VDH DDTII special

I am not used to this kind of price cartridges. Unfortunately during the years I have got so exigent (or sick) with music reproduction that the least expensive cartridge I have in my collection is already double price of this VDH.

So for me trying this cartridge and see how it perform it was not like I cannot wait to see which kiind of special magic it will be releasing. But I was not prepared for its performance too.

I used to like or better appreciate dynavectors of its price range but after few times what they make me feel it is missing is essential for me. With this cartridge instead what it is missing it is not essential. This is what it is absolutely wonderful about this cartridge. It is a very good balanced act. Its dynamic capabilities are so evident that even though the timbres are not in the same ligue of the VDH Crimson or other very high priced cartridges, you don't care too much about it if you are not more then concentrate to its shortcomings. The comparison with two of my favorites cartridges in more or less this price range are educative: the Dynavector DV 20X2 has a beautiful bass reproduction but is shows differences in the quality and nature of the reproduction of the entire frequency range and the same I felt when I compared this VDH to  the DV17 D3 another extremely good cartridge. It is not a question of being coloured since both these cartridges are very linear cartridges but it is like some parts of their music reproduction are made from different natures. It is a very difficult thing to explain. If for example the frequencies would be wood the bass for example would be mapple, then a little higher in the midbass range you will also have wood but oak and then higher up you will still have wood but would be teak. With this VDH music comes out for the same piece of cloth or wood if staying with my previous example. This could sound strange but it is very important for the final listening satisfaction and a very rare quality. This quality was also apparent in one of my favourite cartridges of all time that is the Myabi standard that unfortunately is not longer in production.

The DDT II special lets you playing music hours after hours without waiting to put back on your special esoteric cartridges (in my case) or to wait to upgrade it.

I have tried this last thing up: upgrading. The results were very interesting. I don't want to mention the different cartridges I have tried in this upgrading path, but they all come from extremely known and well considered firms. The thing that came out is that to be really, really sure the more expensive model had really something better to offer, and not just a fraction of the music reproduction but all the musical message, this surely better cartridge was at least three times higher in price then the DDTII.

It means that with double price maybe you can get better image solidity, or better timbre reproduction but at the same time you will have a more compressed dynamic or whatever.

This findings has been extremely interesting for me and I think should be useful for a lot of passionate like I am.

So if you don't have an insane amount of money you can be sure that with this one you get a lot out of your record.

This cartridge is fast, dynamically extremely open, of good transparency and very easy to match with differents tonearms and to different listeners.

I made listen to this cartridge to a coupple of friends with whom we often disagree on our liking and this cartridge managed to be liked by both of them so it must be doing something objectively right.

The only downside that doesn't have anything to do with its sound is its name: DDT. Depth, dynamic  and timbre. It is not that this cartridge it is not capable in these domains, but I think it is not a cartridge that let you appreciate the music frangmented in its part but more as a whole. I would have called it VDH Standard since basis of comparison.
I say this in a not light way. For basis of comparison I mean not the highest standard achievable, but a standard to whom refering also to see how much better is another much more expensive cartridge.

Shortcomings: of course this cartridge has shortcomings. Anything has shortcomings even reality. You know an instruments sound better in a room instead of another, an orchestra sound better in a theatre in comparison with another so how things play depends largely where thery are played.

In absolute terms when you play a lot with this cartridge you will find its shortcomings and as I did you will find out they are not essential to the musical message. If you find any other shortcomings you are finding the shortcomings of the rest of the chain where this cartridge is playing.
I say this thing very firmly expecially after I have red a review in a French hifi magazine.
I immediately say with their test surely don't try to find the nature of things. I am almost sure they mount the cartridge in one or two systems and listen and arrive to a conclusion. There is a certain truth in this wrong approach since this is the approach that most people will have. They are not going to find the real taste of any hifi gears since this taste will be spoilt or exalted by the other things they are connected with.
I try to really get out the real taste of somothing. This means at many, many connections and trying out.

