allenh

18 hours ago, RSand said:

Here's one I made from an old and ugly AR deck using ply, ebony veneer and yacht varnish. It was time consuming but came out quite well. Pictures at the end of the thread 

https://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=90580

That's really nice work. The two biggest flaws in the UK EB101 over the US one were the piss poor plinth and the stamped steel sub chassis, the stamped sub chassis isn't such a big deal but you really fixed the plinth, top job.

I still think you need to explore the bouncy side of the turntable question a bit more but if that sounds half as good as it looks then you're on to a winner.

Now do you fancy making another plinth? I've got a very scruffy looking AR XB here that could benefit from that sort of work.

Some records are better recorded, mixed and mastered than others so the effect of stylus profile will be more noticeable in all sorts of ways not just azimuth sensitivity.

The better your system gets the more errors in recording, mixing and mastering are shown up so a record that sounds as average on any other on a cheap midi system can sound almost un-listeneable on a very good system whereas a really good one can yield superb results.

Because of the mechanics involved in the whole process of a vinyl record from mastering through to playback this sort of thing is much more evident than with a Digital recording.

18 hours ago, RSand said:

The things that make the most difference as others have said are the arm, cart and phono stage. Ultimately, MC cartridges pull more from the music. If you get a better phono stage you'll soon be picking up/wanting to try a MC cart.

16 hours ago, vinyl addict said:

A Rega Planar 3 is most certainly an upgrade over a Debut Carbon.

A case in point the Project and the Rega are fundamentally the same design with the Project being a copy of the Rega, the difference though is the Rega arm.

Yes @Monastic_mike your Project can be bettered but upgrading the cart and/or phono stage will yield the biggest changes for now and if you move up the turntable tree later you can always hang onto your new cart and phonostage.

And @RSand if you like your EB101 sounds like you're someone who should invest in a better 3 point sprung sub chassis table.

I like a lot of what this man does but I think I like the album he did with Dr John most

7 hours ago, Jlegg said:

Ever thought of building a pre amp? There's an EAR 834 clone on the bay to be had for cheap and it sounds amazing.

If you're handy with a soldering iron at all it's not particularly difficult to do. Here's a thread discussing it. Worth at least considering.

 

http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=20984.0

 

I've been looking at those, have you tried one yourself?

6 hours ago, xxmartinxx said:

If I had a psychiatrist I'm sure they'd agree with you.

If you had a psychiatrist you'd only be able to afford solid state amplification.

22 hours ago, xxmartinxx said:

I just don't impress me as much as I was hoping.  The fact it uses preamp tubes I can swap all day drives me insane, because I spend more time messing with the tubes than listening to music.  That's one of the reasons I bought the ARC VSi55.  There are almost no choices when it comes to 6N1P.  

 

I've settled on NOS Mullard ECC83's.  The JJ's 12AU7's sound better than the NOS I've tried.  The NOS I tried were too thick sounding, making it feel slow and killed the dynamics.  

Have you tried the modern Mullard copies? I've tried them in a few things and they don't sound good in all of them but they are cheap enough to have a go with as are the modern Tung Sol copies.

And on the 6N1P's if you look around Russian sources there are more choices than you think. I use a lot of them in my various projects as they're a versatile valve.

Pretty poor picture I know but yesterday I picked up a few bits in a 2nd hand shop in the next town along the coast from me.

An Armstrong 621 amplifier and 623 tuner from the 60's, a Pioneer SX-650 Receiver and a Sony TA-2650 amplifier.

All of it is very grubby so is going to need a lot of cleaning but the only fault with any of it is the phono stage in the Armstrong is down on one channel, could be switching or could be a dry joint as these suffered a lot from that but it won't be a lot.

I very rarely see anything in these sorts of places now as everything seems to end up on ebay or people want silly money for utter rubbish so I was quite pleased I agreed to out with she who should be obeyed.

