Oh CRAP!

I blew it!

I did it, oh man, I bought the pre-amp that I have been looking for.  Not specifically this one, but close.  I have wanted this brand of equipment for years and years and now I have found an affordable (reasonably and relatively inexpensive) McIntosh Preamplifier.  I am currently running a Yamaha C-70 Preamp, which is AWESOME and will see duty in my office system.  It has been acting up, so I may take the opportunity to get it over to my good friends’ house and clean it up a bit and replace some of the inner electronics. 

So I was on EBay and did a search for McIntosh C and chose newly listed, I see this beauty, and it’s within my price range.  It is not perfect, it seems to have a crack on the glass and a little bit of the paper inner label material seems to be peeling away.  I will see what it will cost to get it re-done once it becomes noticeable, or if I have other work done to it.  I am going to check with my friend and see if he recommends that this unit be sent out before I even hook it up to ensure it is working properly.  I currently have a MC250 Stereo Amplifier, and found out that I just happened to purchase its’ matching pre-amp, the McIntosh C-28 Preamplifier.  They were in production at the same time.  There are two solid state amps they made at that time, one had meters, and it is the MC2105, a very cool looking amplifier!   The other is the MC250, which doesn’t even have a power switch!  It has no meters, no lights, only two RCA inputs, two special inputs, the speaker terminals and two volume controls.

The C-28 has lots of goodies that I cannot wait to play with.  It has two phono inputs, and I will need both, it has dual tape inputs, an aux input and a tuner input.  I will be able to use this unit and have a few inputs and outputs available for expansion.  It has tone controls for each individual channel which allows for sound balancing the speakers.  The volume works independent of all tone and balance controls and just equally increases or decreases the volume the same in both channels at the same time.  It has a few equalization features, but I mostly listen to music flat.  I will have a closer look when using the C-28, but I think I am losing the ability to record from one source while listening to another.  That is a feature that I love that the Yamaha C-70 has.  Other than that, I expect it to be a very nice addition to my stereo collection.

Why did I upgrade?  Well the C-70 has acted up a bit and has me questioning its reliability lately.  So I have been watching eBay while warming up and babying the Yamaha.  I ran into this at totally the wrong time, and I had to scrape together the funds from various sources to make it work.  I can’t wait for it to arrive.  I will be chatting with my friend this weekend and will seek his advice.  Watch for postings regarding the C-28.

Keep listening,

Jeff

Postscript: 

The preamp was damaged in shipping.  I am in negotiations with UPS as it will cost a few hundred dollars to repair the unit. The technician thinks I have a cracked board.  The glass was shattered and when it was operated it made some scary noises.  I am going to try and keep it and do the repairs, as this equipment is high quality and meant to last.  McIntosh also still makes the replacement glass.

Posted 3 weeks ago

Postscript:

UPS wanted the preamp back, so I had to settle for a refund.  I am not very happy and it will take me quite some time to find another preamp that I want at the same time I have the $600 to spend.  I will just keep using the C-70 Yamaha preamp until it fails and forces me to upgrade.  I may purchase a couple good phono preamps and find a nice preamp that does not have phono inputs, but has tons of other inputs.  Only time will tell.  It is sad that idiots at UPS cannot read a box when it says FRAGILE on it, and have to kick, drop and destroy stuff that people have paid money for. 

Denon DL-110 Phono Cartridge evaluation

                I am not going to bore you with details of its frequency response, specs or other information.  I am here to tell you how I “feel” the cartridge performed.  I played various types of music on various qualities of LPs over a three-week period. 

Break-in
               

     The first thing I did after mounting and aligning it was to put on a great quality record and put a bunch of hours on it before doing any critical listening.  I broke in the turntable over a week period and was able to put approximately 20 hours on the cartridge before I started listening.  I have a repeat function on my turntable so I enabled it to auto-repeat and let it go while I worked on various projects around the house. 

How much force to use               

     I started the listening project on the 15^th of the month and ended on the 31^st.  I tried three different VTF (Vertical Tracking force), the amount of force pressing down on the stylus (needle) playing the record.  You want this to be within manufacturers specifications.  The range of force was from 1.5 Gram to 2 Grams.  I tried three settings within that range, 1.5, 1.75 and 2.0 Grams of force.  I felt that the 1.5 Gram weight produced a more noisy sound, this was still extremely slight, but I could pick it out from the recording I was listening to.  When I adjusted it to 2.0 Grams, I noticed that there was more pronounced  bass and a more warm sound, I knew there should be more performance that this cartridge could provide, so I tried 1.75 Grams of force.  I was rewarded with a very nice sound, extremely low, if any noise when playing excellent quality LPs.  The high-frequency material was nicely presented and sounded excellent, there was quite a bit of bass present as well.  It was a very-nicely balanced sound.  I found this to be my favorite sound produced by this cartridge, so I have left it at 1.75 for the entire test from that point on.  I also never removed the stylus from my turntable during the test. 

