I understand, but why do doubt about the Koetsu guys who work at Koetsu since many many years?
What I can say from experience, is that I have retipped my Koetsu black by Van den Hull.
Van den Hull make among the best carts available today, with Lyra , and 3 or 4 other.
However, even if the Koetsu retipped by them was sounding very good, it was no more a Koetsu and had no more the Koetsu sound.
Not ‘gear’ but speaker stands. Having lived with floorstanders for some time my listening room (lounge) had other ideas. So smaller speakers it is for the moment and I got some speaker stands. Ultra cheap and with some scratches I got them off the bay for not much. Apparently they retail new for £150 or thereabouts. An hour later, £6 spent on automotive paint and hot day outdoors which made a layer dry within 10 minutes …
Like new. I like a bargain and if I can put my hands on it and improve something … .
Which also includes the ultra cheap subwoofer I’ve mentioned in a previous post. MJ Acoustics is the brand and Pro (IV?) I think is the model. Sealed, Tiny and with a mere 120 watts of linear PS Class A/B. It sounds ultra fast, punchy and tight and best of all, it fits into a Kallax cubicle! I have to play around a bit more but for under £200 in pristine (!) black gloss finish I am very happy. It goes way louder (in a controlled fashion) than I would ever need in this room and when I move, unless the room is much bigger, will do the job there too. Currently connected low level with one of my amplifiers with a pre-out. As the little Naim amplifier does not have any pre-out I had to order a REL high level cable modified for the MJ Acoustics with a resistor in the plug which BK electronics kindly provided. Ordered some good quality spade connectors and will solder them in for use with the 50.
Currently evaluating an Eversolo T8 to see if it can replace my Auralic Aries, jury is still out on that one. Will be spending some time tweaking and repositioning in rack over coming days.
But it was £300 off and another £100 on the day.
I spent the £100 on the Pioneer pd-s703. Bit much on a 30 year old, mid range CDP perhaps, but it was local, near mint and boxed, original remote.
I fancied trying one of the stable platter mech players as a transport into the Michi DAC, just to see what it’s like.
You know what, it’s fantastic! Absolute screaming bargain.
Not gear technically, but we just completed installation of a Kohler 20kW generator. Now when the weather (or whatever) knocks out power we can continue enjoying the hifi while all the other poor sods on the block are burning candles for light. 
While the electricians were here I had them replace one of the duplex receptacles on the quad for my hifi with a Furutech GTX-D NCF R duplex I just bought.
I also had them install an ethernet port on our deck, next to a quad receptacle we already had. We often play the Mu-so Qb2 when sitting outside, so now we can hardwire it, instead of depending on a WiFi connection to a Mesh unit inside the house that’s not always as strong as I’d like it to be.
How do you find the nova (presumably non PE edition?) compared to the atom? Both are brilliant but the nova is a couple of steps ahead….in my experience anyway. Mine is attached to a pair of 805D4 signatures via 5m kudos ks1 spkr cable. Oh and using a pair of RELs an s510, and a superb s550 via bassline blues. The system makes a lovely noise. Enjoy the nova.
Thanks Nicholas, its a step up all right, more powerful, more clarity.
I also use KS1’s with it. I assume it will get even better as time goes by.
Did adding the generator and switch do anything detrimental to your sound? I once saw a YouTube clip of Fremer’s experience adding a generator and it was a big can of worms. Caused him to redo much of his wiring. Ultimately he was much better off with the help of some audio-minded sparkies flown in from Seattle but I think the hifi ended up being isolated from the rest of the house and not part of the back-up system.
I remember having owned a Trichord Genesis cd player back in the nineties. It was based on the Pioneer but modified by Trichord. I came from a Marantz CD63 KI and the improvement was startling. Loved the Trichord. Of course I couldn’t recall now how it sounded but I remember my then wife agreeing. Women generally have good ears 
My HiFi is already isolated from the rest of the house. It’s on its own 20 amp circuit on a separate 100amp subpanel (with it’s own isloated ground). On the same subpanel are the garage (lights and door opener mostly not in use), a circuit for the HT system in the living room, and a circuit for the generator’s battery backup.
Adding the generator has no detrimental affect on the sound quality. What remains to be seen is how it all works out when we lose power and switch over to the generator, including the noise of the generator motor itself. The generator sits outside on the same side of the house as my 2nd floor listening room.
Always liked those stable platter ones, disc in upside down wasn’t it?
Yes it is. I’d never tried one before myself.
It’s a large, not very heavy box but essentially the mech is like a turntable with a solid platter to place the disc on and the laser on top.
I’ve not bothered hooking it up through analogue outputs to try it’s ‘Legato Link’ whatevery, so can’t vouch for its own inherent SQ but as a transport direct into the DAC it’s flat out excellent.
Does have a couple of niceties in that you can switch off the analogue outputs and the screen, just like on more modern players! Can’t read the screen across the room anyway and the remote is cooly retro and works very well.
I have found with most players of the era that a simple uplift comes via a budget MCRU power cable, which adds a lot for not much outlay. The Pioneer has a captive cable, so out with the soldering iron in the next few days…
After a bit of a clean and tidy it’s also mint inside and out. May just add a touch of white grease on the mech while I’ve got the lid off though.
Also need to get round to changing the stacking order!
I remember advising my best mate to buy one back in the day, think with a Nad amp and either Mission or Monitor Audio speakers, all from Northwood Audio, when they were in Northwood.
Keep asking him to check his loft to find it all which he had cabled up with NVA sound pipes that I gave him that cost more than the amp from memory.
Think legato link used to claim to put back the information that was lost in the digital processing or something, and restricted to the top end. Probably early terminology for all the filter settings on stuff these days.
I had one the Pioneer stable platter CD players back in the UK along with a matching Pioneer A400 amp, I don’t remember the model number maybe an 801, but it was a fantastic pairing. So much so that I brought them to Canada with me when I emigrated and ran them via transformer box for many years before changing them and that was mainly due to the transformer. If they could have been adapted for Canada I probably would still have them. Fantastic kit.
Always wanted an A400 and many years later got one from EBay and when it arrived it only had one channel so went back.
Loved the look of that amp.
They are the only two old items of HiFi I wish I still had.
I too have a pair of NVA sound pipes somewhere. And one of his headphone amps. I think the perspex box of the amp was more flexible than those pipes!
Yeah, I’ve got a pre amp, with the step volume knob and those interconnects were pretty unique.
Really nice guy, Richard Dunn, when I spoke to him a couple of times.
Initial impressions? @AltaMarshall
David
