- Joined
- Jan 3, 2011
- Messages
- 1,947
- Reaction score
- 1,254
Butter to margarine,Mercedes to BMW, Shell to BP whatever. No.
Arriving home on April Fool's day just before Easter weekend, I felt pretty chuffed. Nobody had caught me, nobody dumped a lot of work on me with some excuse. There was a message from Croak that he was sending me switch to try. So what could it be, Shalco, TKD, those beautiful things Ayre uses? What am I supposed to do with it? Switch what? I opened the box. Oh, a SWITCH. Croak got me!
So there is this all metal box ,very neat ,much nicer than my plastic dooh-dah. There are also a few power supplies. Now, in my fool's language I have to explain my set-up. Data enters the house through a100mbps fibre line. This in my study. There is the router. From there 2 CAT cables run downstairs. One goes to the TV room where sits an Apple Airport Extreme. From this runs lotsa things but mainly a ROON Rock. The other cable runs to my equipment room that is next to the listening room. Here sits the generic switch ,connected to MY Brinkmann Nyquist DAC. Why a switch there at all? Well there also sits an Apple Airport Express that acts as a Wi Fi extender. Otherwise there is no Wifi, hence no Roon Remote in that area. It is this Switch that Croak is targeting.
Now I don't understand Switches at all, but I do know they are computer related so must be my sound's enemy. They pass 0s and 1s and pollute the mains. So my Incredible Connection Switch runs off a (very expensive) Wyred for Sound linear power supply, plugged into an horrifically expensive Shunyata digital mains conditioner ,in turn running off an Isolation transformer dedicated to digital. I'm good then?
Err.... No. I plugged in Croak April Fools thingy and became instantly confused. I'm a closet fan of Bobby Gentry. Everyone knows her as the beautiful, if over mascaraed 60s girl that sang "Ode to Billy Joe". If you are really clued up, you know here for a few almost comic songs like "Ace Insurance Man" and "Papa, let me go to town with you". She grew up, poor as dirt in the Mississippi Delta and from there rose to fame with her brand of Delta music These decorated with schmaltzy 60s string arrangements. She appeared on the Tom Jones show, the BBC, had a TV program with Glen Cambell, conquered Las Vegas and disappeared. Reputedly she became a Psychologist and lives in California.
Therein lies the clue. She is one smart cookie. On Tidal there is an album with all her music. Amongst them are her demo tapes. Simple recordings of her and her guitar. They are spine chilling; the jokey 'Papa let me go to town with you'' is revealed as a chilling tale of spousal abuse, the achingly beautiful "Tuesday's Child", that weird Southern standard "Nicky Hoeky" etc.
I turned to "Tuesday's child (demo ) first. Gentry's beautiful voice suddenly shows the faint cracks of Nicotine usage, pops of being too close to the mike, her simple guitar is just that, a guitar, right there. After many years , I recently revisited Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Tin Pan Alley" on my B system. I was startled by how clean it sounds , almost digitally recorded. Then I listened to it in the main system and could hear it was analog but with Croak's Switch? There's the tape hiss, wait minute, there is slight hum in the recording. Santana, Abraxis,opening track, there is tape hiss, I know that but nope, that one spot where the hiss is bad, no that is tube rush, definitely.
So, the Switch pulled my digital sound even further forward. More analogue, less edgy but mainly that phenomenal detail retrieval, is it a lower noise floor? I had read somewhere that 2 switches back to back are better than one. I could run both of my psu. So then the madness began. Everything I tried changed the sound dramatically. I was starting to feel like Inspector Dreyfuss in the Clousseau films. I need to spent the weekend on this.
I have gawped at these "Audiophile " Switches before and gasped at their prices. With what Croak asks for this it is simply a no-brainer.I have not tried all of his PSU options as I am afraid that would really confuse me.
Seeing my Dreyfuss face, Elizabeth firmly ordered me to not commit before Tuesday but I can see no other option than an EFT.
Arriving home on April Fool's day just before Easter weekend, I felt pretty chuffed. Nobody had caught me, nobody dumped a lot of work on me with some excuse. There was a message from Croak that he was sending me switch to try. So what could it be, Shalco, TKD, those beautiful things Ayre uses? What am I supposed to do with it? Switch what? I opened the box. Oh, a SWITCH. Croak got me!
So there is this all metal box ,very neat ,much nicer than my plastic dooh-dah. There are also a few power supplies. Now, in my fool's language I have to explain my set-up. Data enters the house through a100mbps fibre line. This in my study. There is the router. From there 2 CAT cables run downstairs. One goes to the TV room where sits an Apple Airport Extreme. From this runs lotsa things but mainly a ROON Rock. The other cable runs to my equipment room that is next to the listening room. Here sits the generic switch ,connected to MY Brinkmann Nyquist DAC. Why a switch there at all? Well there also sits an Apple Airport Express that acts as a Wi Fi extender. Otherwise there is no Wifi, hence no Roon Remote in that area. It is this Switch that Croak is targeting.
Now I don't understand Switches at all, but I do know they are computer related so must be my sound's enemy. They pass 0s and 1s and pollute the mains. So my Incredible Connection Switch runs off a (very expensive) Wyred for Sound linear power supply, plugged into an horrifically expensive Shunyata digital mains conditioner ,in turn running off an Isolation transformer dedicated to digital. I'm good then?
Err.... No. I plugged in Croak April Fools thingy and became instantly confused. I'm a closet fan of Bobby Gentry. Everyone knows her as the beautiful, if over mascaraed 60s girl that sang "Ode to Billy Joe". If you are really clued up, you know here for a few almost comic songs like "Ace Insurance Man" and "Papa, let me go to town with you". She grew up, poor as dirt in the Mississippi Delta and from there rose to fame with her brand of Delta music These decorated with schmaltzy 60s string arrangements. She appeared on the Tom Jones show, the BBC, had a TV program with Glen Cambell, conquered Las Vegas and disappeared. Reputedly she became a Psychologist and lives in California.
Therein lies the clue. She is one smart cookie. On Tidal there is an album with all her music. Amongst them are her demo tapes. Simple recordings of her and her guitar. They are spine chilling; the jokey 'Papa let me go to town with you'' is revealed as a chilling tale of spousal abuse, the achingly beautiful "Tuesday's Child", that weird Southern standard "Nicky Hoeky" etc.
I turned to "Tuesday's child (demo ) first. Gentry's beautiful voice suddenly shows the faint cracks of Nicotine usage, pops of being too close to the mike, her simple guitar is just that, a guitar, right there. After many years , I recently revisited Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Tin Pan Alley" on my B system. I was startled by how clean it sounds , almost digitally recorded. Then I listened to it in the main system and could hear it was analog but with Croak's Switch? There's the tape hiss, wait minute, there is slight hum in the recording. Santana, Abraxis,opening track, there is tape hiss, I know that but nope, that one spot where the hiss is bad, no that is tube rush, definitely.
So, the Switch pulled my digital sound even further forward. More analogue, less edgy but mainly that phenomenal detail retrieval, is it a lower noise floor? I had read somewhere that 2 switches back to back are better than one. I could run both of my psu. So then the madness began. Everything I tried changed the sound dramatically. I was starting to feel like Inspector Dreyfuss in the Clousseau films. I need to spent the weekend on this.
I have gawped at these "Audiophile " Switches before and gasped at their prices. With what Croak asks for this it is simply a no-brainer.I have not tried all of his PSU options as I am afraid that would really confuse me.
Seeing my Dreyfuss face, Elizabeth firmly ordered me to not commit before Tuesday but I can see no other option than an EFT.