First found shortcomings that we think is of this cartridge, as also found in a French magazine: the timbre lack a little in density.
But, and this is very annoying, this shortcoming is not really of the cartridge. Connected to good quality cables you have this kind of feeling.
Then just for the hell of it I connected my phono preampli with hi end cable like the VDH the Silver MKIII. What happened? This shortcoming was not there any more. So was the cartridge or the cable?It was the cable. The thing is that most of the cables with this cartridge will show this shortcomings except the cable that have the best timbre reproduction. You can put also the VDH First Ultimate in this list and the very expensive Tara Labs Zero and few others.
If I change it with the Dynavector DV17, or the Goldring Eroica, I cannot get the same timbre beauty of the VDH DDT II special when using the most expensive cables, but with these cartridges I get slightly better timbre reproduction with "normal" cables.

So I was brought to this question - conclusion: does this cartridge shows timbre deficinecies in the rest of your equipment? Apparently yes. But it is a strange thing. This kind of things happens only when a component is extremely and I repeat extremely well balanced. So finely balanced that whatever is taken away by other components from its fine balance will be showned. So if a catridge has rich timbre redintion  and we put this cartridge in a system that is slightly less good in this department we still feel the cartridge to have very good timbre reproduction. But if there is a cartridge like the DDT II special that has a spot on right timbre richness and you put in a system when there is going to be a detraction of this parameter you will end up saying the cartridge has a lack in this department. And most of the time cables have an extremely hard time reproducing timbre reality. I think is the major shortcomings in cables. Only very few cables can do it acceptly well. But it is true that at the end of the day is the result that you are after, so in a normal sytuation you will feel what is not this cartridge shortcoming lack its weak point, but the cause will be your other components. But in my humble opinion I think the reason of this is simple: the other cartridges of the same price range and behond get more timbre richness adding colorations, It is not timbre but nice distortions filling the reproduct instument since when connected with hi end cable the DDT II special has surely better timbres.

This is a very, very solid product. You can get a lot out of this cartridge. And if you don't like it it means that you didn't make it sound right. This is not a cartridge that has a signature sound that you can love or hate. It sounds right.

The worst of all: this is what I really hate and you absolutely have to know before buying and using any VDH cartridge. They pass a time in a prison of acoustic misery. I tell you about it: you buy a VDH cartridge, any kind of it, I had Frog, Grasshoppers, Black Beauty and so on, and you put fresh new in your system and they sound very good. Then they keep on sounding this good for up to about 40 hours. When they get close to 40 hours strange things happen. The bass loose control, the treble becomes hard, they start being a little foggy and grey. The strangest of all, and happended to me with every VDH cartridge happens at about 38 hours. Few times you will hear like something went out of phase. But you check the speaker cables and they are OK. This phenomen is just the prelude of the acoustic misery of the 40 hours. Then you have to wait up until 160-170 hours for things to be better then they were at the beginning.
Why this happen and how do you explain it? I don't know. Maybe one day some close to the holland master will ask him about and we all know about it.
So when you think something wrong happened to your VDH cartridge be rassured. The worst is if you try or buy one that has 40 to 160 hours on. You will end up to very wrong conclusions about their musicality.

Last remark: this cartridge is an exceptional match for the Naim Aro. Aro owners now you know it.

If you don't have a lot of money to spend buying this cartridge you can be rassured you get 90% of what is there to get out from cartridges. If you want to believe somebody like me that owned more then 50 cartridges and listened and set up many more you could, but if it is not enough you should know some other people like me say the same thing about this cartridge. The only problem is they know you want to spend more and if they tell you to buy this you will say: it is just an entry level! Yes you are right. On the paper you are right. Just on the paper.

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Wireworld Eclipse 7 interconnect

The beauty of the truth. This is the word I would like to use for this cable. The only thing that can go wrong with this is that the truth is not always beautiful...