Listening               

     I started listening with some old favorites that I know pretty well.  The first LP that I mounted was a near mint, original pressing of Alan Parson’s Project’s Greatest Hits.  I like this LP because of all the electronics in the mix.  The sound was awesome; I immediately noticed the absence of any surface noise.  I liked the sound.  I also noticed that the sound provided by this cartridge sounded larger than my actual speakers.  I was pretty happy overall and this was the first LP!  I then threw on a VG+ copy of Boston’s first LP.  I like to use this LP, because of the dynamic range of the recording; it starts very quietly and works its way up to loud.  I appreciated the extra low surface noise with this record quite a bit.  It was not even as near perfect an LP as the Alan Parsons LP, so I was pretty happy indeed.  I read in the manual that clean records are a must with this cartridge.  So I cleaned the records pretty well before playing each.  Over the next few nights I spent some time listening to some of my favorite LPs.  Dire Straits – Communiqué, Triumph – The Sport of Kings, Yes – 90125, The Cars, Styx – Crystal Ball.  These are some of the comments that I made while listening.  “Sound six feet wider than the speakers”; No extra noise on quiet parts and pauses in the music”; Hardly any pops or clicks, WOW!”;  “ Some deep scratches cannot be avoided”.  I spent some time listening with my daughter and she said it “sounded awesome”.

Impressions               


     I loved the cartridge!  I read on websites that it has a sound of its own; I did not find that to be the case, I believe that I was hearing the record itself instead of the cartridge.  The sound was very nice, especially on very well kept and clean records.  The cartridge does NOT like scratched up records.  I have a lot of records from G+ to NM- to LPs that have been played only a few times.  As good as this cartridge is I still need to have a variety of them to choose from.  (For an in-depth discussion see my Blog post regarding the need to have more than one cartridge to choose from).  It has dethroned my former best aligned cartridge, it sounds fantastic!  The sound is much bigger and more precise than my Shure M97xE, all of my Grado Prestige series, (with the exception of the mono cartridge), and it sounded quite a bit better than my Shure V15RS.  I realize that I don’t have a truly expensive MM cartridge to really do a comparison, although I believe that $150 for the Denon is comparable in cost to what the Shure V15RS cost back when it came out in 1982.  I would also put this in the same category as the Shure M97xE that I have a few of.  Again, I will need other needles for listening to crappy records, or when I need a change.  I believe that I will be getting another MC cartridge down the road.  My pre-amp has a setting to switch my Phono input from MM to MC, so I will be set at least in that respect.

Lessons Learned               


     I learned how crucial alignment of a phono cartridge can be.  I watched a video to learn how to align it properly.  Michael Fremer, vinyl aficionado, explains the how to and the way to do it of turntable setup.  I followed the instructions, used the tools I had and worked for a while on aligning the cartridge.  (This made me go through nearly all of my current cartridges and re-do their alignment if needed, quite a few did!).  I learned that my perception of the “hype” surrounding MC cartridges was not “hype” but in this case, an eye (ear) opening performance to behold. 

LPs Listened to during the test period:


Alan Parsons Project - Greatest Hits, NM-
Boston - Boston, VG+
Dire Straits - Comminique, VG++
Triumph - The Sport of Kings, Just Opened
Yes - 90125, VG+
The Cars - The Cars, VG++
Styx - Crystal Ball, VG+
The Association - and then along comes the Association, VG++
Sonny Rollins - Pure gold Jazz - VG+
HSAS - Through the Fire, Just Opened
Judas Priest - Turbo, VG++
The Great Hits of Ray Charles Recorded on 8-Track Stereo, VG+
Styx - Grand Illusion, VG+
A few assorted 45rpm records, ranging VG+ to NM

Rating:

4.5 Beers - SOLID! - Revealing, Awesome, on perfect records it is nice, clear and detailed, and for what I consider not an insignificant sum of money it is an amazing bargain!  I would recommend this cartridge as a solid entry-level MC cartridge.

Posted 3 weeks ago

McIntosh Preamp derailed?

