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  Stereopal Featured System:   Jeff from Michigan  Date:  Feb 27, 2006

                                       

             Jeff's dedicated audio room is of course, housed inside the floating cabin cruiser you see below.

              In his own words, ".... The pilot I'm pictured with works for beer and cigarettes.".... Jeff Lewno

 

                

 

 

      
Jeff is an interesting audiophile, a humorous fun loving, yet knowledgeable character.

He is one of my favorite "online" friends whom I frequently seek advice from through email.    He also gave me plenty of tips when I purchased my turntable setup.   Always humorous, he puts a smile on my face whenever I read his emails.   

When I got into vinyl, he said "You are not entering the do you like your steak rare, medium, or well done arena".  And if you like tubes and horns, "you're a tooby horny kinda guy !"

Jeff has the rare ability on finding good deals.    From NOS tubes, to the Monk machine, somehow he was able to find them at 1/3 the price of what I am use to paying.

 

 

 

  System Components:  
     
  Turntable: A mystery, could be the Victrola you see below !
  Phono Preamp: Chamelot Lancelot Battery unit
  Cartridge: Too many.....
  Preamp: BAT
  Power Amp: Manley Reference 350, Threshold Solid State
  Speaker: Magnepans 3.6
  Surround Processor: Rotel RSP-1098
     
     

 

 

 

     Jeff's Comments:

 

 

"For MC Pre,  I use a Chamelot Lancelot battery unit, with the battery being lower noise, and it is. I also have a Threshold, a little more "toobey sounding" and it's solid state so ----I also have a card in my BAT pre-amp that is reviewed by a webzine and dissed to the max, but it's very comparable to the Chamelot, the Chamelot having a lower noise floor, and slightly smaller dynamics.  The pre in my pre is actually pretty good.  Same Zine says it's about the same as the VK5 unit which they also pan.  But move quickly on the used market at just over a kilo-buck.

 

For cartridges, If I were to pick right now, I'd suggest the Kontra Jubilee out of Germany from a dealer there.  Shipped they're about 1100US.  Best overall cartridge I know of bar none.   The Shelter has NO HIGHS, but is robust and tooby sounding, (HIGHLY OVER RATED) from where I sit.  Those go on a SME/Sumiko tonearm on a Sota table.

 

In my opinion the best suspended table may still kill the 20K super solid platform.  I need a 500 lb table like I need a hole in the head.  The VPI's Aries 3+ are suite, the JMW arms are OK but ----  The SME is a tad more analytical but I like it better, and Grahams are pretty good with the new Graham at 4K being very good.

 

If I start right now, I still go Sota, with SME V or Super Graham.  SME's new are on the net for about 2200, the IV's for about 1700, and there is not a lot of difference, some pefer the IV over the V money be damned.

 

Oddly enough, still the most dramatic changes come from the cartridge, you can put a great cartridge on a lowly Rega, or Sota entry and have killer sound. 

 

Or you can put a mediocre cartridge on a killer table and have ----- mediocre sound."

 

 

 

 

 

 

      

 

      

       The mighty Manley 350s.  These old monsters are a rare find, but sometimes you'll see them in recording studios

          still pulling 24/7s.    Not too many tube amps can pull 380Ws of raw power these days, perhaps only a hand full

          of them.

 

         

 

      

  

 

Keith Monks, the ultimate cleaning machine !                                       Jeff's real turntable ?

 

 

  

   Jeff's nice vinyl collection.

 

 

 

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