On 25/03/2017 at 11:27 PM, xxmartinxx said:

I recently bought a Rogue Cronus Magnum II after seemingly ill considered foray into solid state.  I'm not 100% sold on the Cronus.  

 

What don't you like?

Is it new? and if so let it burn in for a good while before reserving judgement

A little valve swapping might help though, if it were mine I'd be swapping those JJ AX and AU7's out for something better

2 hours ago, vinyl addict said:

What is vegan faux-leather, why is it different form other faux leather, and what makes that a selling point? Other than every vegan probably owns a pair.

I was thinking the same, I might be missing something but isn't faux leather just basically a plastic of some sort? I guess being vegan there would be no animal products involved anywhere but surely it would be harder to find a vegan unfriendly plastic than a vegan friendly one?

Luckily for me I'm a fan of suspended sub chassis tables so find I never really need any extra isolation but I have found half squash balls also work and look a bit better than half tennis balls, as a cheap and effective solution a sheet of glass, wood , MDF or better still thick perspex on three half squash balls can work very well as an isolator between your turntable and furniture.

Also a proper equipment stand with isolating shelves and feet rather than a lot of the furniture I see people use will also give good results although a lot of furniture can benefit from some form of isolation between it and the floor, although convenient using your Expedit as a hifi stand isn't the best way forward though.

Raye all of them will have a little bit more in most areas but especially up top as the Wharfedales use the old Wharfedale trick of using what is effectively a mid range speaker for the top and upper mid which gives a nice transition but is at the expense of the top end and the general stereo image, it also can make the top end a little harsh in comparison to speakers using a more conventional tweeter. They should all be more convincing than the Wharfedales although the bass from the Wharfedales may be a little more obvious than on most of them except for the Dali's and better Focals on first listen.

The B&W's will be noticeably better in the mid range and have an edge up top at the expense of a little bass, the cheaper Focals should be similar to the B&W's but with a better top end and stereo imaging, the more expensive Focals will add a bit everywhere to that by being more cohesive throughout. The Dali's will be somewhere between the B&W's and your Wharfedales with a bit more emphasis on the mid and upper ranges again over the Wharfedales.

Those Wharfedales you have were always very good value for money and it's not the obvious differences that will be the things you should be listening for between them so ideally you need to go backwards and forwards in your testing to make sure.  And All of them are dependent on what music you play and positioning but from an imaging perspective the B&W's and the better Focal's should have the edge.

Floor standers by their nature are more expensive because they generally have more everything so in general until you get into the better floorstanders for the same money you can be better off quality wise with floor standers in an average room but any floor stander should do a better job of filling an average room than a standmounter so if you go floorstander then you need to spend a bit more money than you would with standmounters.

There's a couple below from the Richers clearance section so I'd take yourself off down there and waste few hours going backwards and forwards with speakers.

http://www.richersounds.com/showclearanceproduct/FOCA-CHOR-726-BLK/Focal+Chorus+726+Blk+(Soc).html

http://www.richersounds.com/showclearanceproduct/MONI-AUDI-BRON-6-BLK/Monitor+Audio+Bronze+6+Black.html

http://www.richersounds.com/showclearanceproduct/DALI-ZENSOR-7-BLK/Dali+Zensor+7+Blk+Ash.html

Everything Sevenoaks has is a bit more expensive.

And the two other things to keep in mind is that go too far speaker wise and you really will start to show up any limitations in the rest of the system, plus you are getting into the law of diminishing returns territory where you can spend increasingly more money for increasingly smaller gain steps so be honest with yourself with what you actually hear.

I know I'll be ordering at least one version of this, I just can't make my mind up which.

Ordered the triple and the cassette, thanks for the heads up

A Sumiko Blue in the normal hard bodied variety is getting hard to come by unfortunately but budget around £250 for one or around £350 for the open bodied Evo III variety. A Benz of either Ho or Lo is going to be around £270 to £320 so all are in the same ballpark. The other obvious candidate is a Denon DL103

I haven't had a Denon for a good while but have had all the Sumiko's and the Benz Micro's recently and all are very good value for money cartridge wise and I would take any of them in preference to any MM cart I have heard.

