I'm reliving 1978 all over again.
There is an Uncontrollable Urge in me.
Weird music for Weirdos!  

This LP sounded fantastic through my SS rig but it really is impressive through the new analogue system I’m building around the UFO25.  The ZSTYX are slowly settling in and adding to the width, height and depth of the soundstage which is assisted by the quality of the recording, mixing and production of the 45 rpm vinyl.

Near the end of his life Dvorak wrote 4 "Symphonic Poems" based on Czech fairy tales that were the last symphonic music he composed. And they are a bit different than anything else he wrote. They still have plenty of obviously Czech influence, but the overall effect is more, I guess I'd say international. They are very atmospheric, and at times outright spooky. And they should be played and recorded as often as the Slavonic Dances.



16/44 FLAC download.

Pretty much everything Czech related Charles Mackerras touches turns to gold, and this collection with the Czech Philharmonic is no exception.

Thanks - that is what I thought.  I will probably take the plunge with the graphene sluggo once my LNBH arrives.

Alan, I have heard several times that the Infinity fuse provides same performance but has the adjustable amp levels for convenience and flexibility. I prefer the size and case of the SDFB but the dip switches are a really nice feature.  If I was to buy again I would get the Infinity.  I do change gear a bit and have had to get one of my SDFB sent in to reprogram which is a bit of a hassle.

Does anyone have the infinity fuse box?  Trying to figure out if there are any known differences between it and the SDFB other than that the infinity fuse is user programmable.  Thanks!

-- Alan

Tony, Glad to hear that is where mine will go due to space limitations👍👍

OK, got it. In front of the SDFB.

Tony, I was wondering where the AC tuning is located? 2 choices one in front of SDFB or 2 After SDFB.  Thanks

I'm going LNBH > SSZ > SDFB >UFO25. I did not think that there was another option.

Bunny Berigan And His Orchestra "1938-1942" Chronogical Classics

Glad it finally arrived! I love mine.

ZROCK 3 with all the upgrades in house.  Wow!…darn if this device doesn’t add body, weight, clarity and additional bass to my Taboo driving my Fritz monitors.  No sub needed.  SDFB gold Sluggo gave an additional SQ improvement as well.  Really nice add but $’s.

Tony, Thanks again for the update/answers.  Curious…Do you have it installed between the SSZ and SDFB or between SDFB and your UFO 25?
I may be limited to between SSZ and SDFB in my setup since my gear is in a cabinet with limited space behind my Amp and Pre.

I have had nothing but very positive experience with Mark.  I am sure some of you have received this email as customers but I wanted to share.  PS, Lon, you have been very influential in this forum.  So much so, I placed orders on his LBNH, SSZ and AC tuning X.

Dear Vera-Fi Audio Family,
I want to reach out personally and wish everyone a wonderful Holiday Season. As well, I want to thank all of you for your patience during the recent shipping delays. I know some of you were disappointed or frustrated with the extra wait, and I completely understand — when you’re excited about new gear, every day feels long.

What many people didn’t see behind the scenes was just how serious the situation truly was. We were facing the possibility of tariffs that could have gone as high as 175% on products coming from China. For a company dedicated to honest value and fair pricing, that level of increase would have been impossible to absorb (post orders in-house) — and it would have forced price changes I never want to impose on our customers.

Some asked why we didn’t simply air-freight everything. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a viable option either. Just to air-freight a single subwoofer would have cost well over $100, and doing that across our full product range would have destroyed our pricing structure entirely.

It would have accomplished the very thing I was trying so hard to prevent: passing unnecessary cost increases on to you.

That is why I made the difficult decision to hold inventory in China until the final tariff decision became clear. If I had shipped early and those extreme tariffs were suddenly imposed, the burden would have fallen directly on our customers for future orders — something I simply could not allow. Our lovely Caldera 10 would have easily gone to $399, or even a smidge more.

Once the final tariff levels were confirmed, we released everything immediately and moved as quickly as possible to get every order on its way.

I know the delay tested some of your patience, but please know this: every decision was made to protect you — your investment, your trust, and the value you expect from Vera-Fi Audio.

The good news is that this challenge has put us in a stronger position going forward. We are now increasing production and ordering a much larger volume of goods so we can maintain steady inventory and avoid the kind of delays we all endured over the past few months.

Thank you for standing with us, for believing in our mission, and for being part of the Vera-Fi Audio family. Your support means more to me — and to all of us — than you can imagine.

­
With sincere gratitude,

Mark Schifter

Lon, thanks.

Tom, I have not had time enough to explore all of your questions, but I'll add more impressions as I do.

First, from the wall I am LNBH > SSZ > UFO25. I am waiting on a second unit from Verafiaudio that will go SSZ > Lumin U2 Mini.

I started with the gold and will move on to graphene Sluggo next. So, my overall positive first impression was using the gold.

Space for my rig is a challenge, so once I get the second AC Tuning X connected to the Lumin, I'll keep it there until I find a reason to change. I am however, open to suggestions.

