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  #41  
Old 06-19-2017, 05:10 PM
MisterBritt MisterBritt is offline
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Originally Posted by Bob Bubeck View Post
Lovely review, Britt!

Might you report further using some classical music for audition at some point?

Thanks.

Bob
I did the Stravinsky/Solti Le Sacre Du Printemps/The Rite of Spring. (Speakers Corner Decca)

It had honestly been so long since I last listened to it that I didn't believe I had anything to say. I can tell you it sounded wonderful. Here are the extent of my previously unpublished notes:

Just superb. Depth of soundstage. Nice and dry yet with ample ambience. Here's a recording where the meter needles aren't just sputtering in a tight band around the -10 db locus.

- that's all I wrote.

I reviewed a lot more albums than what I reported. And even of those impressions, the notes are rather truncated, or there were simply not a lot of notes.

For instance, I listened to the two recent Intervention Records label Stealers Wheel records, Ferguslie Park and the self-titled Stealers Wheel album. These are as good as it gets! But as far as my impressions while listening, I feel like I have reported on the improved resolution of the soundstage, etc., so I didn't even include them.

My impressions, to use that term, were that I was simply wondering how these records were mic'd. I previously gave just a sentence to that on the Gerry Rafferty City to City album. The end result is so good I found myself thinking beyond the transducers and electronics in my home (speakers, stylus, amps, etc.) to thinking about the microphones used in the studio. I wasn't so much thinking about the playback system, my stereo, as I was imagining how they got this sound during the recording.

Another one that I reviewed but did not report was the Miles Davis Quintet, E.S.P. (Japan 18AP 2066 and the recent MFSL 45 RPM)

This is an odd duck in the Miles Davis catalogue because it was not recorded in the CBS 30th Street studio, aka "the church." And really, I was basically just listening to the overall vibe of the album. Moreover, I was listening to the sound from Tony Williams ride cymbal. It sounds different on this album than the others in the Miles Davis catalogue. I was wondering if it is the same cymbal, aka the "Nefertiti" ride or whether it was a different cymbal altogether. I was wondering if it was captured with a Neumann M49 tube mic or a Neumann KM56 tube mic or what? I didn't think that sort of rumination -- some of which I published on other albums -- was going to be valuable to readers of my impressions, so I left it out altogether.

That Sam Cooke record I mentioned, Night Beat, you can tell it was done over two sessions. The one with the more rhythm & blues tunes was done with what I would guess is the RCA 77 ribbon microphone on Sam's vocals, while the more melancholy ballads seem to me to have been done with a Neumann/Telefunken U47. That's my guess. But whether these are the sort of ruminations others share, I would not know. I tried to keep that brief. Ha.

One takeaway from this exercise -- my listening and my taking notes -- that I hope one might take home is that the MP1100 is so good that one is listening much deeper in to the recordings. His inquisitiveness is being sated with the information that the phonograph album is capable of delivering. But what I wanted to avoid was the kind of review that leads the reader along with my conclusions. My impressions, yes. My conclusions, no. I wanted to just write the kinds of things we might be sharing as if we were listening together.

I did, however, indulge myself to make some general, omnibus observations about how big, bold and detailed the presentation is. The experience of the MP1100 left me wondering more often than not about whether the sound was captured with stage mics, ribbon mics, expensive studio tube mics; were they large or small diaphragm; were they in the omni or the cardiod or super-cardiod position or what? With the MP1100 installed, my system realized a new level of depth, detail and three-dimensionality.

Last edited by MisterBritt; 06-19-2017 at 06:44 PM.
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  #42  
Old 06-19-2017, 07:41 PM
JBT JBT is offline
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Wow! Sounds like Mcintosh hit it out of the park with the MP1100!
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  #43  
Old 06-19-2017, 11:35 PM
Msegal Msegal is offline
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What a wonderful and thoughtful review. Thank you very much.
I really would like to check a MP1100 against my Aesthetix Rhea Eclipse. I have to convince my dealer to bring one in.
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  #44  
Old 06-19-2017, 11:57 PM
MisterBritt MisterBritt is offline
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Originally Posted by Msegal View Post
What a wonderful and thoughtful review. Thank you very much.
I really would like to check a MP1100 against my Aesthetix Rhea Eclipse. I have to convince my dealer to bring one in.
Definitely give it a trial first. I was real clear and upfront with my dealer that I was only about 50% sold on it before he shipped it out, with the understanding if I didn't like it, it was going back.

I went ahead and told him after a couple days that it was a keeper.

I continue to put it through its paces and it continues to improve with more hours on it. One thing, in my experience, it will not due is soften up a digitally sourced vinyl. But, it does not make it worse. I can remember when that became a popular proclamation by the usual suspect reviewers in the press: if you have a revealing system and there's a weak link in that system, such-and-such component or certainly the source will reveal your inadequacies. I'm not finding that to be the case.

For instance, I just spun the Tool Enigma album. I know it is from a digital source. It sounded better than it ever has; digital -yes, but better than I have heard it before tonight. The previously mentioned Guns 'n' Roses Chinese Democracy vinyl could not be improved. If a guy has a lot of these re-issues that are actually digitally sourced, I would say don't look for miracles. But it won't bring forth their deficiencies either, in my limited experience.