I have heard different songs about wireworld products. And myself belonged to that part that didn't really know what to affirm about the sound expressed by this maker. That this maker has a wide knowledge and experience is certain, but that having experience always means you are a master I am not sure about it. I have a lot of experience in many fields and don't master any of them. But let put it short: the conceptor of Wireworld is a master in its art.

There is a consinstency of aproach and sound result in all its cables that is very rare. And the good point for us, the listeners is that the results are very predictable.
Let's start why some people would not like Wireworld cable:
the first dislike I have heard is that they sound a little cold in the high frequency. And this could be right. Please be careful that I said: could be right not that it is right. The second dislike is that they feel a little to composed not very free in the dynamic expression and this could be right too. (I am saing again could be right andd not that it is right).
So now the difference between when it could be right and how it is right.

I said it could be right becaus most of the time if not always we assembled our system in a compensatory way. So we have put some salt there, some peper ther and so on. When we instal a Wireworld cable all this dressing up is exposed. So if we had put some compress element to focalize more the sound and at the end we balanced this with a certain cable when we change for a Wireworld we will ear the dynamic compression of a certain element in our chain. But of course since you don't have either the experience or the will or the patience or many component s like I do or other people have, you would end up saying the Wireworld is a little compressed or cold in the higher frequency.

The best thing to understand Wireworld cable is to assemble a system where you change everything except the cables. So I keep in this case the Eclipse 7 between my CD player and my pre phoono and between the amp and the pre and when I don't like sonething I don't change a cable but another component. If I do this way, once I reached the right balance my system is generally very well balanced, transparent, dynamically open, extremely clean but not cold.

I have found this out after many hours of playing with wireworld cables. They were exposing not themselves but what was happening behond themselves.
So what I can conclude is that Wireworld cables (I use this generically since their consistency) from Eclipse 7 to Platinum Eclipse 7 (I have tried all the models) are much closer to neutrality that any other cable on the market.
Of course the smaller one like the Equinox and down the line show some colorations but much less then same range competitors.

The only thing to anylize is: it is a good thing to be neutral? Yes, in an absolute sense of course. Let's put this question in another way: does my system need neutral cables to perform at its best?

The story can be long.
We like to get simple in reasoning expecially when we have to spend money on something, just to be sure we are not trowing them away.
Many times I have red and I have heard: you cannot get better then from the master recording. Are you sure?
I have got this one after many, many years. Yes you can get better then the master. You must be crazy you would say. How can you get better then the less degraded source you can have. The reasoning is simple and you should not have a brain block but just open it and allow to some thinking, expecially after having recorded many things. If you have done recording in studio or anywhere the first thing you notice when listening to it is that is way different from the original event. Whatever you do, any kind of mega star trek recorder you might have the recording is going to be different then the reality.
You have already lost things, parts, of the original. If everything you have is the most neutral you are going to get almost to the master recording with its original missing parts. Or you can try to fit in the lost parts things that make senses to restore the original message.
This is what a lot of extremely good compoments do, and that we often call magic.
There is only one thing that doesn't work with this method. It doesn't work for every lost message.
The components are not intelligent, so they add magic altering the recorded message. The thing is that the magic felt in a voice can be a sirop in a piano...

So I said that a perfectly neutral component can at the best give you back not the original message, but the recorded original message with its missing components already lost in the proceding of recording.
All this prelude is to make clear and to justify the two mainly differents approach of hifi components makers: let's make as less intrusive as possible, is the first, let's give beauty where there is not beauty any more.

For me both aproach are right. It means they are both very well defendable.

There are though for us few things to consider: where to use a "absent component" and where to use a "altering component" that brings to the game its own flavour.

Generally speaking a less expensive components never aims to perfect neutrality because for the limitation of its own design already is going to have a limited dynamic and timbric reproduction and so on. So we could say in this case would be better to bring to the game something that is not there so we should use not a perfectly neutral cable. I am not sure about it.
Generally speaking again, very expensive components tends to an absolute sound so they are as close to neutral as possible: it is absolutely not true since there is much more difference in reproduction from two very expensive components then from two lesser one.
So at this point we don't know what to do.

