@George 47 and I popped over to a friend for a Phono Stage Bake Off last Sunday, which included bacon butties!
Graham's system is HEAVILY modified, including:
Modded Garrard 401 + Longdog PSU;
Audio Note tonearm + OC9 II cartridge;
Modded Denon head amp;
Modded Puresound P10;
YBA integrated amp;
Modded JBL 4311 speakers;
Townshend Supertweeeters.
This is a great system and is especially good at producing the music that my friend enjoys most, late 70’s to 90’s rock and pop.
The phono stages were:
Grahams modded Puresound P10;
Chord Symphonic;
EAT E-glo Petit.
The EAT Petit review will be coming soon.
The records included:
The Best of Bowie
This is a K-Tel special, and so should be awful by definition; but it isn’t. Although this album can trip up a fair few stages. When properly amplified it is excellent.
The Beatles Blue Album
The Beatles albums can be damned difficult to reproduce well, frequently sounding bass light and shrill.
Rickie Lees Jones, Pirates
The vocal smudger in chief. When accurately reproduced the lyrics come through with some superb backing.
The fourth one I can’t remember, it is sat at home while I am not. It is a bit obscure, 1980’s Polish Electronic Jazz. It is fast paced but needs some good micro-dynamic capability to bring it to life.
12" Single - Don't Give Up, Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush
Michael Jackson, Thriller
Pink Floyd, The Wall
The Chord & EAT phono stages acquitted themselves broadly as I expected, each had their moment and there was a range of strengths and weaknesses. The Symphonic hoovered up the greatest detail and can be spectacular, as it was with Rickie Lee Jone's Pirates; the EAT Petite lapped up The Beatles and has a wonderful way of producing the human voice.
The P10 I had owned for a year and in its standard guise, Graham's version with the Denon HA-500 was super-charged.
Adding the HA-500 to the EAT Petit was interesting. NOT universally better, but when it worked, as with Bowie, it was excellent.
There were real moments of musical connection, where despair was being communicated and the hairs on the back of your neck were raised.
Great day.