One thing to take into account though are all the High Output MC's are a little quieter because of lower output than the average MM. Also as a word or warning the open body Sumiko is very very easy to damage as I found to my cost.

Speakers though you can demo so take your pick on a cart and try it with your current speakers for a while, then go speaker shopping with what's left.

Below are a couple I've found with a quick search assuming it's still stand mounters you want?

http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.co.uk/p-9909457-bw-cm1-s2-gloss-black-speakers-pair.aspx

http://www.richersounds.com/showclearanceproduct/FOCA-CHOR-706/Focal+Chorus+706.html

http://www.richersounds.com/showclearanceproduct/FOCAL-ARIA-906-WAL/Focal+Aria+906+Walnut+(Aria+Only)+(Socd+).html

http://www.richersounds.com/showclearanceproduct/DALI-OPTICON-1-BLACK/Dali+Opticon+1+Black+(Sos).html

My money out of those would go on the B&W's or the Focal 906's but it's not my money.

5 hours ago, Jlegg said:

and with your cart, I used the 2M blue for a few years before I upgraded to a Dynavector DV 20X2 mc cart. For me, the blue is too clynical and lacks detail, but it's great at it's price point. 

Hello Raye changing speakers is the easier option so is worth a try if you can borrow something from somewhere but looking at what you have I'd say the cartridge is where you have a problem, the Ortofon sound is quite particular and not for everyone but luckily is quite saleable 2nd hand.

In that system I'd either try a high output MC like a Sumiko Blue Point or a Benz Micro Silver or go for a proper low output MC as your phono stage is more than capable of dealing with both.

Entry into the world of low output MC isn't as expensive as it used to be as you can go with a Benz Micro Gold or an Audio Technica AT-F2, I haven't heard an AT-F2 yet so that one is a bit of a guess.

Also if going high output MC you use the MM input on the phono stage

Sound is very much about personal preference and a valve amplifier by it's nature isn't natural so will always colour the sound and it's that colouration that some people prefer. Generally it's the harmonic distortion inherent because of the lack of fast switching that is the warmth that people talk about when dealing with valve amps. Some early transistor amps had it to a certain degree which is why a lot of those now are quite desirable where you get some of the valve liveliness but with less of the unreliability and fragility.

Over here in the bad old days of magazine reviews being paid for by manufacturers there was a long period where anything other than Linn or Naim electronics was frowned upon where the quest was for a flat neutral sound and because of those reviews that legend still persists today but that doesn't mean it's right for everyone and my own feeling is it isn't right for that many but once you've shelled out a small fortune for your LP12 and Naim amps its a bit of an emperors new clothes situation.

I know the first time I heard a valve amplifier I was hooked and knew it was what I wanted. I have had and still have plenty of high quality SS electronics, I have a compulsion to try as much hifi as I can in one lifetime, but I enjoy music the most when reproduced through valve amplification, like I say personal preference.

Yes technically modern SS amplifiers are vastly superior to valve amplifiers in the same way that digital playback is technically vastly superior to analogue playback but if you don't like the sound of modern SS amplifiers then all that R&D is completely wasted on you

I doubt it's that then as you're right those Kef's aren't particularly difficult to drive.

14 minutes ago, xxmartinxx said:

The warranty center emailed me today and said that it's working fine on the tech's bench.  This, to me, is the worst case scenario.  It means I will likely get the unit back untouched and it will probably stop working again.  

 

For those who have a PM6005, or the like, what happens when you power it on?  Mine (when it worked), would turn on, the light by the power switch would flash a few times, make some audible clicks, would go to blue  (I THINK it would go blue, other blue lights would turn on), and the rest of the lights would turn on.  This this the expected behavior?  

