allenh

XLR is for balanced inputs where there are effectively 2 alternating signal lines and a ground and RCA connections have one signal line and one ground so if you have a device that has RCA outputs it's pointless plugging it into a balanced XLR input unless you have to becasue that's the only input choice you have. If you do have to it's easy to buy phono RCA to XLR cables or even make them yourself.

The biggest issue you are going to have is the distance you are running so good quality cables are the only requirement here.

On 22/01/2017 at 4:18 PM, lastvaultboy said:

EDIT: Well, that cabling got me nowhere, all secure and fine. It's definitely an issue with the left channel as when I move the cables for the speakers it doesn't follow the speaker. I'll keep trying things - amazed I never noticed it before.

Could still be an issue with the cables or the amp or the source then but also your new speakers I bet are quite a bit more sensitive than your old ones so are more likely to show up faults.

On 22/01/2017 at 5:30 PM, reesdog said:

Wow, thats some great info, thanks Allen. I'll do some research on those brands you've mentioned, a lot to take in, but thats part of the fun right, checking out different gear and seeing what suits you the most. Also, I've moved the amp to the other end of the shelf so I shouldn't have any issues with electrical hum now. Pleased with how its all sounding for now. Nice one!

Not a problem but remember this is just my opinion and things I've heard and like so it doesn't mean you will agree, listen to as much as possible before you lay out serious money unless you get it at a good enough price to move it on if you don't like it, your ears know best not mine.

The only other advice I can give is if possible don't sell the old thing until you've had chance to try the old and the new side by side for a while so you can be absolutely sure that shiny new purchase really is more to your liking.

11 hours ago, reesdog said:

Thanks Allen for the advice, any brands you can recommend, will probably stay British as you said and most likely will buy brand new, but probably won't be getting them for about a year after this latest spend up.

 

Question regarding having the turntable on the same shelf as the amp, is that not ok? I thought it was more like don't have the turntable and speakers on the same surface because of vibration. There doesn't seem to be any issues with the sound currently. I could move the amp to the other end of the shelf if that would help..

 

Thanks again.

It really does depend on your budget becasue a lot of the proper British stuff is now a lot of money but if you want to stay solid state then I would say Musical Fidelity will give you some choice and also Creek, Myryad, Cyrus and Rega make some fine equipment and a decent range. Aimed more at the high end only there is Graham Slee, Meridian, Sugden and Chord but you are looking at real money with those. Also Nytech are producing again and the [new product looks very very good but I haven't as yet heard it and don't know how much it is. I would also look at some of the US made product as this seems to have moved toward a more British sound over the years at least at the high end. I've never been a fan of Linn or Naim electronics but I understand Naim equipment now sounds a lot nicer, still over priced but nicer sounding at least.

If you go valve then my first choice would be EAR, Tim Paravincini is a genius of the highest order and anything he touches is audio gold, expensive but you can hear why. There is also Quad, Croft, Puresound and possibly Icon Audio, Audio Innovations and Lumley but again a lot of the US made stuff is very British sounding so certainly people like Conrad Johnson, Rogue Audio, Raven Audio or Audio Research to name four and I know there are quite a few others I've forgotten to mention.

On the table being on the same shelf as the amp it's not good practice becasue of electrical noise and power supply hum being transmitted through the wooden shelf but no it's certainly nowhere near as bad as having the speakers on the same shelf. You can use a sheet of glass to stop it if you detect a problem which is why a lot of the racks and shelves use glass.

26 minutes ago, kannibal said:

I don't think so. That would require new speakers. If im happy with the sound of my equipment after this upgrade, the only way I'll change anything else is if I have to due to a part dying. I think I've reached a level of satisfaction that I can enjoy for the rest of my life.

Ah ok fair enough if you're happy where you are then I doff my cap to you sir and enjoy your new mono blocks, I guess I experiment a bit more than some, can't help it, if someone tells me there's some wondrous thing I haven't done I have to try it to see for myself.

1 minute ago, kannibal said:

Just two. Left and right channel. 

Ok, any chance of expanding on that number? I have to say it was the biggest step I made going active with a mono block per driver and it was well worth the expense

On 19/01/2017 at 11:14 PM, kannibal said:

Odyssey -Stratos monos heavily modded and upgraded. Had an awesome experience on the phone with the owner discussing his products and gave the green light. Very excited. It will be awhile before I'll get to hear them due to the 8 week build time.  I'll be counting the days.

How many? and if it's more than two are you thinking of going active?

6 hours ago, echobat said:

When it comes to technical parts, soldering makes things a lot better. You may avoid it but you would realize its importance at the end.

