Spot the difference 🙂

Esoteric perhaps!

15 minutes ago, cafe67 said:

Spot the difference 🙂

Where is the Marantz?

Looks like your Squitle and your Meganium are intimately sharing their love for one another 

45 minutes ago, ICUToo said:

Looks like your Squitle and your Meganium are intimately sharing their love for one another 

 

7 minutes ago, cafe67 said:

 

Rough end to a beautiful moment

5 hours ago, cafe67 said:

Spot the difference

 

Chew toy is gone on pic 2.

May I have my reward now, k thx

7 hours ago, Godot said:

Where is the Marantz?

Gone.

Needed to rearrange the racks after getting the esoteric - didn’t like on the top self, looked top heavy. So an excuse to tidy everything up including the cabling. Oh and do a bit of vacuuming. All under the watchful eyes of Nutmeg.

Edited October 21, 2025Oct 21 by cafe67

System is looking good, how's the new CD player going, dare say you would have a few hours on her by now, enjoy🎶

 

On 21/10/2025 at 12:17 PM, cafe67 said:

 

 

My OCD is comforted by this change.

How's the ART20 going?

I've had my 9XA for a while now and am still finding little ways to get more out of it.

11 minutes ago, Steever said:

 

My OCD is comforted by this change.

How's the ART20 going?

I've had my 9XA for a while now and am still finding little ways to get more out of it.

Mine too , looks much better hey ?

 

Art20 is sounding sweet , I recently changed the loading from 200 to 400, sounds a bit more brighter/airy but still good defined bass. I also tried out the xlrs on the R35 to rca, but preferred the sound of the Xlrs 

On 13/11/2025 at 3:24 PM, cafe67 said:

Mine too , looks much better hey ?

 

Art20 is sounding sweet , I recently changed the loading from 200 to 400, sounds a bit more brighter/airy but still good defined bass. I also tried out the xlrs on the R35 to rca, but preferred the sound of the Xlrs 

 

Yes, it does.

I'm about to play with loading again too now that I appear to have sorted an arm mass vs compliance issue. 

 

  

From Europe with love 😎

I saw these AQ “William Tell” speaker cables for sale on eBay, but the seller wouldnt ship outside of  Europe , so a good friend stepped in to help out. Arrived yesterday.  Never tried AQCables with the DBS system before - compared to my Siltech cables, seems a bit more detail and tighter bass - more listening to be done 😎

@cafe67 are you enjoying the Esoteric SACD? 
Rob

1 minute ago, Analogueage said:

@cafe67 are you enjoying the Esoteric SACD? 
Rob

Yes, been giving it a good spin of both old and new cds.  Been a few surprises when playing some well listened to cds…” oh, never noticed that before” stuff 

Current state of play 😎

From the top

Technics Sl1200gae with Funk Designs Achromat, DS Audio HS001 Headshell and AT Art20 cartridge, sitting on Isoacoustic Delos platform. Very happy with record playback, plenty of detail , but also seems very tight ( in a good way) and focused sound.

Technics is connected to the Primare R35 phonostage via Aurealis Audio redline cables. I think the R35 is the second oldest bit of gear , I have now, technics being oldest🤔 R35 is connected to the Hegel H590 vis Marco Custom Cables Andromeda XLR cables.

The Node Nano continues to serve its purpose - discrete and decent sounding - tbh I don’t really stream much it’s more used to run the various music files I have accumulated over the years on a USB thumb drive and for that purpose it’s perfect - I’m impressed by the amount of tech in such a small box and cheap price. I have it connected to the dac in the H590 via Audioquest Carbon coaxial cable nice & simple - never heard the dac in the node yet.

Esoteric K05XD SACD continues to impress with its sound - very detailed and very dynamic sound. Been good fun pulling out some old CDs to have a listen. It’s connected to the H590 also by MCC Andromeda XLR cables.

Hegel H590 integrated continues to perform excellently and shown an ability to drive any speakers I’ve hooked up to it.

Finally the Marten Parker Duo speakers, still probably one of the best speakers I’ve heard and one of best to work well in my room. Amazing bass that is deep yet quick and plenty of detail in the mids and highs. Im using Siltech Classic 330L speaker cable which seems to work well with the amp/speaker combo.

Miscellaneous

Rack is Neo High End tripod.

Speaker stands are unknown but very well made and weigh a ton.

Power cables are Nordost Red Dawn running through a Isotek Sirius power board.

😎

Edited February 7Feb 7 by cafe67

Huge fan of the Primare R35. Phenonenal piece of kit.

@cafe67 now all you need is @art of SOUND to come over and take some photographs for you 😄.

1 hour ago, Analogueage said:

@cafe67 now all you need is @art of SOUND to come over and take some photographs for you 😄.

Or I’ll pull my finger and Fujifilm camera out.

Have you tried the Node into the Esoteric? If I had both the Esoteric and the Hegel I would be curious to compare their DACs.

2 hours ago, Godot said:

Have you tried the Node into the Esoteric? If I had both the Esoteric and the Hegel I would be curious to compare their DACs.

I’ll give it a go to see how they sound , but I do like simplicity of the current setup - some of my music files are MP3’s so it’s not strictly for critical listening.

22 minutes ago, cafe67 said:

I’ll give it a go to see how they sound , but I do like simplicity of the current setup - some of my music files are MP3’s so it’s not strictly for critical listening.

I have my Node going into my Luxman SACD to use its onboard DAC. I think you may find a nice uplift in sound making that change.

27 minutes ago, scuzzii said:

I have my Node going into my Luxman SACD to use its onboard DAC. I think you may find a nice uplift in sound making that change.

I did have the node going to the sa10 for a while , did sound good

Looks great Dave, looking forward to hearing the Esoteric at some point.