allenh

Because of postal service fees rather than the actual tax I've been getting records sent to a US address for ages. All UK postal services have been putting a fee on when they charge for VAT for a very long time so your £25 album usually ends up costing £40 with £5 of VAT and a £10 fee, some are much worse, Fedex springs to mind and their fee is something like £15 or £20 before you start

I was thinking exactly the same, that and I can have a lie in tomorrow morning now Yep thought that as well. I think there might be quite a few emotions going on when people arrive at the price on the site, I see the the emotional turmoil going something like: How much? Some milli seconds later But I better get it or I never will. Some more clicks later WooHoo got it. About 10 minutes later I really shouldn't have bought that. etc. etc. They will be up on ebay and might already be being listed at extortionate prices that the odd soon to be skint idiot buys but I wonder like a few of these things if you won't see them for much less in a couple of weeks

That's better I was getting worried I had to get up before 5am UK time for this, that or stay up all night on Thursday which would have meant alcohol, snoring and then missing it altogether

Problem is there's more than one midnight in the US so which one is it?

Normally changing the amp wouldn't be the biggest change but the big change there is you are going from solid state to valves which is always going to be a big difference in sound. I'm not surprised you like the Cronus as the MF sound is one of those that is as close to valves as you get with transistors but it's still nowhere near. If you like valves then you are opening up a whole different world and it is very much a personal taste thing, I love valves and have from the first time I heard them but it's not for everyone. You can now go into the world of tube rolling as you colonials call it which is changing different valves of the same type from different manufactures as this can change the sound of your amplifier quite a bit, Rouge I expect will have got this about right but a little experimentation never hurt anyone and you can always put the originals back if you don't like the new ones, also having spare valves about is a standard requirement of the valve equipment user. Welcome to the world of going to make a coffee whilst the valves warm up when you want to start listening and thinking all the time is that valve dying? do I need to buy some more? Valves are in no way convenient but are worth every bit of inconvenience to me, my system is so full of them I don't need any heating in the room in winter when I have them on.

All looks ok, you could certainly have done a lot worse as a starting point. 1) There's nothing wrong with valves as a first stage of amplification (phono or pre) and solid state afterwards, you can buy integrated amplifiers known as hybrids that have valve pre amplifier sections and solid state power so it's quite normal and can produce very good results. 2) For what you are doing powered monitors are fine but if you want to add another source or drive a bigger space then you are limiting what you can do. If you had a normal amplifier setup and passive speakers you would have a lot more choice if you decided to make changes later on. You can of course add a passive pre in line to give you some more source switching options What you have as a front end is pretty standard kit so if you did decide to go a different route amplifier and speaker wise it shouldn't be difficult to audition other types of amplifiers or speakers to find out what the differences are and whether you like those differences or not.

No I think there are bigger ones and that's why I had to spend all this money on furniture, its bloody huge and it won't go in a normal rack but it does sound very very nice and I now know why they sell for such eye watering amounts

Thanks I'm much happier with it even if it did cost as much as a reasonable cartridge Is the AT sale on the web? and if so do you have a link? I need another MC cart

Generally yes changing the source (with a turntable you can treat the cartridge as the very front end) and speakers has more effect than changing the amplifier but that is generally, also at this end of the spectrum you are into different rather than better or worse territory. Your MF amp has a very particular sound signature so I would make sure you listen as much as possible to anything you intend to replace it with if you do go down that road as what you replace it with won't necessarily be better or worse but it will probably be different. I have to ask is it just money burning a hole in your pocket or is there something about your system or it's sound that you don't like? From memory you felt your turntable wasn't up to the rest of your system so changing your amplifier isn't going to change that. The other thing to consider though is that your amplifier is the backbone of your system so if you are not satisfied with your sound when you upgrade a source around it you at least know for sure what the effect has been I always bang on about listening to anything you want to buy because we all have different tastes and different ears and Hifi knowledge is about experience and nothing more really so that the more stuff you hear the more stuff you have experience of, problem is that experience to be honest should only ever treated as a rule for yourself and a guide for others.

Not really new equipment but I gave in and went to Ikea and bought some furniture that looks a bit more uniform than the assortment of equipment stands I did have.

They would need to offer an EU version with a different pulley for it to work over here but it's not that big a thing to do.