 
Ben Pollack "Volume 5 Recorded in New York 1931"

Some sweet and hot music and some features for Jack Teagarden. Hitting the spot this morning.

Got another two inches plus of snow overnight so will got out and work on the deck and driveway in a bit but first I'm sneaking in a re-listen to

Gregory Groover Jr.'s latest one, "Old Knew" on Criss Cross cd

Joel Ross is a great addition here--I love hearing him as sideman or leader.

Gregory Groover Jr. with vibraphonist Joel Ross, pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Harish Raghavan, and drummer Kendrick Scott

Congrats Tony! Glad this sounds so good.

Hi Tony, Good to hear!  Thanks for your initial assessment on the AC Tuning X.  I have had 2 on order for months, paid in full and have been told several times that it was ready and  being shipped in a few days.  I received my Ups tracking notice a week ago and it still hasn’t shipped.  Still optimistically patient!  
Couple of questions if you can and you don’t mind…
- How do you have it installed?  At component end or power end?
- Have you used both gold and graphene Sluggos?  How do they compare?
- Which components have you used it on? Amp, Pre, Dac? Any of them better than another?
Thanks👍

I would say Rachmaninoff is best known for his piano concertos and symphonies, which are nice enough. But my favorite pieces are the Cello Sonata and Vespers, about which I have posted several times. And I prefer some of his tone poems, like the moody Isle of the Dead to his better known orchestral works. So if you want to hear Isle of the Dead you can't do any better than Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony, which is true of pretty much everything they recorded for RCA Living Stereo.



On CD

 
I don't know if I am the first to receive verafiaudio's AC tuning X, but if not, I'm probably close to it. I think they just started shipping out and will continue over the next week or two. I didn't see any other posts, so I might be among the first wave of folks to receive it. I had pestered Mark regularly about delivery until I got the full story on the various challenges of importing from China and backed off. It's not that I forgot about it; it had been a while, and I wasn't sure what to expect.
 
So, how does it sound? GREAT!
 
In my system, now built around the SE84UFO25, I primarily stream music from Qobuz. I have been open to trying most anything that promises to improve streaming SQ, so I was open to this option. I installed the AC tuning X three days ago and immediately noticed an improvement in audio. I spent the first evening listening to tracks I know well, and I was surprised at how often I heard instruments or very subtle parts of music that I had previously missed or underappreciated. Initially, I thought a change of tubes that I had made in the amp was contributing to this improvement in SQ, but last night I went back to my usual set of tubes, plus the AC tuning X, and the results were the same.
 
I'm not going to say I am completely over the stress and strain of the long wait, because it did take a while. I will say, however, that the AC tuning X delivered. Since returning to the UFO25, I was pleased with the sound I'm getting with it, but this takes it up another notch or two.

The graphene Sluggo arrived yesterday and is in the STR-1002 Super. There you go Lon😉.

HK

Quote:


Thanks… I made the best out of a crappy situation and enjoy some critical listening.  Thanks to yours truly…I have expanded my appreciation for Rachmaninov.

Pending

Gregory Groover Jr.'s latest one, "Old Knew" on Criss Cross cd

The title makes me think of my Dad, how I wish I could get his advice . . . he sure is missed. He knew . . . about anything I need knowledge of.

Joel Ross is a great addition here.

Gregory Groover Jr. with vibraphonist Joel Ross, pianist Paul Cornish, bassist Harish Raghavan, and drummer Kendrick Scott

Sorry about the sinuses Dom. I don't know that recording, but do know those pieces and I'm a big fan of all of them. Bach, Beethoven and Brahms (the 3 Bs) wrote the "great" cello sonatas, but Rachmaninoff's is as great as any of them. Also great is Chopin's, which IMO doesn't get nearly enough attention.



16/44 FLAC download.

Maria Joao Pires is famous for her Chopin so no surprise that her account of the cello sonata is outstanding.

Fighting a sinus infection so I was up early this morning.  Decided to run my  Grado’s this morning with my Schiit Bifrost and the Vali 3.  I was searching the Deutsche Grammaphon label,  and landed on this album with Yuja Wang whom I am a big fan of.  

The grills came out ok with high gloss black. I tried to smooth out the dents from use and abuse over the years but there are still a few


The made up wire consists of (4) lengths of 16 gauge speaker wire held together with shipping tape for each leg. This assembly should work well slid between the carpet and thin felt pad. Found two 250' rolls of this wire at the local flea market over the summer. One was the 16 gauge; the other 18 gauge. It is true copper! Not the aluminum clad with copper that seems to be prevalent these days and sells for about the same price as copper 25 years ago. I have plans to use the 18 gauge to replace the bulkier 12 gauge under the carpet now for the HT subs. The 12 gauge runs result in a noticeable bump in the carpet.

Something different. . . Yes "Magnification"

Rather pretty music to start off a cold and wintry day. Once again we didn't get predicted snowfall overnight, I'm liking this trend!

Jan Johansson & Arne Domnérus "Younger Than Springtime 1959-61" Dragon cd

Dragon is such a great label.