Over the past few months I have been considering upgrading my Pre-amp.  I am currently running a Yamaha C-70 Preamp.  This is a very nice and quite capable preamp.  It has dual phono inputs, which to me is essential; it allows me to choose what source to record from so I can listen to other material while I record something from another source.  It is way cool; it also has an equalizer, which I seldom use to shape the sound.  It has lots of gain as well, which I seldom use as I have my amps set to 11.  The preamp needs to be warmed up to perform properly since it sits in a cold basement.  I have been considering changing this unit out for some time and I have been looking at McIntosh C-33 preamp as the model I will most like to acquire.  They are expensive, and could cost me around a thousand dollars.  I will be saving for a long time to get one!

Meet the challenger, a $150 - 2.5 watt per channel, flea-watt tube amp.  I acquired it a year or so ago and I was using it in my office system powering some Polk mini speakers.  Yesterday, I was going through my connections and labeling any changes that I had made when I noticed that I had one vacant input on my amplifier switch.  I was thinking at first that I could get something cool to fill that opening.  I walked into my office and saw the little guy and thought that I would like to hear it with those new PSB 6T speakers that I had purchased recently.  So I disconnected it from the few cables connecting it to my office system and moved it to the other room.  (You would not believe how nice it is to have amplifier options!).

While I was looking around for spare speaker cable, which I am nearly out of, I discovered one very long piece of a home-made speaker cable that I started to make a while back.  I made three of them and finished two, which have been in service for some time.  These speaker wires are made of Category 5e, solid-strand data cable.  I used some of my old cabling tricks to ensure that I had a nick-free cable end.  I used shrink tubing to ensure a neat and tidy end and marked which side would be positive.  I feel these are awesome cables, as inside there are 4-pairs of wires, and each twisted with each other and the other 3 pairs to eliminate EMI interference in data transmission.  Well, I could not see how I could miss since the signals that are sent to your speakers aren't really that much different than the impulses that network equipment sent over them.  Plus, the side benefit, there are eight 24-gauge solid copper strands in each cable.   I used one cable (all 8 strands), for the positive and one for the negative, sure I could have split out 2-pairs (4 wires) for positive and negative, but I decided the benefit might be lost and there might not be the same sound if I use the same cable for both.  So I cut the large cable in half, prepared all four ends on each and I was ready about a half-hour later!

So I connected the 2.5 watt flea amp to my system and ran a dual connector from one of my outputs from the pre-amp and hooked it up.  I connected the speaker terminals to my amplifier switch and I was ready for some listening.  I figured, since the PSB speakers have an efficiency rating of 89, they may not work very well with this low powered amplifier.  I powered off the McIntosh and powered up the flea-watt amp. I was wrong.  I could not believe the sound coming from this little amp and those speakers.  I was quite surprised, so I put on a familiar recording, INXS – Kick, and listened to the entire recording.  WOW!  I did not just hear things I had not noticed before, it was like the speakers become 10 times larger and the sound enveloped the room. Now, this will not play especially loud with these few watts, but it goes louder than I thought it would!  I know It probably sounds ridiculous, but come on over and check it out for yourself if you are skeptical.  This little stereo amp is, using my friend’s standard, not even an especially good cheap one.  It has one tube, which is a triode tube I believe, and does the work of a set of tubes, and an electronic board which eliminates the need for one tube as well is built into this little amp.  Most of the better, inexpensive tube amps have two or more tubes doing all the jobs that get the signal from your source to your speakers for better overall sound and a pure tube-based signal path. 

How did this de-rail the McIntosh Preamp?  Well, since I have a darn good preamp now, I may wait for it to die (if it ever does), and pick up a medium range tube amp as one of my amplifier options.  I have been looking around and I may buy an inexpensive, vintage amp with 10 - 50 watts to replace my flea-watt amp, (which I will probably give to my brother to make a believer out of him).  If the sound is this awesome with a cheap tube-amp how much better will it be with a more-expensive, better designed piece of tube gear? 

I intend to find out!  What are your thoughts?

Keep listening and keep that stress down!

Jeff

Update 03/23/13:
Still no McIntosh Preamp. I would call that derailed.  :(

Jeff's Beer Rating System:

1 Beer - Weak - did these components come out of a kids toy?

2 Beer - OK - these would sound OK at a party or at party-level listening, not for critical listening.

3 Beer - Good - this component would sound good just about anywhere, in any system, not great, but a good component at a good price, not revealing or articulate, but rocks the house down and handles music very nicely.

4 Beer - Solid -make great recordings sound incredible and in a perfect room the performance would be outstanding, quite a few of these level of components are reasonably priced, can be revealing and articulate, but usually a great sounding component and a good value to own.