I don't own one but it sounds right to me, I would expect it to go through a checking routine with the protection circuit before it allows the outputs to connect to the speaker load which it sounds very much like what it's doing.

Is it getting upset with your speakers? It might be seeing what it thinks is a very low resistance when it starts up and not like it, so if it plays up again try it on some different speakers and see if it powers up then but make sure you disconect it from the mains before trying the speaker swap so that you know it has completely reset first.

19 hours ago, glass realms said:

Epic bump.

Red/white starburst vinyl tour only pressing of Elsie is finally available at Side One Dummy. This was only available on the Brian Fallon and The Crowes tour last year. Limited to 500 copies

https://sideonedummy.com/product/the-horrible-crowes-elsie-lp-2011/298

Ordered thanks

If you want used aim at the 70's. The turntable as a thing hit it's zenith in the 70's and many of todays most prized and best performing tables and their copies came out of the 70's.

I can't really give much advice on Rek O Cuts as they never made any headway over here in the UK as we had Garrard but what I will say is I wouldn't buy anything like that unless I could have a very good look at things like the main bearing, the motor and it's mountings and bushing and most definitely the arm and it's bearings. A lot of those things will be very specialist if they need to be replaced

And lastly one other thing to consider is that 60's tables like the Garrard 301's and 401's, Thorens TD124's and Lenco GL99's are highly prized and very expensive mostly because they are legendary 60's tables used by radio stations at the time and becasue they are designed to be used with any arm you care to try not just one fixed arm so can use modern technology while still looking cool and more importantly sounding very good.

If you have a $250 budget there are a lot of very good tables from the 70's available for sort that money or as has been said buy a new U Turn

10 hours ago, xxmartinxx said:

Back to tubes I go.

Should you have left in the first place?

I love engineering for engineering's sake but it does at least need to solve at least one actual rather then dreamt up problem and this makes problems and solves none so sadly it's just another stupid gimmick for no other reason than aesthetics. Also you can't change the cartridge either which is bespoke to it so it has a short life as well.

Kickstarter really is becoming the home of the pointless shite turntable but they look good so they must be worth the exorbitant sums asked for them.

Just now, fatelarso said:

So let's say I'm going for a new table rather than used with a $500-$700 budget. Would a Rega be the best option or is there something else you would recommend? I suppose what I mean is: is a basic Rega satisfactory, or would, say, an upgraded U-turn table be better than a basic RP2 or performance pack RP1? And when I ask if it's "better" I mean is the difference going to be significant? Will a slight $100-$200 price tag make a significant difference on this basic level?

Can't say on that one as I haven't heard the Uturn as they are not sold here in the UK, you'll need to ask that as a separate post or possibly someone else will be able to answer here.

For what it's worth my instincts are that the Uturn with an acrylic platter will be good value for money and probably where my money would go but that's probably because I haven't tried one and want to, I'm not a fan of Projects in that price range and I've had more Rega's than I can shake a stick at.

As a bit of background the Project and Music hall tables tables are basically facsimiles of or inspired by the Rega tables and the Rega tables have not really changed in any real sense since the 80's when the RB300 and 250 arms were introduced, basically if you take an original Planer 3 from the late 70's and fit an RB300 on it you pretty much have the current table.

There's nothing wrong in that, they pretty much got it right for what they were trying to achieve 40 years ago so why change it, it's why so many have copied it and why it's arm and mechanics are used on so many higher end tables.

Also the basic Rega has to be the most upgradeable table on earth and the RP1 is just a very dumbed down Rega to compete with the lower range Projects and Music halls on price so you need a good few upgrades to make it sound like a Rega should.

Don't get me wrong the basic Rega is by no means a high end table but it is a very simple design that works very very well so if you are in the market for a mid range table a used Rega RP3 or Planer 3 takes some beating both sonically and in value for money. Obviously you can do better for your money but you will need to be lucky to do so.