Premium RCA Female Sockets

 It's always nice when you see improvements being made on components that we take for granted in the audio world.  I had these full insulating sockets made up for using in the Aurealis MC SUTs as high quality gold over copper female RCAs were becoming increasingly expensive.
 
These are beautifully machined by AEC in Taiwan.  They use a delrin body which means that it's much easier to isolate the RCA from the enclosure. Internal insulation is teflon, and contacts are gold over CuTe (copper tellurium).

The solder tags are prominent and easy to work with.  The external grey nut is actually coated brass so it's very robust and turns smoothly on the delrin body.  It's very easy to get a tight grip on the enclosure.



And as would be expected from such high quality components, the sound quality is exceptional. 

As AEC's minimum order quantity is relatively large, I have some of these for sale on the DIY page at www.aurealisaudio.com.au

Aurealis Audio - www.aurealisaudio.com.au

Finally after several years of selling audio accessories on Ebay, and battling with its ever increasing fees, I have moved most of the Aurealis Audio products over to a new independent website:  www.aurealisaudio.com.au

This is the first time I've been able to put all the information on the Aurealis interconnects and speaker cables in the one place. This has also enabled a consolidation and expansion of the range.  There is now a method to the madness and the distinctions between the various Aurealis cables now make some logical sense.  Here's a quick rundown of what is available:

Interconnects

R1 series - a mix of 20, 24 and 28 awg.  Available in all copper UPOCC wire or a mix of copper and silber.

R2 series - fine wire interconnects - using only 28awg - 3 versions: UPOCC silver, UPOCC copper and silver plated copper.

Phono cables, including a version with a Din style plug termination at the tonearm end.

 Speaker Cables 

UP Series - available in sizes from 20 awg up to 12 awg - UPOCC solid core wire only.

SP Series - available in sizes from 17awg up to 12 awg - silver-plated solid core copper

HG Series - heavy gauge cables available in UPOCC as a mix of solid core and multistrand UPOCC

DIY

Bulk UPOCC copper wire and silver plated wire, and a variety of connectors are also available on the site. 

New Speaker Cable Build

Aurealis Interconnects - The R1 and R2 Series

Here's a brief rundown on the Aurealis analog interconnects currently in production. They are available for sale at my Ebay store AT Accessories. All cables use high quality components, with nearly all being based around Neotech Teflon insulated UPOCC solid core wire and Eichmann RCAs or other copper Tellurium RCAs. (The only exception is the Aurealis R2 CuB which non-Neotech wire.) The cables provide excellent sound quality at a reasonable price and out-compete many cables costing up to four times the price.

Aurealis R1 – Analog Interconnects

R1 with Eichmann bullets

The original Aurealis R1 is a copper / silver hybrid design. Each interconnect features 2 strands of Neotech UPOCC copper (20awg and 24awg) and a single strand of Neotech silver (28 or 30awg depending on supply.

 The inclusion of the silver wire provides just a little extra sparkle to the upper frequency range of the music.

The all copper version of the R1 is identical in design but features 28awg copper wires instead of silver. It is a little more warm sounding and people with systems that tend to be on the bright side often prefer all copper cabling.

R1 with VaLab RCAs

In terms of overall performance the R1s offer excellent clarity and detail. They deliver a wide frequency range and a broad soundstage.

These are very neutral sounding interconnects. Vocals and lead instruments seem to sit more naturally in the mix.

The R1s can be terminated in the following RCA connectors:

• Eichmann copper Tellurium bullets
• VaLab copper tellurium
• Eichmann silver bullets

Aurealis R2 – Analog Interconnects

R2 AgS

These are a completely different design to the R1s. They use thin wire only, either 28awg or 30awg and are available in three versions:

R2 CuB – 30awg silver-plated copper wire terminated in Eichmann brass RCAs.

R2 CuT – 28awg Neotech copper wire terminated in Eichmann copper Tellurium RCAs.

R2 AgS – 30awg Neotech wire terminated in Eichmann silver bullets.

R2 CuT

The sound presentation is different to the R1s. The R2s have a narrower soundstage, but more depth, and are more upfront sounding. They tend to push lead vocals and lead instruments forward from the speakers, and are a very good match for a system that may sound a touch laid back. However, some people prefer these to the R1s simply because of their more forward presentation.