5 Beer - Sweet - these would play articulate, revealing and sweet sounding music, clean source material is a must, nearly perfect sound with nearly any music or source, a nice component to have if you can afford it.

6 Beer - OMG - these would knock your socks off, sound amazing, redefine your idea of what a perfect system can sound like, it's almost like you are in the room with the performers, the component(s) to have if you can afford it.

Make it a great day! 

Keep Listening!

Jeff

OOPS!

OOPS!  In my last post, I discussed how I was going to build a turntable.  Ummmm, well it turns out that I am a member of an audiophile club and I got wind of a sale of some speakers which I have wanted to try for a while.  I heard these particular speakers, or something similar by PSB at a friends house listening to some recordings.  I was impressed with the detail and the sound.  The speakers that I picked up this week are PSB 6T speakers.  I guess that the turntable will have to wait a bit longer, onto the back burner.

The PSB 6T speakers look huge, which they are not, they are pretty big though.  Those are actually 3 - 6.5" drivers, two woofers, one mid and upper mid, and a tweeter, they stand maybe 40 inches or so high, and only about 10 inches wide, the large part is they are 20" deep!  There is a little superficial cabinet damage, so I acquired them at a sweet price from a very nice fellow.  I believe he told me he was playing them on a 35WPC tube amp.  I would have liked to hear them with that setup!

  

Yamaha RX-V2070 and PSB 6T

As far as how they sound with my Yamaha amp, the sound is very precise, I heard musicians breathing on certain sections of music.  I will have to listen to them for a while to fully appreciate them.  I ran them for a few hours on the Yamaha home theater receiver; I played rock, metal, jazz, vocal, Sinatra, and some reggae.  My source was a computer WMA library fed to my system by a Music Streamer USB DAC.  On certain material the speakers sounded amazing but I found they were missing just a little something on the heavier rock songs like some Judas Priest that I had played.  I had them bi-amped to the Yamaha home theater receiver, an RX-V2070, 140 Watts x 7.  I was surprised how much bass they deliver.  Overall I felt that this receiver cannot push the PSBs to the volume level I would need them to achieve in order to de-throne the Klipsch KLF-20s that are usually bi-amped to this receiver and give wonderful performance.

Parasound HCA 800 II and PSB 6T

I listened to SACD / CD of Ray Charles - "Genius + Soul = Jazz" on my vintage (1991) Sony ES 5-disc carousel and on my Parasound HCA 800 II and the PSB 6Ts.  I felt a bit fatigued listening to the music while my system was configured this way.  I had a headache by the time I was done listening to the CD.  The sound was excellent, however it bothered me, sometimes to the point that I wanted to turn it down during some organ and horn sections.  I will have to listen to different material to be certain with this combination.  I will take another listen to the CD as well, on a different set of speakers and see if I notice the same harshness.  this was a tough listening session, I am hoping for different results with different music.  I spent some time, an album side to be exact listening to Ray Charles again, on LP.  I figured out what bothers me about the way this setup sounds.  It is the excellence of the tweeter, with this amp in particular, it makes the highs harsh.  I noticed it quite pronounced on scratch portions of my record.  I played side two on a different set of speakers, my Boston Acoustics T-930, which I have had since new.  This side sounded "better", I could still hear the pops and snaps, but it was much more agreeable sounding.  I have come to the conclusion that unless a recording is perfect and mid range rich, I should not listen using this combination of equipment.

.

McIntosh MC250 and PSB 6T

Now I have the PSBs hooked to my McIntosh MC250 50 Watts x 2, to see how they sound. I just got my hands on some mono, extended play, 45RPM Benny Goodman small group jazz  records.  I played them through the McIntosh and the 5 sides I listened to were pretty awesome, very nice indeed.  I was a bit concerned that they might sound harsh with vinyl.  Imagine my delight when I did not hear the harshness that I had experienced with the Parasound.  I used a Grado M+ mono cartridge on my Technics SL-B3 turntable.  I spent some more time with my digitized music collection, the source was a computer WMA library fed to my system by a Music Streamer USB DAC, this time I played some Taylor Swift with my daughter.  The sound was excellent, there was no harshness and the sound was very revealing, I sometimes was surprised that I was hearing a new thing here or there in the music I was listening to.  Overall, I would have to say that I have not experienced the issues that I had when pairing these speakers with the Parasound amp.  The sound when paired with the McIntosh is awesome, nice and full, a winner to my ears!