I wish they'd import them to the UK, i'd love to actually try one

This It depends on whether it's an AC or DC motor and whether it has any form of electronic speed control on it, yours from memory is directly AC powered with no electronic speed control If the speed is not electronically controlled then you need a different pulley as the mains frequency is different in the US (60Hz) to Europe (50Hz) To explain why this is, with a turntable that has an AC motor it's the frequency that dictates the speed not the voltage so a table which uses electronic speed control changes the frequency to the motor to change the speed and if you move it between Europe or the US you just use a transformer to change the voltage (for the electronics) and adjust the speed to suit but with most AC motor tables they are directly AC powered so the speed is directly determined by the mains frequency which is not adjustable. With a DC motor the frequency doesn't exist and with a normal low voltage DC motor variable speed system there is basically a variable power supply in line that varies the voltage to the motor which then varies it's speed so provided there is enough adjustment range it's fine The other thing to consider is that a table with a motor designed to run on 50hz mains that isn't electronically speed controlled when used on 60Hz mains will will have a shorter motor lifespan, not something to panic about hugely but something to consider with a vintage table (i.e 60's or 70's) that has had a lot of use at 50Hz

OK @Keeno a bit far away from me I'm in Kent so get searching on the local ebay, gumtree and freeads then, also search out any cash converters type places as they don't usually have a clue with anything half decent. That and get up early on a Sunday morning and scour the local bootfairs

You do seem to struggle with the letter U though, a terrible omission considering one of the words in your name starts with it. For that reason and the fact we've been at it a lot longer so therefore have a lot more widely used words available really does mean it's a no contest in the empires favour.

Pretty much anything available new for that sort of money for a complete vinyl replay system will be utter rubbish so search locally on ebay or Gumtree or in the free ads for something used and use the ebay advanced search to see what things have actually sold for to make sure you're not paying over the odds for it. An old 70's music centre for £20 or £50 will sound vastly better than anything you can buy for £150 new and a new stylus and belt for it will probably cost you no more than £20 or £30. The only ones I would avoid would be Bang & Olufsen (B&O) purely becasue you can't buy a new stylus and a rebuilt one will be a minimum of £120 on it's own so it would need to have a new or very lightly used stylus in it and you would need evidence of that. That said if you can find one with a new stylus in then you will get a perfectly good thing. The problem is that this stuff is fashionable now so you do get the try it on prices but with a bit of research stuff worth buying is still out there. Where are you I might be able to point you in the right direction.

There are quite a few differences and yes they are both line contact but different profiles of line contact Are you using imperial or metric screws? If metric you might want to look at the imperial equivalents as I suspect they are still easier to get in the US. I buy mine on ebay and just search m2.5 x 14 for instance

Double post just for good measure

UK purely based on the inventive use of swearing

The coil impedance and coil construction are quite different, the compliance is different which means the cantilevers differ and the stylus profile is different. All of those make them very different cartridges. Of the two I'd go for the AT33PTG/II, with the £ the way it is it's much better value for money from the US and it has a more neutral sound.

I'd agree with all of that especially the last sentence, I like the AT's but its all about personal preference and the MF sound can be a tiny bit bright so tends to call for something more neutral, I suggested the Denon's for value for money and the Benz for neutrality and given the choice I still think I'd go with the Benz. The AT33 and OC9 are quite a bit different though although they both retain the basic AT sound

I don't know, I got to exercise some of the Queens very best English

Off the top of my head Denon are known for very good and value for money MC's as are Audio Technica, and the lower end Dynavectors, but also Benz Micro, all make low, medium and high output MC's and also Sumiko make some nice higher output ones. You can also look at people like Ortofon and Goldring. With your components I would be looking at something like a Benz Micro Gold or a Denon 304 or 103

The Ortofon carts you are talking about are Moving Magnet (MM) but high end carts tend to be Moving Coil (MC) and the better ones are generally low output which need a higher gain and higher quality phono stage to get the best out of them. Those are generalities and it's not to say there are good MM's and bad MC's but pretty much the above holds true and you have some very fine kit so why bother with average when it comes to front end?

If your amp is MF then I would suggest using a MF phono stage. Obviously you need to listen to one to see if you agree but TBH the MF XL phono stages have been my go to units for years and make even more sense when used with a MF amplifier. Cart wise at that level don't even bother with MM go straight to low output MC, the rest of the system will more than cope.