One other thing I haven't yet mentioned. In reviewing the owners manual I discovered you can disable are the digital circuitry inside the MP1100, the guts that would allow you to burn vinyl to your computer, etc. I went ahead and did that. I couldn't tell an immediate improvement in the process, but I figure it couldn't hurt. If I ever get the notion to burn a CD from a vinyl for my car or something, just a couple of clicks and it's reactivated.

Last edited by MisterBritt; 06-20-2017 at 12:36 AM.
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  #45  
Old 06-20-2017, 12:29 AM
damacman damacman is offline
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Wasn't GNR Chinese Democracy supposed to be an excellently recorded album with minimal compression? Didn't some famous mastering engineer say just that? I've never heard it myself but have been meaning to pick up a copy as of late.
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  #46  
Old 06-20-2017, 12:48 AM
MisterBritt MisterBritt is offline
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Originally Posted by damacman View Post
Wasn't GNR Chinese Democracy supposed to be an excellently recorded album with minimal compression? Didn't some famous mastering engineer say just that? I've never heard it myself but have been meaning to pick up a copy as of late.
I don't know anything about that. It sounds great on CD. But as I had originally (not most recently) mentioned, I think I have a bad piece of vinyl. It's actually a double album so two bad pieces of vinyl. There are just a gazillion tracks layered to the sky on this recording. I believe it cost a fortune and how ever many years to complete.

I'll tell you a funny but true story about this record, though. Originally Chad Wackerman did the album on drums. He came up with all of it and recorded it. Then somewhere in all the production, Axl had a falling out with Chad. He brought in another drummer who goes by the name of Brain.

Brain listens to it and tells Axl he could re-cut the drums and take Chad off the album. But Axl says he doesn't just want another drum track on all the tunes, he wants Chad's drum parts on the records -- just not with Chad playing them.

Brain considers all this and replies to Axl he'll do it .... for x amount of money. I don't know what that figure was. It was a lot of work and a lot of money, though. But Brain had to transcribe every single note, every inflection, the tuning and tone of the drums and cymbals, etc. to exactly mimic what Chad had already recorded. I mean, it's insane.

But that's the story of the drums on this album. It's a recreation, like those painters who will do a Mona Lisa that's identical (better if you want it) to the original. That's the craziest Axl story I have ever heard, but I don't exactly have my ear to the ground. Ha.

Last edited by MisterBritt; 06-20-2017 at 01:17 AM.
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  #47  
Old 06-20-2017, 01:59 AM
damacman damacman is offline
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Wow - I had no idea. I found the link, it was Bob Ludwig who said so:

http://mastering-media.blogspot.com/...u-want-it.html

On another note, nice write ups on the MP1100 and Ron Evans.
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  #48  
Old 06-20-2017, 02:14 AM
MisterBritt MisterBritt is offline
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Originally Posted by damacman View Post
Wow - I had no idea. I found the link, it was Bob Ludwig who said so:

http://mastering-media.blogspot.com/...u-want-it.html

On another note, nice write ups on the MP1100 and Ron Evans.
Excellent read. Thanks. I think I'll try and find an import and see if I can get a better result. This is an interesting album to me although it really seems to polarize listeners. They either hate it or love it. I love it. Thanks again for the heads-up.

Last edited by MisterBritt; 06-20-2017 at 12:14 PM.
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  #49  
Old 08-27-2017, 12:44 PM
vjayh vjayh is offline
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I was looking at buying the MP1100 for my (almost) all Mac system to add to the C1100 and the MC2301's. I'm curious if anyone has compared the phono stage of the C1100 to the MP1100. I don't know anything about the technicalities, but did notice the C1100 uses 6 tubes in the phono stage (part of a pair of the 12AT7's in addition to the 12AX7's) vs. the MP1100 using only 4 (all 12AX7's). Anyway, just curious if anyone understood the technical differences and then if anyone had any "real world" comparisons. Thanks!
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  #50  
Old 09-03-2017, 11:07 AM
MCenthusiast MCenthusiast is offline
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Originally Posted by vjayh View Post
I was looking at buying the MP1100 for my (almost) all Mac system to add to the C1100 and the MC2301's. I'm curious if anyone has compared the phono stage of the C1100 to the MP1100. I don't know anything about the technicalities, but did notice the C1100 uses 6 tubes in the phono stage (part of a pair of the 12AT7's in addition to the 12AX7's) vs. the MP1100 using only 4 (all 12AX7's). Anyway, just curious if anyone understood the technical differences and then if anyone had any "real world" comparisons. Thanks!
I'd be interested in hearing more impressions on this topic as well as I haven't had an opportunity to hear the the MP1100 but have been quite happy with the C1100 phono stage.

The specs indicate that the MP1100 has a little lower distortion but it leverages more solid state components in it's signal path to achieve those measurements as you point out.

Additionally, the C1100 is remarkably quiet (although there's more to a phono stage than it's noise levels). I was optimizing the path of my phono cable yesterday and turned the pre-amp up to 90% and even 100% volume with phono selected and was astonished at how little noise there is. Much quieter than my Shindo preamp which also has an excellent internal phono stage. I'm inclined to think that the primary advantage of the MP1100 is the flexibility it provides with so many modes and settings. Still, the fact that McIntosh went to the trouble of building a dedicated phono stage makes me curious enough to want to audition it myself.
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