Summary
Not every amplifier and speaker combination works together to create awesomeness, I am very glad I have a variety.  These are excellent speakers and will have a home here for a while.  I am very glad to have a few amplifiers that I can try with different combinations of equipment in the attempt to hear music in as revealing a way as possible, without spending a fortune.  I will not be using these speakers with the Parasound due to the issues that I listed above.  However, the performance of my other two amplifiers was very good to excellent, even remarkable depending on the music and the volume.  If I only had one amp, I may not be keeping these due to the fact they do not play loud enough to satisfy my occasional need to crank the tunes to 11, otherwise these are very beautiful, revealing awesome sounding speakers.  I heard things in recordings that I had not heard with any of my other speakers, I am pretty impressed with the sound of this speaker. 

Jeffs Beer Rating - 4 out of 6 beers!  Solid!



Jeff's Beer Rating System:

1 Beer - Weak - did these come out of a kids toy?

2 Beer - OK - these would sound OK at a party.

3 Beer - Good - these would sound good just about anywhere, not great, but a good speaker at a good price, not revealing or articulate, but rocks the house down and handles music very nicely.

4 Beer - Solid - these would play very well with great recordings and a perfect room, quite a few of these are reasonably priced speakers, can be revealing and articulate, but usually a great sounding speaker and a good value to own.

5 Beer - Sweet - these would play articulate, revealing and sweet sounding music, source type is nearly irrelevant, nearly perfect sound with nearly any music or source, a nice speaker to have if you can afford it.

6 Beer - OMG - these would knock your socks off, sound amazing, redefine your idea of what a perfect speaker can sound like, it's almost like you are in the room with the performers, the speaker to have if you can afford it.



Equipment used during evaluation:

• PSB 6T Speakers
• Yamaha C-70 Pre-Amplifier
• McIntosh MC250
• Parasound HCA 800 II
• Yamaha RX-V2070 Home Theater Receiver
• Technics SL-B3 Belt-Drive Turntable
• Grado MC Mono Phono Cartridge
• Dell Precision Laptop M70
• Music Streamer DAC
• Knuconceptz Speaker cables
• Sony C77ES 5-disc carousel CD player
• Boston Acoustics T930 Speakers
• Klipsch KLF-20 Speakers

Keep Listening!

Jeff

Posted 13th May, 2012

The turntable itch

I have been recently infected with the itch to change up my turntables.  I have two vintage turntables that I use as daily drivers.  Neither of them are high-end; remember I am the budget audiophile!  I have a belt-driven Technics SL-B3 turntable, this table has an interchangeable head shell system, it was built around 1980. I brought this one back from the junk pile, I traded a 17" monitor for it.  This thing was very dirty, the belt had melted to the platter.  I restored it, cleaned it, lubricated it, got a headshell a new belt and brought it back from near-death.  I also have a direct-drive JVC L-F210.  This table is a direct-drive straight-arm table from around 1982, it also has the interchangeable head shell system. 


Each of my turntables have it's strengths and weaknesses.  Both have interchangeabe headshells, albeit both are different styles of headshell.  The JVC sounds brighter than the Technics, which has a nice and rich sound.  I have each one of them for a reason based upon preferences and performance.  The question is, what do I replace and with what?


I have been looking around the Internet and have been toying with the idea of purchasing a used turntable of a higher-grade than what I am currently using.  I have also been looking at some of the new turntables available.  What are the considerations I must think about as I start the pursuit of a different turntable?
On the surface purchasing or replacing a turntable seems pretty easy, right?  Do you know which direction you would take with each of the listed choices below?  Which would be your primary consideration?

• Belt-drive, Direct-drive?
• Interchangeable head shells or one pre-mounted or permanent?
• 33, 45, 78 or 33,45?
• Automatic, Manual or Auto-return only?
• New or used?
• Build a custom-made turntable from parts?
• Price

I have found several good, used turntables.  Dual 1219 and 1229 would be nice turntables to have, although not necessarily an audiophile pick.  I was looking at a couple Garrard's from the 1970's and they look pretty good.   These models have the fixed head shell so I cannot interchange needles on them. As much as I would like either of them I will probably steer clear until I have one perfect needle that I wish to live with on one perfect turntable. (as-if...).  The cost of these can range from less than $100 to more than $300. I thought about Technics, but in order to get a better turntable, I would have to buy a 1200.   Shipping is another problem, over the years I have had about a 50% success rate with having turntables shipped to me.  Half have arrived either broken, smashed or not working as intended.  I hesitate to have anything shipped to me except in original packaging, with shipping insurance or a guarantee.


I have looked at some new turntables, like the Rega and the Project turntables.  I like the way they look, they get great reviews, however there is no way to swap the headshells on the affordable ones, (if you consider $369 - $700 afordable).  I found a Thorens which is in current production that has the removable headshell, 3-speeds and auto return, very nice, but over $1200.  I tend to avoid the Stanton, Numark, Crosley and the remainder of the budget, entry-level or USB turntables.


