Yesterday, 15 September 2007, we held another Blind Test. This time, the topic was Moving Magnet (MM) Phono Stage. Two week before, we already had a Moving Coil (MC) session (I didn’t come). The session was held on Tubelover showroom, at Fatmawati.

This time, the contenders were:
1. Blue Circle BC11
2. ClearAudio
3.
Modified Sansui AU7900
4. Zenn Audio

Below, you can see the system setup. We used Tannoy Stirling and with extra Fostex super tweeter. The amplifier was tube, I forgot to write down the details (Minuet, EL34 if I’m not mistaken). The player was Rega P5 with Empire cartridge.


Photo below shows the judges and the audience. They were serious judgding the sound quality of each Phono Stage.

The evaluation only took around 30 minutes. Then we continued with dinner (sahur time for Moeslem). Yummy, thanks for the dinner, Mr. Arif Wicaksono.

After dinner, we also tried a $11.000 CD Player, the Platinum Reference CD III by MSB. Directly connected to 2A3 Amplifier, 50 Amplifier, Modified Sansui AU-719, and finally 845 Amplifier. The speaker was still the same, the Tannoy Stirling with Fostex super tweeter. We played some song from Patricia Barber and the famous Stimela track. All I can say was fantastic. The 845 could blow the Stirling. It had enough power to output the maximum potential of the Stirling. We turned off the light and really enjoyed this session. Mr. Arif said that this 845 only used cheap Chinese tube and cheap OT. He was preparing the new 845 with RCA tube and Tamura OT. We will wait for it!

Another shoot of 2A3 amplifier and the $11.000 CD Player.

The final result of the Blind Test were:
1. Modified Sansui AU7900
2. ClearAudio
3. Blue Circle BC11
4. Zenn Audio