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Originally Posted by crash9
For a long time I used a phono amp from NYAL called the SuperIt
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I had their little preamp! I think it was called the Minuet? Anyway, yes, sound is, of course, VERY subjective. I have owned all kinds of stuff... Magnepans, Acoustats, Altec VOTs heartily modified, Klipsch, EV, Von Schweickert, etc... I like the little 4.5" Fostex drivers in homemade TQWT cabinets best! I think it's the lack of a crossover; just pure 300B warmth. I sold off most of my gear to make way for this setup; the rest went into my home theater setup, and is slowly being pawned off too, as I find it hard to justify mega-$ amps and pres in an A/V system. The visual portion of the experience is distracting to the point that such sonic achievements are unnecessary and go largely unnoticed.
Anyway, yeah, I agree. Hi-end audio is disturbingly subjective, but one sad fact remains: unless you are a DIY'er, to get REALLY good sound, you've got to pay to play. The old Dyna stuff is good, but modding it makes it SO much better. That costs $ if you pay someone to do it... bummer! I am tinkering with different cables; I'll be damned if the super-high-$ solid silver interconnects I was loaned didn't sound harsh as can be on digital, but it sounded great between my phono-pre and preamp. There is a DIY speaker cable for SET amps made from CAT-5 networking cable. I was impressed when I heard it, and it's cheap. I need to find a spool of that stuff and have a go at that.
The pre-made cables and interconnects are scary expensive, and much of that seems to be snakeoil, as I'm sure you have discovered too. My friend designed and manufactured Sonoran cables and interconnects and used to send me all kinds of stuff to try out and evaluate. I got to keep it, and it is nice stuff, but he was getting some ridiculous money for his stuff.