What about a custom-built turntable from parts?  I have an old Garrard with a very heavy platter that spins forever, it has that funky, antique astatic needle with vibration pickup arm. It is not audiophlile by any stretch of imagination, (YET!).  I have acquired a couple tonearms from broken turntables that I have had in the past and online and I plan to use one.  The arms that I have all use the interchangeable head shell setup for which I have about a dozen needles ready to go.  To make this a reality, I need to have a base, or plinth designed which will house the motor assembly and the electronics, and needs to be heavy enough to deal with the vibration that it will encounter and big enough to house everything under the covers.  I will remove the old tonearm from the turntable, move the motor, base and platter assembly to the new base.  Then, drill the appropriate holes in the turntable base to accomodate the new tonearm in the desired location.  When I design the base I will be emulating the shape and size of my Technics table, so I can use the geometry from it to correctly place the tonearm for similar alignment and playback performance, (hopefully).  The speeds available on my home-made turntable will be 16, 33, 45, 78rpm, which makes this table quite flexible.  I have needles mounted on headshells for special records that I will be able to play on the home built table.  I have a 78 Cartridge, a Mono Cartridge and a couple spherical ones for playing crappy records.  I will be able to change to any of them I want to use for the record I wish to play.  This is one of my favorite parts of havinig a turntable is having multiple needles, see my post on multiple needles and the benefits.


I think I will be building the custom turntable as it offers the most fun for me, it also offers the most flexibility for playback.  I think the challenge of making all this work properly will be quite fun and enlightening.  As for the cost, it will probably cost me a couple hundred dollars to get the right piece of wood for the plinth and have it shaped to fit the turntable base I intend to use and hold the tonearm in the correct location with a nice finish.  A dozen hours on the base, another few hours drilling and placing everything where it should go.  100 hours of playing records to test it, tweaks here and there until I get good sound or better, fun, fun, fun!  The final table should be something fun to watch and listen to, while it will probably not be audiophile grade, the grade it will get for fun should be an A+!

The needles I use are:

Technics SL-B3, SME interchangeable stylus system

Pickering V-15 - PD07-C spherical stylus - tracks crappy records
Shure V15 RS - original stylus w/stabilizer brush - only used with new or perfect records
Shure M91ED - aftermarket stylus
Shure M95ED - aftermarket stylus
Shure M97Xe - original stylus - with stabilizer brush - tracks warped records
Grado Prestige Black - original stylus
Grado Prestige Blue - origina stylus - reference - perfectly aligned and very honest
Grado Mono - original mono stylus - only for playing mono microgroove recordings

JVC L-F210, straight-arm standard interchangable stylus system

Audio Technica - Model unknown, came with turntable
Shure M91ED - Original stylus
Shure M97Xe - original stylus - with stabilizer brush - tracks warped records
Pickering XV-15/625e w/d700 aftermarket conical stylus w/brushmatic - tracks crappy records




What would you do?  Which table should I replace?





Do some listening today!

Jeff

Posted 6th May, 2012

Component break in VS. Ear break in

I have been reading for years that audio components need or at least have a break in period.  Some people have said that tubed equipment especially needs to have time to break in, I can see that.  I can understand speaker break in too, due to the physicality of what it does, a magnet moving a coil which makes the cone move and produces the sound.  Kind of like a new car that needs that 500 miles to break in.

I encountered a theory the other day that I had not thought of.  It was suggested that the break in period of an audio component is actually the break in time of your ears as you get used to the sound that your new gear produces; the time between installing your new component and the time it takes your brain to forget what your old, awesome electronic component sounded like and learning to appreciate how the new component sounds.

My personal opinion is a mix of both.  A component needs to burn in or break in for a short while, maybe 100 hours of play before it heats and cools enough to either fail or give in to any sonic changes that the heating/cooling cycles may introduce into the signal path.  I believe that the largest portion of the break in period is indeed your brain and ears getting used to the change in sound that the new component introduced. 

A record needle, like a speaker is a device that will benefit from being used for a while.  The jury is out as to how long it actually takes to break one in, I would suggest not being too critical of the sound for the first 25 or so LPs.  I believe there will be a slight change in the sound of a new needle as the mechanism loosens up and goes through all the stresses and either fails or adjusts accordingly to the operating conditions it is experiencing. 


