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Making room in my apt, one bump at a time

Coming in way late to say 'plus fucking one' for Tubelord. Math or not, their early EPs rip so hard (I am Azzerad, Feed Me a Box of Words, and even the Tellison split - a lot of which are compiled on Vinyl for "Pop Songs for Rock Kids") and they combine pop leanings with really technically proficient instrumentation in a majorly enjoyable way. I'll also present a "maybe" with a great Topshelf throwback on Duck. Little Brother, Duck! Their LP Don't Take Our Filth Away is like an arranged marriage between post-hardcore and mathy emo, even bordering on screamo elements at times.

You already have the acrylic platter and the Speedbox and in my opinion, those are the two best "out of the box" upgrades you can get for the Debut III (super reliable speed and stability). I have heard great things about the Sumiko Pearl so listen to it a good while before changing, but if you want to try something new I've had GREAT luck with the Ortofon 2M Blue paired up with my little Budgie preamp and it sounds great to me. If you're debating between the 2M red or blue, skip the red - I've heard too many "now that I have the blue, the red..." stories. I've been using this table since 2011 and it has been a workhorse - a little oil on the motor spindle/sub-platter every few years and it still works like day 1. If you really want to get in the weeds consider upgrading your connects, but arguably it makes little difference at this level of audiophilia. BTW, what kind of speakers are you using?

My first guess would actually be the preamp - have you tested this in any other setup? It is 1000x more likely the new piece of equipment is causing the issue rather than the receiver that worked fine before adding the preamp. Now when you mentioned running "another" ground wire, was this in addition to the ground wire on your RCA connects (or however your table handles grounding)? If so you're most likely creating some sort of ground loop and amplifying the rogue signal - and as a follow-up, do both of these pieces have grounded wall plugs (i.e. 3-prong)? Laugh if you will but it can make a difference in older homes. Last question - are you running directly from the preamp to the laptop? In most cases, you can't really treat the preamp output as a true line level source and you may be getting distortion due to cranking up the sound level to get to an appropriate recording volume. I went through something similar with my setup (Debut III, a tube pre (Budgie), to a receiver) and tracking down rogue noise was a whole thing. In the end, an extremely specific series of ground wires helped solve the issue so just experiment.

Keep it simple, the Debut III doesn't have a TON of adjustments possible outside of cartridge alignment. Check out this article for some good pointers on the differences: https://www.vinylengine.com/protractor-user-guide.shtml

Fliday blump

Bump

Bump - a few sold a couple added

I've been beat to so many good ones: +1 for Piglet, Totorro is also an underrated band - Home Alone is a flawless album. I'd also say check out Floral for some newer instrumental mathy-ness. Also, this may be a debated statement but if you're looking to ease in to the Don Cab kind of stuff, Pele (Tnahpele) - Elephant is amazing and hints at some of the same song dynamics/structures though not explicitly "math". Tera Melos gets my biggest stamp of approval though, their EP Drugs to the Dear Youth is one of the albums that really pulled me into the genre, though I'm not as wild about their latest effort everything they put out before it is fantastic!

Word, no hesitations there then - they did a phenomenal job with the box set.

What's that up to these days? I love that these are being distributed as single LPs but I always hesitate with an SRC press. That being said I just pre-ordered the newest HUM Astronaut pressing so what do I know.

BUMP - a few added

PM'd

Sweet, on it! RFC is coming back in a big way - I know that's an ongoing battle on these boards but man, HJoL, Spencer Radcliffe, Field Medic... all good new music coming from them lately.

Yes plz