ANOTHER ONE BITES THE 'MAX'...TUD TUD TUD...ANOTHER ONE BITES THE 'MAX'... I was told that Morita has a secret society of sorts, and one of the members actually has a Minimax Phono stage before I got one.
So he arranged a semi-surreptitious gathering, asking me to coordinate with a 'special guest' to visit 'hidden' Max, with details such as lunch, time or arrival and departure as fuzzy as an encrypted disc.
All told, I had to ride in 3 cars to arrive at the destination. All I missed was a black hood, not that I wished for one.
So, we now present the site of the hidden Max: JAA's music place in Las Piñas.
THE RACK: The MiniMax is tucked way way down there.
Lo and Behold! Transfiguration Proteus. Morita has been whispering that my beloved RoseWood be transfigured into a Proteus, but I am reading about the ramifications of 'needle blasphemy' and 'wooden heresy'.
Or, can a greeny Boston Celtics fan turn into an orangy Lakers fan???
Luxman DD TT, with twin arms:
With Mang Mandy's active record clamp, tuning pins under the base of the clamp is said to tame specific resonances of the record:
FR 64 tonearm with FR 1 cartridge:
The legendary ARC SP 3 pre amp:
Dahlquist and DBX crossover networks:
Pass Aleph Mono blocks and Crown bass amp:
The ROOM:
Our special guest is none other than Señor Sensible Lito Gelano himself, JAA on the left, and MINI-KING Pat Morita san in the middle.
First, we'd like to thank Señor for hosting lunch after bearing heavy traffic at the Zapote Road. And of course, to JAA, and to Morita for driving me 'safely' back to my car parked in San Juan.
I was curious to hear the Max in another system, and to hear the Proteus. While I have to judge the whole thing as a total system and not being able to pinpoint what the Max or the Proteus was contributing to the sound, I must say that overall, the sound is once again, (as I have experienced previously before in JAA's system w/o the Max and Proteus) very impressive. We played a host of 'killer' tracks in John's collection - Killer Bees, Saudades, Fulton's Organ LP, and some LPs that I brought along at the risk of being de-owned by Morita,
and all tracks sailed through very well in terms of dynamics, coherency, and good balance in tonal texture. Morita has always stressed to me to look at the total cost of JAA's system, modest, according to him, compared to today's out of this world audio prices.
But one thing John has dearly invested is on his LP collection. According to him, he doesn't buy much in terms of quantity but he focuses more in quality even if it entails biting the bullet in terms of high LP cost. And also, he has in his Minimax Phono a tube that is widely considered the best ECC83 ever made - the Telefunken ECC803s, which he strategically put in the 1st gain stage of the Minimax Phono. The rarity of such tube is mind boggling as evidenced by its price still registered in the annals of tubedepot.com's site although it has been marked SOLD.
http://www.tubedepot.com/pa-ecc803s-tele.htmlWe spend our money where we feel it is worth spending. Mixing and matching things in the audio chain, and for me this will have to include the source itself - the LP, and I wholeheartedly agree with John in building a staggering sounding record collection. By the end of the day, hardware (constantly evolving) can still be easier to acquire than softwares which are out of print and hard to find. What good is the horse if it has no grass to eat?
Congratulations to my 'max' brother in phono stage for a very well put up and sound system.