I would stress patience whenever you make a change to any of your components.  It will some hours of listening for your ears to get used to the new gear.  I usually use the break in time for any component as an opportunity to listen to some different types of music to experience the sound through the prism of the initial excitement of connecting a new component





What do you think?

Make it a great day by listening to some music!

Jeff

Posted 5th May, 2012

Who needs more than one needle?

I do!  Right now I have two turntables; neither are glorious, but both work very well for me.  I am a budget audiophile, not someone with tons of money laying around to buy gear.  I have 12 headshells with cartridges mounted and currently in service.  None of these cartridges that I currently have cost anything close to $100.  I have maybe 10 cartridges that are not mounted that I will swap in and out when I feel like listening to something different, or the need arises. 

Why different needles?  Well, each model and brand of needle sounds just a little bit different.  Some are bright, which means they have lots of treble, lots of high-frequency music; some are a little less bright and have more bass response, which is the boom in music.  A few are sweetly in the center and go with the flow, some cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.  Others are special needles for special types of records.  I have a 78 Cartridge, specially made for the wide grooves of a 78 record.  I also have a mono cartridge, and it is not just the two channels of a stereo needle joined together, it reads the grooves differently than a stereo needle does.  I have one model, the Shure M97xE, which is still in production, mounted on a headshell for each of my turntables.  This cartridge is a great performer at a reasonable price, ($60 - $90 depending on source) and has a brush that cleans the surface of the record, but also acts as a shock-absorber.  I had a record with the strangest warp that none of my other needles would track, so I mounted the Shure and I was able to track it with no issue at all.  I have a needle that is conical/spherical in shape, now these will play scratched up records quite well due to its shape and the way in which it reads the grooves.  This is opposed to Elliptical needles which are quite honest and quite a few are brutally honest with deep scratches.  However, on perfect records, I believe the elliptical sounds better and causes less record wear.  So, if my records are 78, I have a needle for that;  mono, yep; crappy scratched up records, got that covered too, so what are the rest of them for?

I have needles that I have rescued from old turntables that I have owned over the years.  Some have been good performers, from the 70s and 80s and I hung onto them.  I have kept what I thought I would need for the different types of music that I listen to, found replacement or NOS styli for them and "rescued" them from the trash-heap.  I use my Pickering 625e for playing jazz and symphonic music mostly as it has a dark character in my system.  I use my Shure V15RS for archiving perfect recordings because it is a Shure V15 and a very excellent performer.  I use the Shure M95ED and the M91E as general purpose, light-wear needles, when I want a change and want to hear things a bit on the bright side, these both track at about 1gm, which is quite nice on record surfaces.  I use the Shure M97xE as my daily driver, it will track anything and has a very nice sound.  I use my grado blue and black prestige cartridges when I want brutally honest sound.  I have gotten both of these aligned very nicely, so they will play a perfect record beautifully, but a crappy record like hearing a cat-fight at 2am. 

To sum it all up, do I need more than one cartridge per turntable, probably not.  However, I figure why should I limit my choices in how I hear a recording to just one or two different ways.  This way I can choose a cartridge based on how I want to hear a particular recording.  I have actually changed cartridges during play if I felt that a different, better sound could be achieved by switching out the cartridge.  If you have a turntable that has a removable headshell, and you are feeling brave, go out on ebay and get a spare headshell or two, check to be sure you are buying the correct model, they are not all inter-changeable.  They cost usually less than $25 each, go out and purchase a new cartridge on needledoctor.com and mount it up.  If you do not know how to mount a needle, check youtube for videos on it.  Follow the directions, those colored wires mean something.

:)

Keep Listening!

Peace out!

