My boys gave me a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon turntable for Father’s Day one year. The next year they got me the upgraded platter, and then the record clamp. Although I’ve since purchased a more expensive (I mean better) turntable, I could never sell the Debut Carbon. It was a gift. I was going to lend it to a friend, but my son said, “Give it to me.” So, there’s where we start.
He selected around 20 to 30 records from my collection to take with him to college at USC. I knew I’d never see those records again, but you do these things for your kids. After graduating, his old roommate had my records. On a trip to Los Angeles, his friend invited me over to hear his system. He returned all those albums to me. In pristine condition! I had forgotten about an original MoFi CSNY Déjà Vu. (Discogs valued it as high as the Pro-Ject ‘table.)
My son and his friends are actually young audiophiles. Collectively, they own some Nelson Pass, NAD, Rega, EAR, Thorens, Harbeth, Decware, Shunyata, iFi, Denafrips, Vintage Tannoys, Groovemaster, Ortofon, Zephyr, Hana, and a restored Garrard 401. His buddy, Justin, was featured on Steve Guttenberg’s Audiophiliac . They all like vinyl, vintage tubes, and step-up transformers. They spent their trip to Japan flipping through dusty record bins at cool secondhand shops, arguing about who got to keep what. I gotta think their parents raised ‘em right.
Now my son is moving from his tiny Greenwich Village NYC apartment to a much bigger tiny apartment in San Francisco. He finally has the space for a turntable and some components, so he can move on from his SONOS system. Ever since he asked me for that Debut Carbon, I’ve been thinking about putting together a stereo system for him. Now I have enough extra stuff lying around the listening room to configure a couple of systems, and have done so for a number of his cousins.
He is 31 years old, married, has a dog, and travels extensively. Streaming is super important to him, but he loves vinyl and wants to be able to listen to his records again. He needs a system that will play the TV but won’t be too complicated so his wife can easily watch TV and play music.
I had some old Linn LP12 parts lying around unused and listed them on FB Marketplace. A local HiFi store contacted me. They had an LP12 they were trying to sell but were missing some parts. He offered me my full asking price, but in in-store credits. Of course I accepted, as you know I’m going to buy something someday. So, I put the credits towards a new cartridge for my son’s Project Debut Carbon. We decided on the Ortofon 2M Blue. It is an upgrade from the 2M Red that came with the Pro-Ject, so you know it will be a good match. Now, we’ve got the front end sorted.
I once bought a pair of secondhand Infinity RSI loudspeakers, the little brother to the mighty IRS’s. The owner had them in two storage units stuffed with guitars, guitar amps, musical instruments, Hi-Fi gear, and thousands of Jazz records on vinyl. It was an experience just to be in that storage unit, but we couldn’t find the accompanying servo crossover. He invited me back to search through his storage units. We pulled everything out and made enough space that he could downsize from two units to one. For my troubles, he gifted me some old stereo components. And yes, we found that Infinity crossover.
One of the components he gave me was a Convergent Audio Technology SL1 Reference preamplifier. He knew it was a great piece, but wasn’t sure it worked. A lot of his stuff had gotten flooded in his girlfriend’s basement. This is a common Chicago condition. I plugged that SL1 in and, of course, it didn’t work. It has a separate power supply with a long thick umbilical cord, but the power supply wouldn’t even light up. I tested the fuse with my multimeter, but the fuse showed conductivity.
Deltronics is a wonderful electronics repair shop. They have one in Chicago and another in the suburbs. They do a great job with PA and studio electronics, musical instruments, and Hi Fi. In a previous life when I worked at a High-End Salon, we pretended to service what we sold, but we just took it in and sent it out to Deltronics. They found some bad solder joints and replaced the power light bulbs in my CAT SL1. Everything was fine. Now, I have a full function preamp with a built-in phono stage and a turntable for my son’s system.
Not knowing I was going to one day put together a system for my kid, that SL1 preamp sat for years. I hooked it up to test my son’s system and everything was fine. Then I heard some noise, and then one channel went out. Well, I don’t know how old these tubes are, and I hadn’t asked Deltronics to change them. So, I ordered a new complement of vacuum tubes from Tube Depot. Some of the old tubes didn’t have any markings on them. I searched online and found the tube diagram and “tube rolled” to my heart’s content.