Tonight it has been Dr. John "In the Right Place"

I'm more of a "Wrong Time" type of a fellow!

The push is on with the possibility of a new amp arriving soon. The DJ subs with bobc's inspired zkits are a hit. The bass is detailed and mends well with the Crystals. So well that it got me to fresh up the well used cabinets with new flat paint. The zkits will be wall mounted and rest on the front wall benches. The benches are receiving (8) 20 amp isolated ground duplex recepticals per side. Seems that there is never enough plugs in the Charoit.

Enjoying some Dinah Washington streaming in CD quality.  I haven’t listened to her in a long time.  She truly has a mesmerizing voice that’s so enjoyable.

"Jazz Tribune No. 47: The Indispensable Benny Goodman Volume 3/4 (1936-1937)" 2 cd set, disc 1

A little bit of afternoon swing while Lucinda naps and after a great visit with four Texans here, two of them energetic (aged 7 and 9).

At the top of a new page and the latest installment of the Beethoven Symphony Round Robin. The mighty Eroica, no. 3. Andre Cluytens is one of the least appreciated great conductors of the 20th century in my book. But he was thought of well enough to land the gig conducting both the first complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies recorded by the Berlin Philharmonic, and the first stereo Beethoven recordings of that orchestra. All of his Beethoven is great, but he really makes all the different aspects of the Eroica come to life.



DSD rip from Tower Japan SACD

I responded to your DM.

Monteverdi's Vespro della beata Vergine aka 1610 Vespers, is hugely important music. Both to the Western Classical Tradition^tm but apparently also in the life of John Eliot Gardiner. At the time it was composed it was a technical and stylistic tour de force of unprecedented scope and scale. A revolution comparable to Beethoven's Eroica or Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. It pretty much invented Baroque music.

For JEG, properly Sir JEG, it was the piece that began his journey to become one of the most influential classical musicians of the last half century. I'm not a fan of everything, or maybe even most things he does, but he has also made a lot of excellent and thought provoking recordings and his Vespro from the late 80s is outstanding in every way.



16/44 FLAC download

I'm following up with a bit of never before heard by me Yes from the expanded reissue cd of "Tormato." Yes is one of the few rock bands I still give a listen to, and I never realized until last week that they had included nearly another album of never before released material on this "Tormato" reissue. Nice stuff! I'm excited about the big deluxe edition of "Tales From Topographic Oceans" coming next year--that is my favorite Yes release.

Well it's cold but we dodged a bullet and didn't get snow overnight that was predicted, so I just cleaned up the car a bit in preparation for a brunch with Texas in-laws that are here for just one more day.

Revisiting disc 2 of this excellent new reissue of two Bill Evans albums and many alternates/outtakes. God bless the Plangent Process--I did a brief comparison with an SACD of one of these albums and there's a subtle improvement in stability and spaciousness on this new release.



"Haunted Heart: The Legendary Riverside Studio Recordings"

Kiko is awesome! Not surprising because Los Lobos are awesome. You're digging the East LA sound. Kiko is their best album, but if you want to try something else I'd suggest How Will the Wolf Survive?



On CD.

I'm really liking "Kiko" by Los Lobos.

I listen to the entire album and that is really unusual for me. Usually a song or three into a album and I have lost interest.

Not only that, I've listened to it at least 3 times in the last few days. Highly unusual indeed.

I know Maria João Pires from her luminous performance of the Chopin Nocturnes. But, not surprisingly, she has recorded a lot of other really good stuff. Her Schubert is wonderful. She is expert at balancing the beauty and the sorrow that makes Schubert's music so powerful.



16/44 FLAC download

Oded Tzur "Translator's Note" Enja/Muzak Japan cd

Oded Tzur on tenor saxophone, Shai Maestro on piano, Petros Klampanis on bass and Ziv Ravitz on drums. Each member makes great contributions to intriguing compositions.

Something very different than my last listen, Ben Pollack Vol. 3, on Jazz Oracle cd.

White guy jazz from a band that often had some great players (this volume for example has Jack Teagarden and Jimmy McPartland). An acquired taste perhaps but I acquired the taste last century and rely on this type of music to boost my spirits. And Jazz Oracle always has incredible sound quality for music of this vintage.

DM sent!

More snow! It may be one of those winters. . . our neighborhood gets more snow than many in the Cleveland area, as is being proven over this holiday period. I'm on my own with shoveling etc. now but I'm up to it. Will have to revisit it again before sundown. Luckily the roads are good and we were able to get out and about to accomplish what we needed to today.

Trying something beautiful and focused with this little window of time to myself. . . .

Carmen McRae "Alone -- Live at the Dug" JVC XRCD24

Up early as Lucinda has an early PT appointment and I'll soon have to shovel and clear some snow. But first a little listening.

"Earl Hines," Storyville cd

Happy Thanksgiving!

Johnathan Blake "My Live Matters" Blue Note cd



"Where do we go from here? What other choices do we have?"