But it is simple: we don't have to stick with an idea. 

Our goal is to get out from our system the most emotional reproduction of the music we love.

OK so you have my position on neutrality.

If instead we have the concept of neutrality as a no distortions concept this is more interesting.
Nobody likes distortions but there are distortions that are pleasent and others that are extremely umpleasent.
So either you master the pleasent distortion or you try to get rid of the most distortion you can.

This is Wireworld approach.

This cable add much less distortions to the sound that you might think.

Its sound is solid; its images are well carved in a deep silence and depth is extremely well rendered as well large and agood in hight, and timbres are well diversified, not so beautiful as VDH silver 65, but the sound is more solid since its bass goes deeper.

This cable has it all except one thing that can be either of the most importance or the less importance: it doesn't add almost anything.

As my long prelude made clear this sometimes can give a not interesting sound. If your components give a result with enough salt no other cable can be better then this one in its price range, but if it is missing some beauty, some warmth, some expression, some timing, some kind of accent somewhere, it is not going to give you it to you.
It is something that fits exceptionally well the beauty holder.

I like this cable a lot, expecially since it makes clear what it is the weak point in your system. If you use this cable and your system sound a little slow, it means it is a little slow, if give you the impression of being to hi fi you know the kind of accentuated hights and medium high range it means your system is like this. But if your system is a work of balance due by a stroke of luck or by a wise combination of elements this is the cable your system will work very probably very well with.

VDH MC-Silver IT 65 G

This was an easy one to understand. There are so many good enough cable right there today that at the end after a long listening session of few days or weeks or months you don't really know if you like them or not, or better you must like them because they don't offend you or maybe you don't like them because you would like something more of you don't know since everything seems to be there in the right proportions. But many times, too many times, especially in the last 15 years, something essential has gone. And for me it was difficult to understand what, since most of the hifi gears are better overall, in everything except in one small essential thing that this cable helped me to figure out. And at the end it was not so difficult to understand. This thing is life.

It seams everything, (reflecting maybe what we are becoming), is too self conscious of not doing wrong, the will of doing it correct, talking, explaining, and appreciating and being appreciated; avoinding at all cost a major conflict. Everything is getting like distilled water. The thing is that distilled water is so pure that life avoids it! In pure water no fish can swim.

This cable don't play this game. Maybe because is a fairly old design, even though refreshed, maybe only on the paper? Who cares. We are here to listen. 

This cable has a fantastic dynamic expression.  I would say a la Naim (olive series). But this quality is not only in the mid range, but also higher up where is very open and extremely layered in the timbric reproduction.  A female voice it is not just beautifully rendered but with it you have also the very misterious acoustic datas that makes you feel it comes from a real living body; a mouth made of flesh. 

I have tried this cable from very expensive system to a pair of laptop speakers and I always had the same impression.

The downsides. The downsides are relative to us becoming acoustically idiots. In the hifi idiocy the images could be more carved out, and this was present in direct comparison with other cables, but after changing again to the VDH 65 everything was much more natural and the music was flowing much better.
So if we cannot talk about downsides, even its price, if we want to have a critic attitude we should say then: what it misses from perfection if this would exist? In vey big orchestral crescendo you feel the dynamic headroom shrinking, like many amplifiers tends to do. Most of them. To hear it I had to put in my big system where I am sure was not the amplifier doing it. But I find this to be an absolutely minor downside since most of the music is not in the pick of a dynamic crescendo. And then to be realistic not many system can do this. And to say it more most other cables don't show it since they are dynamically compressed and forced already before the dynamic climax so you hear less this effect.