Uh Oh! Now it is really noisy. Popping sounds interrupt the music, like a bad record. Back to good old reliable Deltronics. Did you know that the Convergent Audio Technologies SL1 Reference preampifier has no less than 10 vacuum tubes on its circuit boards? It seems that some idiot (Me) ordered the wrong tubes. I put 6922s where 12AX7s are supposed to go. Wrong voltage; those 6922s ran really hot and bright. They glowed like Hunter S. Thompson on acid in Las Vegas. Deltronics charged me a whopping $66 to fix that SL1 preamp. Just the cost of the two tubes, no charge for diagnostics, service, or labor. Did I mention that Deltronics is a wonderful reliable repair shop in Chicago?
The first Audio Research power amplifier I ever bought was a used one from a guy in Indianapolis. I remember reading an old review of Magneplanar Loudspeakers in one of the big American Hi-Fi magazines, and the reviewer wrote of the symbiosis between Maggies and solid-state Audio Research. Mine was an ARC D200 and it really took control of my Magnepans. I have since moved on to tubed ARC amps, so that D200 was sitting unused on a rack shelf.
The CAT SL1 and the ARC D200 played nicely together, so it was time to find some speakers for my kid. I have some Infinity RSII’s that sound amazing. These are speakers I could live with for the rest of my life. (But I like my new Maggies better.) I also have some old Altec Lansing Boleros and 886’s. The Boleros have a horn tweeter and the 886s use a cone. Some old vintage guys love the sound of Altecs. Maybe it’s the mystique of the Voice of the Theaters or something. But they just didn’t do it for me. Or, more accurately, mine didn’t do it for me. I assumed the horn tweeters would be the way to go with Vintage Altec Lansing, but they were a little harsh and the overall sound was an unenthusiastic “blah.” The cones on the Altec 886’s were better. When my son was in town, I played him some Talking Heads, and we could listen to the system with the 886’s. But I had to show him the big Infinitys. And yes, he agreed they were better in every way. But size is a constraint in their new San Francisco apartment, and those floor standers, with their dipolar mids and tweeters needing three feet from the back wall were not going to California.
Then, a stereo collector in my neighborhood was selling a pair of Dynaudio Audience 42s. I knew from hawking them in the store that these Danish bookshelf speakers were a fine sounding and size appropriate solution to my son’s needs. I bought them for him. But his wife had decided she really likes the retro look of the 1960’s vintage Altec Lansings. No good deed goes unpunished. I need another pair of bookshelf speakers like Keith Richards needs more heroin. But somehow it was decided that the young couple were going for the best sound. The Dynaudios were going on a road trip to California, and the poor old Altecs had to stay in the basement.
I have not been listening to my stereo lately. No, I’ve truly been enjoying auditioning my son’s system. Last night, after the tubes in the CAT warmed up, I enjoyed Leonard Bernstein playing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. I was lucky enough to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra play this familiar Rhapsody a few seasons ago. If you live in Chicago, you hear Rhapsody in Blue whenever you take the underground tunnel between Concourse A and B at O’Hare’s United Terminal One. The imaging, the space around the instruments, the dynamics between the piano and the whole orchestra, these little Dynaudios, driven by decent electronics, really do a fine job of showing you what High End Audio is all about. And for almost no money!
We texted back and forth, my son and I, about what kind of streamer he wanted. I suggested the Cambridge Audio EXN100, the EVERSOLO DMP-A6 Gen 2, and the venerable Bluesound Node, either in the Icon or regular version. All of these offer an HDMI eARC input for television viewing. (There is not a television machine anywhere in MY listening room!) He decided he wanted to Hair Shirt it and suffer for his art. He felt that he didn’t need a display to see his album artwork as he had no use for a touch screen. He was going to use Spotify Connect, and everything he needed would be on his phone or his iPad.
So the Bluesound Node it was! He saved me some money there. I ordered one from AudioAdvisor to be shipped directly to his San Francisco apartment, and while the customer experience was wonderful, it was the least fun part of putting his system together. I guess I just enjoy buying new and used audio equipment from people. I’m lucky to live in a big city with multiple new and used stereo stores. And I always seem to find what I’m looking for locally on FB Marketplace, Audiogon, or USAudioMart. Most sellers allow you to audition their items and then negotiate. Cash is King.
Before the month is up, my wife and I are taking our first cross-country road trip, driving through Chicago IL, Des Moines IA , Cheyenne WY, Salt Lake City UT, and Sacramento CA before arriving in Pacific Heights San Francisco. We will see loved ones along the way, stay at nice hotels, and hopefully enjoy some great dinners. My son and his wife still have unopened wedding gifts at our house. He has been storing some of his treasures here since he left for college. He acquired some art and travel books from his late aunt. We will be transporting these belongings to him. And packed away snugly, somewhere in that vehicle, his new stereo system awaits its new home on the West Coast.
Your son is a lucky guy!