Synergies, Synergies, Synergies…the game of trial and error and that occasional stroke of luck…a match!!
Many of us may know of this famous book of HG Wells:
Essentially, this Doctor Moreau person was engaged in surgically assembling monstrosities by putting together parts from humans and animals…then his creations went nuts, all hell breaks loose, and he ultimately finds himself up sh*t creek without a paddle
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An extreme metaphor, to put it lightly, but for the more experimentally inclined in this audio hobby, this may sound familiar. At times, the failures in experimentation can be humorous for those of us who can readily laugh at ourselves then chug a six-pack of San Mig Lite and go to bed feeling consoled by the ‘A for effort’ cliché. For the rest of us, failure can be bloody frustrating…incidentally, we have the well instituted practice of a “Home Audition” to save ourselves from an irreversible waste of money Reversible-that is the key word to happiness
Here is the series of events that sent me to the Analog Island of Doctor Moreaue and spurred the augmentations and mutilations that I performed upon a once pristine technological marvel, the SME 3012 series 2:
1. No matter how much silicon grease we applied, the original arm lifter went down too fast
2. so I purchased the arm lifter of a 3009 and attempted to install it myself-
3. And in the process, I managed to ruin the very (ORIGINAL!!) fine internal cabling of the tonearm SIRANIKO!!!!!
4. So a quick call to IHATEJAZZ FOR THE GOODS AND THE HELP OF HYPERTRIODE PLUS a few thousand pesos later, the once pristine SME 3012 now has a better (3009) arm lifter plus ClearAudio internal cabling which I understand are composed more of silver than copper versus the copper originals. Sigh sigue lang ANYWAY, I still have another pure stock 3012
5. I slap the “improved armlifter and internal wiring” SME 3012 with stock headshell on to my TD124 (double arm) and proceed to compare it to his tablemate the pure stock FR64 both using the Denon 103r. HOWEVER, another alteration came into play…mounting the SME 3012 directly onto the brass base instead of the factory provided base…The SME 3012 was really getting all kinds of surgery by now!!!
6. Truth to tell, I found the sound anemic, overall…OMG!!! I’m screwed, blued and tattooed!!! The Frankenstein 3012 I now had was a lemon and a very expensive lemon, at that!!!! Time for that 6-pack and some consolation in the ‘A for effort Cliché’
7. So then I thought long and hard about what Amandarae told me are the issues of SME 3012/Denon 103R compliance matching…The SME arm and headshell are too light to fully comply with the Denon 103r.
8. So I went out and acquired an original FR64 Headshell and mounted the Denon/FR Combination onto the anemic, mutilated Frankenstein 3012…whats another mutilation at this point, right?
Sacrilege!!!!
To the ultra purist vintage collector/die-hard my surgical addiction would be beyond inconceivable and he would, subsequently, do to me what the is being done to the victim in the picture upstairs…and I would not blame him for it, either
But it all came together, just like that, right after the final mutilation…I have, in my listening room, a creature from the Island of Doctor Moreau… a successful one, a high performance beast, IMO at least.
So here is a picture of my BEAST from the Island of Doctor Moreau
No baseplate
ClearAudio internal wiring
FR Headshelled
And 3009 arm-liftered
To me:
A punchier SME 3012 that provides a very good bottom end, is much more authoritative, mas ma-diin, faster, tracks like a dream and is super(12 incher style) musical IMO
Success