I also can detect a very slight lack of body in the medium bass range, compensated by an extremely rich texture that I think partecipates at the already said misterious quality to be able to make you feel the flesh of the singer. This I have found a little contradictory and not easy to explain. Generally the lack of body is due to some missing timbrical informations. Or maybe it is just a lack of coloration? I am not sure about the two things and I don't want to get deep into it so I just write down my feelings and impressions not what is actually happening here.
In a certain way it has a caracter that reminds me of Telefunken and Siemens ECC81 tubes,  and these are very highly respected tubes. With one better thing in comparison. Less compact-cold high frequency, since more leafed in this same region.

In its price range and more, no other cable has the same qualities. 

It is not even close. They can sound nice but dead by comparison.

And you can forget about having the same tibrical layer the same dynamic shading and expressivness, maybe you can have other things to think about but not to listen to.

This is a forgotten product. Even by me. I have never tried it before neither was I pushed by curiosity do to it so. And many of you surely share my same position. I don't know why it is not pushed in the marked; I don't know why there are not reviews around, maybe VDH cables proposition is way too wide and sometimes people that didn't like a product of his production tend to generalize saying they don't like VDH cables. I can say this is possible. It is true some company has a family sound or a sound goal achievement or direction. And these makers are predictable in their products. If you like a Cardas cable you can moove up in the range, and even today with the Clear range departing a little from the old Cardas sound you still have a certain family sound connection. You can absolutely say it with Wireworld, exceptionally consistent in the range so if you don't like one or two  product you are not going to like the others and in the same way if you like a cheaper one you will appreciate more the more expensive ones. Also MIT is capable of doing so.
VDH instead has something for every taste. So you can be a carbon man or a 3T (and even within the same range like the 3T you have very different sound) or fusion or an Orchid. These series sound very different from each other. I would be surprised if somebody listening to a Mountain interconnect would detect the Hill of the same (and just shlight less expensive) range belonging to the same manufacture. And forget about comparing the Integration, with the Orchid.
If you have the opportunity to go through the VDH cable range I think it is very possible you will find something for your taste. I think it would be easier being directed  by the distributor of your country or your dealer once of course you are able to express your liking. And this last thing is very difficult to do. When I was in the hifi bussiness it happened to me too many times to have people coming and saying they were really in love with  tubes but ending up disliking all the tubes combos and clearly prefering solid state ones. And others saying they were loving turntables but always prefering digital reproduction even in their home and keep on saying their love about vinyl. Crazy world.

Few words for the end: this VDH comes in a beautiful wood box and you have also a VDH stylo and a CD with it. Nice touch for an exceptional product.

Ok now you know what it is going to happen?
I am going to make a phone call to buy one. And since for me this is not really the right economic time to do so, to finance it I am selling one same range cable and one of higher range. Both best buy ,meilleures achats and diapason d'or in their respective categories.
It is saying enough for the comparison?

Blue Horizon Proburn

This is a cable burner. You think you are going to throw your money away. And it could be true if you just have enough patience playing music instead of buying this device. The disturbing thing is that even with cables that have few hundreds hours on if you give them a "burn" they just sound better after it.

And this is expecially true for tonearm cables  since considering the low cartridge voltage they are really never completely burned in. In the picture you see me using it to cook the Naim tonearm cables using some adaptors I have made to make this possible. The difference is very evident. It is not like going from a cheap cartridge to the most expensive one but much more like going from a middle range cartridge to the higher range proposition of the same manufacture.

So for me this device is an absolutely must for tonearm cables. For other cables it is a maybe. What does this maybe means? It means that if you want to wait few hundreds hours for your Cardas to sound right or your Naim NAC A5 you don't need it (I have used this examples since Cardas cables need an eternity to settle down and the Naim NAC A5 sounds the best just near the end of the eternity) , but are you considering that you are using your system just to make your cables sound the way they should? And adding useless listening km hours to it? If you have expensive valves this is absolutely not a good idea. What I cannot understand is why dealears not offer this service. It is a necessity. If you are not like me that like changing cables and don't have time to burn them in and don't want your system to get old burning cables and not enjoing it, then you must either have it or push your dealer to have it and charge you for the service. I would say it should be very fair to charge about 50 euros for each burning or for each after burning. It is really worthed.