It also makes things a lot cheaper as you only buy the part you need not a whole assembly

@reesdog There's nothing basically wrong with your Cambridge apart from being on the same shelf as your turntable or any of the rest of that system for that matter, it should fit together very well so if you're going to replace the Cambridge with a dedicated pre/power I would save your pennies over time and make it a big change to either something new with valves (either valve pre and solid state power or valve all the way through) or if you want to go solid state then look out something exotic used, expensive solid state amps generally loose money quicker than valve amps so at the higher end there are better bargains with used solid state if you look about and solid state is harder to repair but more reliable, the hard part in getting valve equipment repaired is getting someone who's not scared of it.

The other thing I'd say is that is a very British system so you might want to stay that way to keep the tonal balance where you are used to it but that said go and listen to lots of stuff as it's the only way to find exactly what you like and don't compromise just becasue the dealer is telling you its a good deal, your ears know best.

Oh and you don't need to be a rich man just a discerning one.

11 hours ago, pizza face said:

Hooked it up and it works good but it could need a new cartridge. The bass is extremely low compared to my current turntable unless that's just how this one is. It also creates it's own surface noise. When the volume is more than halfway up I can hear humming but can't hear it when music is playing. Not sure if its my cheap ass pre-amp (behringer pp-400) or what but I have another Direct Drive turntable that does the same thing. Any suggestions? I've never changed a cartridge in my life but am willing to attempt it. I get frustrated easily so honestly I'll probably just try to sell this to a pawn shop and hope to get $40 or something. -___-

If it's creating it's own surface noise then it could well be a worn stylus but have you checked the setup? the humming will just be dirty connections somewhere along the line of the arm and the cable causing a bad earth

Also that's a great table for the money so it's worth spending a bit of money on and treating it to a new stylus or cartridge if it needs it. Getting a replacement stylus for that Micro Acoustics cartridge might be difficult though.

If you have another table that has an SME type/bayonet headshell fitting which is pretty common try swapping the headshells with the cartridges in to see if the humming and surface noise go away but if you do remember to reset the weights and heights etc.

4 hours ago, cobannaboc said:

Blue toxic mustard variant is back up on their Bandcamp for anyone that missed out on the Flightless website:

 

https://kinggizzard.bandcamp.com/album/flying-microtonal-banana

Thanks for the heads up, I missed the Flightless PO so I jumped on this with all available quickness.

I had a pair of direct drive ones through here a while ago. They were like every other 1200 clone of the same quality, average but perfectly serviceable.

I think I paid £10 for a the pair of them at a boot fair and split them up and gave them to a couple of friends as starter tables. 2nd hand for the right price they are perfectly good as a starter table and a lot better than a Crosley, AT LP60, ION or all the other plastic rubbish as are all the other 1200 clones with different badges but new no let someone else waste their money and buy a 2nd hand one.

They're sending these out, mine arrived yesterday.

Also I see them up on Discogs for £50 plus even though they're also still available on the site

16 hours ago, JukeboxRomeo said:

hey folks..

 

my receiver bugged out on me over winter break, looking to pick up a new one. Tuner, turntable still work just fine.

 

My question is, are all components more or less compatible with each other? Can I basically pick up an 'ol receiver at my local record shop, etc and connect it to my current system?

Been a long time since I've shopped for individual components. If it helps, my AM/FM tuner is a Harman/Kardon TU 610 and my turntable is a Technics model (SL-D20).

 

thanks!

Yes pretty much everything except a turntable uses the same line level signal between components.

To confuse things slightly some more modern turntables have a built in phono stage so that they can be plugged into any normal line level input as some more modern amplifiers don't have a dedicated phono input.

As kannibal said your turntable doesn't have a built in phono stage so either your new amp will need one built in or you will need an external one.

Last point I doubt you have a receiver otherwise you will have two radio tuners as a receiver is an integrated amplifier and tuner in the same box so I suspect what you have is an integrated amplifier which to be honest is the better option anyway, having the radio tuner and amplifier in the same box is generally a bad idea and modern receivers tend to be audio visual units with more channels than you need and that don't always do a particularly good job with music.

I'm in for this but as the CD has so many tracks I wonder if there will be more than one volume on vinyl

12 hours ago, aron4174 said:

Looks like these are already shipping. Got my tracking today and it does say its in transit. 

 

And also sold out already? That really didn't last.

They still show as being available in the UK store

On 11/01/2017 at 10:08 PM, xxmartinxx said:

Not sure why I can't add text to the above message.

 

Anyway.  Do I really have to give back my card when I plugging in a $2000 turntable and  $1000 preamp into it?  Actually, that might make it worse.  Nevermind.