R2 CuB

 In terms of the difference between the interconnects: the CuBs are lively and dynamic and a little bright. The CuTs are much more mellow and have what I describe as a warmer more coppery tone. The AgSs being an all silver interconnect are very open and smooth sounding, with excellent resolution of detail.

Audio Origami PU7 - One word: Astonishing

  

The photo shows my red Rega with its brand new Audio Origami PU7 tonearm.  The slab of vinyl it's spinning is Peter Tosh's "Bush Doctor" which is very relevant to how the PU7 performs but I'll come back to that later.

Up to now my tonearm which did duty on my main deck was a Michell Tecnoarm.  The Tecnoarm and I got on really well for what is close to 6 years.  It played well with every cartridge I threw at it. It was lively, dynamic and and brought all my old vinyl to life.  It was better than any other Rega arm or Rega-based arm I'd ever heard and made me realise just what an original gem the Rega RB250 arm was warts and all (the Tecnoarm being a fully modded RB250).

The PU7 had been on the radar for quite a while.  It seemed that it was universally appraised as a brilliant piece of engineering that had taken the legendary Syrinx tonearms beyond even their ultimate conclusion. But I had thought that replacing the Tecnoarm would amount to little more than a refined tweak that would give me a ounce more of sophistication.

I was firmly convinced that the PU7 would be a one-way ticket to the land of diminishing returns - a place that I had always wished to avoid.  I was wrong.  The PU7 wasn't a tweak.  It was the most brilliant upgrade I've ever made to my system.  Trying to find the words to describe what the PU7 does is very difficult. It really needs to be listened to.  In a nutshell there is more music, more detail and what struck me as most remarkable of all - more sound staging. I though the clarity and the detail of the Tecnoarm was exceptional.  Compared to the PU7, the Tecnoarm sounds muddy around the edges; overly warm, and has a more closed-in sound stage.

The PU7 just seems to get everything right, but the thing that hits you about it, really hits you right from the start, is the bass end.  It is there in abundance (even on my full range speakers which are a little bass poor) and it is solid and clear, and has real life and energy to it.  Which brings me back to Peter Tosh's "Bush Doctor".   The bass on a reggae record is notoriously hard to accurately reproduce. Most vinyl playback systems tend to over-emphasise the bass rhythm in reggae, often turning it into a fat low end blancmange, while CD playback just seems to suck the life out of it. With the PU7 reggae has never sounded as good; the bass sounds alive, it sits in its proper place, driving the music forward but not dominating the rest of the sound. 

But that's just one example of how good the PU7 is.  It doesn't matter what LP you pull out of your collection - it will sound so much better than you have ever heard it before.

For the Rega owners out there who have been thinking of upgrading to a better turntable, my recommendation would be to upgrade to a PU7 first.  Audio Origami can make the the PU7 as a direct replacement for a Rega arm.   One other thing that springs to mind is that if you ever thought about upgrading a standard Rega arm to a Michell Tecnoarm then it is certainly worth it, but a better option would be to save some extra money and go for the PU7.

I dealt with Mendo, the Audio Origami Australian representative.  Here's the link to the website. Both he and Johhnie in Scotland were a please to deal with. Johhnie's the genius who designs and builds the PU7.






 




  

Where has all the mid-range gone? Empire cartridges again!

This little box of magic arrived in the mail today. It is a fully boxed brand new Empire 2000E/III catridge with its original needle.  I haven't played it as I'm testing out after market styluses on another 2000E/III.  One step at a time, I tell myself.  Listen, understand and get it right. 

So moving onto the topic: "Where has all the mid-range gone?"  When you listen to an Empire for the very first time that is a question that will pop into a lot people's head.  "I can't hear the mid-range that I'm used to. Where has it gone?"  The quick answer is that it's still there but is now separated to such an extent that the warm mid-range you were used to has now gone.  It wasn't really there in the first place.  What people were hearing were unshielded cartridges that were great at hitting the upper and lower end of the frequency range, but in the middle sounded warm, due to lack of separation and adding external interference. I admit that these types of cartridges sound very comfortable.  The Grado Gold does this better than any other cartridge I have ever heard, and I love it because it is so good at doing what it does. 