Don't try to hear what it does. It is much better remain ignorant and keep thinking what is more convenient for our wallet. You can keep on thinking it is useless. As you could keep on thinking that the force of gravity doesn't exists because you still live in an epoch when nobody still explained it. But if you have bought a good cable and you are serious about your hifi do you a favour: let it go through the Proburn.

Vovox Textura

I really didn't have the right attitude for this cable. I have always not liked this kind of  design: big solid core conductors. I have always felt the resulting sound lacking in body even though transparent and also surprisingly inconsistent.

So when I connected this cable to hear it I was not only not curious at all but also not well disposed.

And then I didn't really like the look. In these recent years in the market we have more and more the presence of "home made" looking products. The Vovox looks a step more refined then this trend but still looks poor considering its price. You could like its sober look though, but you really feel by looking at it that you didn't have it right for your money. The comparison between a less expensive cable from Wireworld like the Eclipse 7 looks like the comparison between a Maserati and a Renault. The Maserati being the Wireworld.

If the Wireworld would be just look and no good sound you could say that all the money in the Vovox had been invested in the quality of the materials and for its performance but this is not the case since the Wireworld is an excellent cable for its money and beyond.

I am not going to compare the two cables excepts their looks also because I will write about the Wireworld Eclipse 7 interconnect in a next future.

Another thing for who read my blog: I will never write down about a product that doesn't perform at least very well. There are plenty of products that perform just well or even just acceptable or just insignificant expecially loudspeakers even from highly considered makers. I don't want to put down anybody so when I listen to a product that sound poorly I would not write anything about it. When I listen to something in three different systems in my house (high watt, tubes,  class A) and to a fouth one in my friend's house that is tube low power high efficinecy speakers, and we get similar impression I think I had given the listened material enough room and possibility to shows its real potential and flavours.

So if I write about the Vovox Textura it means it is a good product. And it is a very good product indeed.

The first thing when I listened to it was the complete lack of similarity to what I was expecting from its sound and the way it sounded.

No sign of tonal fragility. Expecially no trace of the midium high lack of body that is present in many cable with big solid core conductor construction that I cannot stand.

What it keeps from its solid core design is a kind of fluidity and easiness. Even with the relation with the music and silences. Silences are deep but never heavy, very well integrated with the nature of the music reproduciton. This is the major achievemnt for me of this cable. It is an extremely difficult achievement. The relation between music and silences in most components is a broken one. To make it more clear I try to make a vision comparison. Let's say we draw something or we take a picture of something and then we put this thing on a LCD screen. Immediately we are aware they don't belong to each other. The picture or the drawning is of a clearly different nature of the background. And it doesn't matter if the picture or the drawing is of extremely high quality you will feel the same. You will look at a magnificient picture hanginfg on a LCD screen and you will be always aware they don't belong to each other. I feel it is much better havind a picture of lesser quality that comes out directly from the LCD screen then one of an exceptional quality that hangs on a LCD screen.  This unfortunately happens to many even excepionally good components. Sometimes the silence is too deep and dark and it makes you feel or better it makes me feel like the music is draging in it, like it has some difficulty in emerging from it, even though it si really not like that but it makes me feel this way. This is the same very reason why I always liked the Cardas Golden Cross but never loved it. On the other hand sometimes it is like this silence get stuck with the music and pieces of this silences comes with the timbric redition, it feels liek they mix too much togheter. In this case I feel like this silence is too light too greysh or too foggy. It often happen with tubed components.

One feeling that we have with this cable is its very limited editorial effect on music reproduction.

It is transparent but not so much to make you feel overloaded with useless music information.

If I have to say its personality in a coupple of words I would say it  elegant composure. I like this way of putting a lot of saying in two words. I feel it is very explicit. I will try in the future to do it with everything I hear.

Any good thing has its limits that are consequences of their qualities. The limit of this cable is: a lack of surprice. What does it means? It means that you always will enjoy how no frequency is reproduced in an aggressive way, how the bass is there even though you would not think was there, the sonic landscape is very well rendered and so on, but never you will be taken by surprice by an explosive dynamic, or think:  this is interesting, very interesting the way it swings, or whatever. It is true that meny components that propose you this kind of surprises tend to wear you out with their limits or difects. This is a cable for the one that after having detected something that goes wrong in a component they cannot help but being completely absorbed by it. It is like the famous water drop at night. It shouldn't boder you but at the end drive you crazy. It is not for the ones that want be shaken by new emotions and they are ready to pay for them with the intrusion of some nastiness.

When I was younger I was more in the second group. I was listening to music to feel the connection with a certain driving force, not just rithmic, but like a big pulsing wave; yes music had a lot of similarity with water for me at that time.  Now I feel a lot of other connections, you can also sip the water and taste it and also smell it, but especially disconections, like it feels good but its taste it is too salty, so this is a cable that for me has the right ingredient if not to make me happy not to be worried by it and especially, something that happens very, very often, to wanting to change it  and taking it away  from the audio chain. It doesn't sound like a big compliment, but I am sure that the experienced reader knows that this is a big compliment indeed.

Tiger Paw Akula

 

This is one of the few Linn LP12 sub chassis option you can get in the market besides the one offered by Linn itself. I have to say I have heard most of them from the now discontinued Rubikon, The Sole in its many versions, the Funky Firm one, Linn Keel and Kore. I have to say every changement in the LP12 effect its sound greatly. Or better: it is easy to change the sound of the LP12. it is easy to improve one of the parameter of the sound constitution of the LP12 like linearity, bass, details, but it is extremely difficult to do this keeping the whole musicality. It is like if you change one thing you have to change all the rest according to the changement if not you Linn sound will be lost.

I have to say that at the beginning of my hifi passion I didn't like the LP12. I much preferred to it less coloured designs like Michell Gyrodek or Oracle and even a well tuned Thorens TD124. In direct comparison the other well done design where sounding like a cover was taken away.

Then over the years I started liking other aspect of the music reproductions, like the inflection of a singer voice, the nuance in an instrument and so on. I was developing more complex musical apreciation. And I started liking the LP12.

So I perfectly understand the ones that don't like the LP12 but they have it for its legendary status, any changement in the subchassis can be felt as an improvement. But for the LP12 real lovers things are not that easy.

I have to say that among all the subchassis designs the Akula was the one that had my most profound respect. It was the one closer to the LP12 concept of simplicity of esecution. The Keel is a beautiful piece of "highly precision " machinery. I have never felt or looked to the LP12 like a piece of high technology output, but more like a wise use of a simple concept. The Akula shares the same simplicity of concept. I would add: elegant simplicity. Yes simplicity is more elegant then commplexity. It is easy to be seduced by the difficulty of esecution and the magnificient look of a thousands dolars parts of engineering marvel.

Mounting instruction are no existent but at Tiger Pawn you have an extremely good customer service.

You can absolutely buy with confidence any of their product. If any defect or question arise you can be sure they are going to be delt better then you would have wished for. And this is rare. By far the best customer service I have ever dealt with in all my more then 20 years hifi business activity.

The sound. I will compare its sound in absolute terms. In absolute terms I have found the Linn Keel to be the best subchassis option for the Linn LP12. The key word in the Keel performance is: consistency. No matter what cartridge combination, no matter the system in which you have the Keel in, you will get the same results: the sound is more natural, more fluid, more organized more calm more listenable. In all LP12 with Linn power supply it an hands down winner with the Akula coming to a second close. The Akula looses to the Keel a certain complexity. Music is in a way more simplified. But the Akula even in a context of being used with Linn own power supply it is better then the Linn Kore. In comparison to the Kore it hase better timing and better timbre.

The nice things come out with the Naim Armageddon power supply. and the Naim Aro tonearm, a combination that still holds favour amoung the LP12 owner me included. Why? Becouse of its unique expressivness.

I feel the all Linn tuned up Radikal Keel being too much in the direction of being an extremely good analogue device that is in a way similar to others. The LP12 Aro Armageddon keep the LP12 different from others. It is more about getting expression out that getting rid of difects to get to perfection.

With the Naim Aro tonearm the Akula is more Naim Aro. Its caracter fusion more seamlesly with the caracter of the Aro tonearm. The comparison with the Keel is very, very interesting.

With the Keel and the Aro the sound becomes more calm and relaxed. The stage espands more laterally. You have the feeling you loose a little hight but is just because the proportion of the sonic landscape has changed. It is a very good sound, but not a special one. Not one that will be saved with a special color tag in a part your brain sound archive.

But I think the very reason that a person has and loves a Naim Aro is not just because it has a very good sound, since the Linn tonearms and others do a more complete work in the reproduction of all the sound landscape, but because it has a special good sound that none of the other tonearms have. Loosing what it has special for me doen't make any sense, if not at the begining I would have used a Linn arm.

With the Akula the Naim tonearm doesn't change its soul. It is like its characteristics are better portraied and its idiosyncrasies tamed. The last sentence will refer to the ones that experiences or have experienced sometimes from the Aro a sound that is beautiful with good bass in one day and some other times like something really collapsed in its integrity. And this happens only when the Aro is mated to the LP12 since I have never experienced this with the Aro on a Platine Verdier or other turntables. With the Akula on the LP12 the Aro sound acquires consistency keeping the integrity of the LP12 sound.

In the meantime with the Akula you experience a much lower noice floor and the silence between the instruments or voices becames ticker and darker and much more real. I am particularly sensitive at the reproduction of the silent background. This was my major complain with the LP12 + Aro. A kind of greysh silence. The Akula pushes this fog out. The medium frequencies are left there with no improvement neither degradation, and the bass just go deeper but never heavy to call attention to itself. The bass region for me becomes perfect. You don't feel is missing something and you don't feel there is too much of something. The tonal equilibrium is exceptional. And fortunately the musical fluidity so convincing and beguilling  of the Aro is left there.

Just for this reason I feel like there is not another real alternative to the  Akula in the LP12 subchassis market for the Naim Aro.

I don't know why but I feel there is a mixture of deep competence and luck with the design of the Akula. The very same thing I have always felt with the Aro design.

I have forgotten: the Akula can be mounted on the Linn plinth in two ways. The first one is identical to the standard LP12 subchassis, the other one is fixing the armboard to the Linn plinth and let the Akula floating inside the arm collar hole. In the pictures I have taken is shown this second possibility. But I have tried both ways. Which way it is better?

Ther is not a big difference, but this affirmation doesn't mean anything since we are after small but significant difference. If I have to say in one sentence: fortunately in this case the small differences are not of a significan nature, but there are nevertheles and are contained in the feeling of preferences. I have tried with many different cartridges and this is what made me crazy about it and at the end not to worried. With some cartridges it is better the classic mounting way with other cartridges the "floating in the armboard" way. For example with all my Koetsus I preferred the classical mounting while with all my VDH the other option. With cheaper cartridges like Dynavector 10X5 the classical way, Linn Klyde the classical way too. Miyabi 47: the floating one. Why this happens? I don't know. From one part could be the classical mounting way altering the total mass of the subchassis but what I really think and I could be wrong, it has more to do with the Linn suspensions. When the subchassis is heavier we need to tighent the suspensions up to compensate the weight of the subchassis and doing so we greatly change the relation - integration of the subchassis with the chassis. The tighter the suspension the more we go toward a rigid suspensionless design. I say this since in the past I have played a lot with tightening the suspensions and changing the suspension with other of different materials and also making heavier arms (SME IV) lighter

and the sonic differences that I have felt with the two mounting way that the Akula offeres I feel they go in the same directions of the one linked to tightening the subchasis suspension or making them stiffer.