Stupid Rabbit Hole

As my SDA upgrades have sped up, I began to re-evaluate the rest of my 2 channel setup.

I already picked up an amp specifically for the 2.3TLs. After discussing some things with Jesse (thanks for letting me type your ear off bro), I finally settled on a 1 owner, mint Musical Fidelity A5CR amp.

I have had a Peachtree DACiT for a while now and while it isn't an endgame piece by any means, I like it enough to hold on to it for a while longer. It does fine when playing FLAC from my laptop. Not memorable but not bad by any means. I had my eyes on the PS Audio DSDac but as you will see farther down, my funds for that venture have been diminished.

My CDP will continue to be the Cambridge DV89 I picked up for dirt cheap, fully serviced from a local shop. The complaints about this universal player (DVD-A, CD, SACD) revolved around the video side of the player. The transport and audio side are as good, if not better than the 540 from the Azur line. Until I have saved enough scratch to pick up an Esoteric universal player, this also will be "good enough" for the time being.

I will continue to spin albums with my Kenwood KD550 with the Audio Technica AT120E/T cart. Although I am eyeballing a couple of Sumiko options for replacement. (Phono pre will be addressed below). I did recently pick up a Clearaudio Concept record clamp and a Music Hall Mooo Mat for it. Although I haven't had any chances to do any critical listening with either. I also picked up a Spin Clean as nobody wanted to sell me a VPI RCM for ~$150.

ICs and SCs throughout will be MIT Terminators. While PCs are all DIY with Carol 10 and 12 awg cable and Oyaide IEC and Edison ends. I will be looking into upgrading to PS Audio or Shunyata in the near future for my PCs.

The rack is the cherry version of my rack I posted up in the Audio Racks thread. I build it slightly larger and out of all cherry and finished it with hand rubbed semi gloss lacquer to match our bedroom furniture. I am also in the process of making a set of cable risers for the SCs from some recovered Walnut from a 125 year old barn. I have a bunch of large boards but I also had a bunch of odds and ends left from the milling, squaring and planing that will make a nice set of 3 or 4 risers per side.

And that brings us to the heart of this post.

The preamp.
I originally had purchased John's Sunfire Symphony Reference pre from him with plans to use it in this system.
When John posted up his Dodd for sale, I began salivating over it but after some discussions with some folks, decided that it wasn't the right direction for me.

So I began a quest to come up with a semi-end game preamp.
I mulled over several options including a couple of older ARC pieces, a McIntosh that didn't really do anything for me at all and a couple of passive options including the SoundKnight Silverstone Balanced TVR.
The transformer based passives appealed to me in that they were really virtually unbreakable. The Silverstone was also very aesthetically pleasing to me. And that complete and total lack of any noise floor...oh yeah. Sub-basement levels here.
But the fact that not only is the original designer no longer in business, the company in Australia that took over for him has gone under as well (no pun intended). The Chinese manufacturer is still in business and selling a variant of this pre today but it is also $1350.

For that price, I would be solidly into some nice used tube and SS pres.

I mulled over the Parasound P5. The idea that I could get rid of my DAC and not have to worry about a phono stage was very appealing. Aesthetically, I found it rather meh but it did offer pretty much everything I wanted in a proven product. But in the end, I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger.

I eventually came across a used Cary SLP-03 on A-Gon that appealed to me. It was a little higher than my budget but it also seemed like the semi-endgame piece I was looking for.
I also didn't mind that it was silver.
It didn't have a phono section but as I dug into my research, I found that the world of decent phono stages on a budget was HUGE!

So I began a conversation with the seller on A-Gon. And I shopped around.
I ended up finding a brand new Cary SLP-03 in black that had been special ordered with Mullard 12AU7s for less than 50% of suggested retail.
And I jumped on it.

So I will have my shiny new Cary SLP-03 sometime early next week.

That led me to shopping for a phono pre.
I really wanted the Vincent PHO 8 but in doing some measurements, the dual chassis design was not going to work for my layout.
In the end, I decided on the Cambridge Audio 651P in black. I bought it via Amazon using a $70 gift card and a $35 credit I had on Amazon so it only ended up costing me around $120.

I know this hobby is all about the rabbit hole. I also know that my dream system is currently unreasonable (not entirely unattainable) for my current living arrangements.
But eventually I will own my Magico Q5s run off of a Boulder 2110 pre and 2150 monos with an Esoteric 01 Digital playback system...

But for now, my system will be much more modest and I will be happy dammit!!!

SDA 2.3TLs with full mods (minus wiring)...Larry's rings, 800va Dreadnought in a Larry's case, Gimpod boards with Sonicaps Gen 1s, Mills Resistors and Jantzen inductors, RD0198s, Dynamat, Liquid Nails sealed, Blackhole 5 behind the mids, VR3 binding post plates, MIT Terminator 2 IC cable with Speakons...

Cary Audio SLP-03 Musical Fidelity A5CR Peachtree DACiT Cambridge Audio DV89

Kenwood KD550 TT Audio Technica AT120E/T Cambridge Audio 861P

MIT ICs and SCs DIY PCs

Power conditioner/surge protection is still to be purchase but am leaning towards a couple of APC J series for the HT and the 2 channel system. A J25B for the 2 channel and a J35B for the HT.