Partying at Feastrex Japan (DIY Phono cartridges and DSD)

[fulken]

July 7th 2012

July 7th is Tanabata Festival in Japan, and we decided to have Tanabata Audio Fest @ Nirasaki

Part 1. Hand Crafted Phono Cartridge and Tonearm by Osawa-san.

Osawa-san is VERY well know Audio DIYer in Japan. He makes everything, Phono cartridges, Tonearms, Phono stage, preamplifier, amplifier, and speaker drivers...

​In this time, I had a chance to listen:
straight tonearm for Decca
straight tonearm with magnetic tracking force adjustment (we can adjust tracking force while playing)
various stereo phono cartridges and a mono cartridge

straight tonearm for Decca


Decca tonearm detail (fluid damping)


Decca on EMT950


Mono cartridge


Mono cartridge


Mono cartridge on pivot head shell


magnetic tracking force adjustment


(no magnetic force)


Phono stage


​They are MC cartridges, and coils are located VERY close to the stylus tip. He said making stereo cartridge is very difficult, and he needs to make 5 to 10 of them to get one good one!

Stereo cartridge on pivot head shell









How many people had a chance to listen metal master disk?? Yes, I have

There are couple of reasons why we cannot! The sound was very close to the live music. I mean lacquer master is far better than most LP, but the metal master is SUPER fast! Problem is that stylus does not last. It died after we played a side!!

Playing Metal Master Disk


Playing Lacquer Master Disk




It was my lucky day. He told me that he is going to send me a mono cartridge!



Part 2. 3ch DSD Play back

McAudi used to manufacture proffecional audio equipments for Sony. The first all descrete DSD AD/DA converter was their design. You may own a SACD that used their AD converter!

We auditioned their latest DSD transporter which is modified Oppo multidisk player, and DSD DAC.

There is many SACDs that recorded as 3 channel, stereo plus center channel. We tried how it sounds on all field coil 3 channel system!


We tried with:
De9 Type-III pair for two channel (CV4055pp amp)
NF5-PIP for center channel (prototype 300B SET amp)

We were very surprised with the result. Long story short, 3ch DSD is not practical with speakers that have good three dimensional image.

It had only one sweet spot (a chair). All other location had double image.

Stereo speakers (De9 Type-III) have its own depth, and center channel speaker (NF5-PIP) add its depth. Untill I moved to the tiny sweet spot, my brain was very confused.


Part 3. Studer meets DSD

McAudi owns many reel to reel tapes that they recorded live. Teramoto-san has Studer C37 (and many others), and there was DSD ADC.




Why not making own DSD256 files?? We compared original sound from C37 and DSD DAC. DSD64 sounded ok, DSD128 was better, and DSD256 was wonderful!

Do I have their DSD files? Why not!