Unfortunately yes it does make it worse, you're insulting your front end, now go to the back of the queue and don't shout out again, we can only issue you with a provisional card now and it's unsettling the rest of the class. The only saving grace is that you didn't buy a bloody Onkyo

On a serious note, I hate to say I told you so but.....

I'm with kannibal on this one the line about the realness and 3D soundstage jumped out at me as well, it will get better as it burns in but I suspect you will always listen to it and hear what you are missing, it's the bits that grab your ear when you're not really listening that you will miss the most.

The HiFi law of diminishing returns is very much in evidence here, there's a huge price differential between your two amps and the basic sound is not on the face of it that much different but that difference is actually very significant and that's where all the money goes, that last little bit in any hi end component costs a huge amount but when it's gone you realise it was worth every penny.

Nice table that Sansui

11 hours ago, Tardcore said:

It's a fucking BASS GUITAR AMPLIFIER.  You can't trouble-shoot stupid.

On balance I feel my original post was both helpful and informative but whilst typing it I was actually thinking what you have so eloquently articulated.

On 10/01/2017 at 5:12 PM, lastvaultboy said:

So, some mixed but mostly good news!

I listened to some Tannoy Revolution XT6Fs (thanks @slinch) and compared them to some Monitor and Cambridge floor standers. The Tannoy was the clear winner. 

The concern now is that my amp won't drive them. The 351a is lower powered at 45w per channel and 8 ohms. From my reading, they would power the Tannoys fine but the chap in RS didn't agree. Any thoughts?  Perhaps the guru @allenh can offer his opinion?

What did they drive them with in Richers when you demoed them? On paper I can see no reason why the Cambridge shouldn't be able to drive them perfectly well, they're nice and sensitive for a big floor stander so I'd expect to be able to drive them with the low end of Tannoys recommendation of 25W RMS with no problems at all. But there are a couple of things here:

Was he just trying to sell you a new amp as well? They do like to sell a package in there

Did they not have a 351 or it's equivalent for you to try them on? They were the UK's only outlet for them after all

That said he should know as they are the UK distributor and Cambridge only quote 45W they don't clarify if thats RMS, Peak or PMPO so it might not be 45W as far as the Tannoys are concerned.

I'm still a little confused as to why they couldn't produce a similar amp to prove it to you with though.

22 hours ago, kannibal said:

Very ignorant, blanket statement there. I'm not sure if I am an audiophile, but I have equipment that at retail totals the price of a used car. I love and enjoy music more than I ever have. The increased sound quality gives me an experience I was never able to have with lesser equipment. These experiences have only increased my love of music, performance, and sound.

Yep, yep, yep, Oh and yep again.

xxmartinxx if you could hand your ID card for the HiFi society in to the nice lady at the door that will be fine.

I'm with kannibal on this one, I reckon you'll miss those glowing bottles and pretty soon. All through my HiFi life my listening habits have come and gone based on life in general but I have definitely regretted every time I've just turned good kit into money without a like for like or better replacement.

11 hours ago, kannibal said:

That sucks. And here you thought you were getting a good deal. 

I thought the same.

I wonder if it was a return they were selling off?

Can't see what all the fuss is about. I don't like any of them.

You bloody elitist HiFi snobs should all just use one of those nice Crosley suitcase thingies like us normal people do.

I'm just bored with this whole SL1200 thing now.

Bored bored bored

Oh and did I mention I'm bored by it?

Like the man said if you really want one go and buy a used one, they're not exactly hard to find

22 minutes ago, phil1031 said:

 

Thanks for the replies in both topics. So, yeah, that's exactly what happened.  Someone put this together for me and they put the rega arm on the thorens board. It didn't completely fit either. I will make sure I get the right one.  A couple more questions if you don't mind.

 

1. I have been using it like this for a while.  Could this have caused any damage to my stylus?

2.  Can I buy an alloy platter to make it like the i or ii?

 

 

Thanks Again,

 

Phil

It depends how far out it is but it's more likely to have damaged records than the stylus if it's done any damage at all, you'll soon know when you get it set up right as the songs on the inner grooves will suddenly sound distorted like you have really bad IGD

It's not the whole platter, if you take your platter mat off you'll see the platter is in two parts, the outer that lifts off and should be aluminum anyway and the inner that the belt goes round which is either alloy or plastic. I'm not sure if it's a straight swap as the bearing shafts might be different sizes and it's generally not a good idea to mix 2nd hand bearing shafts and sleeves as they could have worn at different rates anyway.

The plastic inner is just a means by which you can easily identify a later TD165 but it isn't the only difference, I wouldn't worry about that too much and get the fundamentals right first, just do some google searches for TD160, 165, 166 they are all fundamentally the same and can be made into absolutely stunning performers, and if right in standard form are capable of far better than a lot of mid and entry level tables from the likes of Project etc.