The Empires don't do comfortable.  Any Empire that's labelled with the 2000 tag doesn't create a comforting sound.  But instead they reproduce the music the way it was meant to be.

They are totally remarkable cartridges. 

In Praise of the Empires - Empire 2000/S and Empire 2000E/III

Browse enough internet audio forums and sooner or later you are bound to come across a discussion about the old Empire moving magnet cartridges that were manufactured by the Empire Scientific Corporation in New York a long, long time ago. Often someone has picked up a second hand turntable that came with am Empire and they seeking help to find  new stylus for it. The surprising about these discussions is that nobody has a bad word to say about them. Comments range from "they're good" to "they're exceptional." A quick check of Ebay reinforces these views with some models of old Empire carts minus their stylus fetching tidy sums.

Intrigued by this, I recently purchased an Empire 2000/S from a seller in Canada. It was new old stock (NOS) and came in its original packaging, including a lovely black velvet gift box. Out of its box, the Empire 2000/S is a rather ungainly and ugly beast.

It  has a grey metal body and an odd black removable frame that allows it to be secured to the tonearm. Although, it has very little plastic in its consrtuction it looks  cheaply made.  Its specifications, however, are anything but cheap. The frequency response is 10-35,000Hz; it has a 0.2 x 0.7 elliptical nude diamond; and 30db channel separation. Still it did look like the mounting frame was inadvertently designed to capture resonance, vibrate like crazy and totally stuff up the tracking. The phrase "O ye of little faith" springs to mind. While it's not the easiest cartridge to mount - needs small screws and 3 hands - it is fairly straightforward to align once mounted.  As soon as the needle dropped into the groove, I knew this was something special.

The sound of music this thing reproduces is exceptional. There is a huge amount of detail, its incredibly well-balanced in the sense that there appears to be no over-emphasis of any of the frequencies. Bass, mid-range and top-end are all so smoothly working together. Sounds good? It is even better. Without a doubt this cartridge delivers one of the most 3D music sounds I have ever heard. Thanks to its channel separation, the stereo imaging and layering and positioning of vocals and musical instruments is simply superb.

A little bit of research revealed that there were a number of cartridges in the Empire 2000 series. Some further research revealed that there were in fact several different 2000 series produced by Empire. It was one of those companies that often used similar number series for different product lines several years apart. As well as the 2000/S, there was also a 2000X and a 2000Z.  And thanks to Mantra Audio in the UK I also managed to track down some information about a 2000 - 4000 series Empire produce.  In this series, 2000 designated the stereo cartridges and 4000 the quadraphonic cartridges. The specifications can be found here. The cartridges in this series all have gold-plated bodies. The 2000E/III was the top of the line of the stereo carts. It has a frequency response of 5-35,000Hz; channel separation of 35db and another nude 0.2 x 07 elliptical diamond stylus.

Pictured here, mounted on my Michell Tecnoarm, is a secondhand 2000E/III which I purchased on Ebay for $65. It shipped with a NOS Empire spherical stylus, not its original elliptical.  Yet still the sound was beautiful, revealing what great potential this cartridge had.  I have since replaced the spherical stylus with a reproduction of the original elliptical made by the famous Jico company in Japan. The level of detail revealed is quite staggering, once again the stereo imaging is exceptional.  While the 2000/S is one of the best cartridges I have heard, the 2000E/III with a greater channel separation and better bass response may just be the best I have heard.

It is certainly superior to a $600 current production cartridge made by a very famous brand; and its also threatening to best some of my beloved Denon MC cartridges, including a very nice Soundsmith rebuild.

Both these cartridges are simply stunning. The E/III has a slight edge over the 2000/S, but this may change over time as the 2000/S burns in. 




For the record, both cartridges were tested with a Graham Slee Genera, and the excellent performance I heard could well be because the Genera is a perfect match for these beautiful old cartridges, 

Edited June 2024: Great to see that this blog post is still serving as a reference for Empire metal body cartridges. I received a request for tracking force for the 2000/S, See images of specs below: