Brand Synergy - How Far Will You Go?

[jdandy]

When the Mac table came out I read a review, the table is made for Mac, Im thinking Clearaudio but can't remember for sure.

Mr Peabody.......You are correct. The McIntosh MT10 is manufactured by Clearaudio. I know several people who own it and are extremely pleased with its performance. The tonearm is quite good and easily takes full advantage of upgrading to the Clearaudio Goldfinger cartridge. That being said, my lack of enthusiasm for the turntable is the looks. I don't want a turntable that looks like another McIntosh component sitting on my rack. I don't care for the gimmick of lighting the platter, and I see no reason for a blue lit meter in the middle of the black glass face. I'm certain McIntosh brand recognition was part of that engineering decision. With all of the marvelously engineered turntables and tonearms available, particularly in the MT10's price range, I simply have no interest in the McIntosh turntable despite the reputation and expertise of the manufacturer that McIntosh uses to produce it. The MT10 is simply not appealing to me.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I do think gear synergy is very significant, which has resulted in staying with darTZeel for my amp and preamp since 2004, so over 12 years. to begin with I owned 2 of the dart 108 stereo amps (bi amping VR9SE's), then added the (at that time newly designed) dart pre, went to a single dart 108 for the EA MM3's, then later upgraded the dart 108 to the dart 458 mono blocks (for EA MM7's) and then last year the dart pre was replaced by a new dart pre. the darTZeel is even more synergistic than most electronics since it allow the use of a proprietary BNC 'zeel' interface instead of RCA's or XLR's. but much more than that I think the sound of the dart gear is something different than solid state or tubes, yet combining the best of both. the dart is known for a very low noise floor, very smooth high frequencies, and absence of grain and edge. the dart pre includes 2 phono stages and has always been battery powered further lowering noise. minimal parts count and zero global feedback for the amps are also part of the picture.

my choice of speakers is part of the synergy too as the Evolution Acoustics speakers I've owned use simple 1st order crossovers, are easy loads for amplifiers (MM7's are 96db, 6 ohm), and have powered bottom octaves further reducing amplifier stress......which results in amazing ease and authority from the dart electronics. synergy comes from lack of stressed signal path.....yet still have the design envelope of the gear to be robust and full frequency.

minimalist electronics.......efficient speakers.......more of the musical message for me to enjoy.

to me the goal is to remove as much of sense of the reproduction chain from the musical message as possible. the right synergy in electronics and speakers allows that to happen.

 

[tube-vds]

i think every company has it's specialism - so i prefer that.

but the different components should fit together well - ofcourse that's very important.

and one of the most difficult things anyway. like a symphony orchestra playing well together.