings have presented enough surprises to convince me that this combo is doing things that my previous SME 10/Ortofon Rohmann definitely wasn't. However we are talking a five year gap, a different room and different electronics as well so this is hardly a scientific observation. What I can say is that in my listening experience this deck definitely belongs in the top flight along with such names as Audiolabor, Brinkmann, Verdier, Yorke etc. And in looks of course it leaves them all in the dust, at least for my money! I am delighted to be one of the few lucky owners.

* Someone is bound to go out and google this to prove me wrong but I can say that some of the information on the Vantage Audio site appears to be correct while some of it appears not to be.

shade,

I asked Robert about his North American representation and the answer was at the moment he doesn't have any. If you Google you will find some references to Donald North Audio although this was apparently a pretty informal relationship from several years ago and no longer active. However, Robert will be taking the deck to CES next year along with, if some early discussions come to fruition, some pretty interesting company. So anybody heading to Vegas next January will hopefully be able to give it a listen.

In the meantime, if any dealers or distributors are interested they can contact Robert directly at info@audioconcept.se

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It's kinda funny, looking back, that both of us were on the heels of the Nott 294 and ended up on more exotic paths...

It's like we're cosmic sisters under the skin

Aw shucks Elk, there you go again. Asinus asinum fricat*

* This is all Jazzfan's fault. He's got me doing the Latin thing in pretty much every post now. It's almost as bad as the Yoda outbreak we had a while back. Stop it, I must!

So, I have been enjoying my affair with my new Swedish mistress sooooo much. I'm guessing some of you know what I mean; it's so very, very exciting at first. Well we have been spending long evenings together playing some of my favourite records; we've been having a ball. So I think I am a little bit, well, 'smitten' .

And like all fools in love I wanted to get my honey a little 'something', a token of my affection, a symbol of my wreckless infatuation. But what to get? I wanted to get something beautiful, something that would complement her gorgeous Scandinavian looks. But at the same time I wanted something practical, you know, something she could wear every day. Above all it had to be something truly special, something rare and exotic - just like her.

I thought long and hard and finally I came up with the perfect idea. But so very hard to find, and so very expensive! But she's worth it I told myself. It took a while, but finally I have it, here it is.

A special secret prize is on offer for the first (exactly) correct guess...

...guess it was just too difficult ...

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Is it the gorgeous Mpingo record clamp?

I knew you wouldn't let me down Buddha my man! You're close, very, very close indeed. But of course I couldn't make it that easy .

There's just one teensy weensy detail missing...

Perfectly correct RG but in the context of the competition I'm afraid they are a bit of a red herring.

There is a fine prize at stake here so I must insist on a completely correct answer.

An excellent try Res but not the answer I am after. The answer is in the forum, you just need to have been paying attention...

Not yet, although that is S 7530 that is playing in the photo...

Just to make it really easy I added a close-up...

You're going to kick yourself - in fact I'm going to kick you if you don't get it!

The answer is within you. Dig deep, grasshopper!

Full marks for lateral thinking, both, but unfortunately you're on the wrong track*. All the clues you need are right here in the forum, specifically in a post from 06/30/08. I am genuinely surprised that nobody has got it; I really didn't think it was that difficult. This is your last clue. If nobody gets it now I will keep the prize for myself!

* The pictures were taken with my trusty Canon EF 24-70/2.8L USM, my favourite lens. I'll take the Leica references as a compliment!

Buddha,

Indeed I am evil!

When I am logged in dates/times are all adjusted to my local time zone and here at least it was 06/30/08 when the post was entered. Of course it may not look that way for you...(laughs evil laugh)

Right, that's it, NO MORE CLUES!

Buddha buddy, you crack me up. Happy Birthday man!

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Is it the gorgeous Mpingo record clamp?

I knew you wouldn't let me down Buddha my man! You're close, very, very close indeed. But of course I couldn't make it that easy .

There's just one teensy weensy detail missing...

Well doesn't seem like anybody is going to guess it, such a shame. The clamp is indeed a gorgeous piece of Mpingo blackwood, the key detail is that it is a Shun Bowk* hand-made by forum member dbowker. I should just like to make it clear that any similarity with any other clamps, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No monks or grasshoppers were harmed in the making of this clamp.

I would like to acknowledge Doug's superb craftsmanship which I think is clearly evident from the picture, and thank him again for producing this superb piece. Please feel free to contact Doug directly with any questions.

* Doug prefers the name "Mypingo".