Jeff

Originally Posted 25th April, 2012

Record Store Day 2012

In past years I have heard about Record Store Day the day or week after.  This year I decided that I would not miss out on record store day again!  So I got up at the crack of dawn, well, um OK 8am, then I headed right out, after several cups of coffee and having some breakfast about an hour later, LOL!  I got my daughter all packed up and headed out to Dearborn Music, in Dearborn, MI to see what they had to offer for RSD.
My daughter also brought some money in hopes of scoring some cool music herself.  We easily found a parking place and I was glad to see that the lot was pretty packed but parking was available.  As we entered we saw the checkout line, it stretched across the store!  They had enough people at the registers that we noticed that there was swift movement at checkout.  So we started walking around, dodging people left and right and looking for someone who worked there as I knew exactly what I was hoping to score.  I found someone within a minute of entering the store and asked if they still had any of my intended purchases.  They had two of them left, so the clerk provided me with them and then the search for other cool stuff began.  We went over to the gigantic section of used Cd's and LPs to see what they had.  My daughter found a Taylor Swift CD that she does not already have, and something from Mozart, which I thought was pretty cool!  We looked at the new vinyl and could not find one of the items I was looking for, which was the 1978 Knack Live release.  Oh well, two out of three ain't bad!  I was not aware of the policy that Dearborn Music enforces when they purchase used vinyl, so I would remove the LP from the sleeve very carefully and inspect the used records that I intended to purchase, (just like the old days).  Dearborn Music's policy is NO vinyl is purchased with ANY scratches at all!  So I found a couple used treasures and proceeded to join the line, which was still wrapping around the inside of the store to the back of the store.  A very cool thing is they have merchandise to look at throughout the journey to the checkout.  We looked at all sorts of mugs, shirts, posters, used and new vinyl and Cd's.  So the 15 or so minutes spent waiting to check out was not bad at all.  I met a few cool people and we chatted about the music, an upcoming audio event happening next week and LPs in general.  It was pretty cool actually talking with fellow LP enthusiasts who share the same enjoyment of the medium.  So we got to the checkout and my daughter put her Cd's on the counter and paid for her treasures; there were several comments about her being the youngest customer of the day to that point, she is 10 years old.  I was swiftly checked out and chatted with my new friends on the way to the parking lot and actually met up with some at the next record store.  There was a long line to gain entry to this small store, and the daughter was getting tired and thirsty, so it was time to leave.



This is what I scored:

A used mono copy of the Dave Clark Five - Satisfied with You - VG+ condition, played very nicely.

A used stereo copy of The Best of Count Basie - VG+ condition, this is a double record set - it has this strange warp in it that required me to mount my Shure M97xE to track it.  This cartridge has a special shock absorbing brush that helps it track difficult, warped records.  My other cartridges would "Boom" right after the warp as they nearly bottomed out at the end of the warp.  The Shure tracked it with no "Boom", so I am able to keep this LP.  It is a two-record set, so only one LP has that strange warp.

A Record Store Day release of Here's Little Richard - mono - on 180 Grain vinyl.  Very nice.  I have not played this one yet.

A Record Store Day release of Never to be Forgotten - The Flip Side of Stax 1968 - 1974 - This is a box set of 10 7" 45 RPM "singles" with some cool "B" sides from single releases during this time span.  The records are so very quiet when you play them that on the intro track you check to see if the stereo is on because it is so quiet.  The songs I have never heard before, and they are all awesome sounding recordings.  It also comes with a book about the recording sessions.  There were only 4,000 of these made. 

So, overall, record store day was an awesome experience for me and my daughter.  I will be returning to Dearborn Music as soon as I can to spend hours going through the used LPs.  It was a very positive experience and I will be attending the event next year for sure!

Keep Listening!

Jeff

Originally Posted 22nd April, 2012

Digital Music Thoughts

I was just sitting here listening to my media library through my stereo.  I was thinking that the major benefit would appear to most people to be the sound overall.  I believe the benefit is portability along with the absence of skips and pops when listening.  I love analog, don't get me wrong, but if I am going to crank the system way up and listen loudly, I usually will either do CD or media from a computer source.  Has anyone out there experienced these fun and exciting things that can happen during loud record playback? 

The record skips from how loud you are playing and/or the vibration from the speakers made the turntable feed the vibration back through the system causing a rumbling noise when playing.  This makes very unpleasant noises come from your speakers....

The extremely loud pop or click from that speck or dust, or the occasional static discharge, or the repeated very loud clicks of a small scratch on your record while listening very loud can be quite disturbing.  This causes most people to rush over to turn down the system, or go running for the remote to turn down the volume.  Plus it can scare the hell out of you!

For the record, I have played my system so loudly, (before I added vibration dampening to my system) that a CD would skip while I was playing it.  Just as unpleasant as any analog anomaly you can experience!

However, if I am listening for pleasure at a reasonable volume level, I will try to find an LP or a reel-to-reel tape first.  I just enjoy the ritual, and the sound can be every bit as enjoyable as a digital source, if you have excellent media.

Just thinking.   Make it a great day!

Listen your stress away.

Jeff

Posted 26th December 2011

New and Improved budgetaudiophile.blogspot.com

I am forced to re-do my blog due to some error.  I have decided to rename my blog to budgetaudiophile.  Here is the text of my prior blog post:

Hey everyone!  My name is Jeff and welcome to my Blog and my first Blog Post.

I enjoy listening to analog recordings. I like the LP format,  I also enjoy reel to reel or open reel tapes.  However,  I also listen to digital formats too!  I am not here to debate the pros and cons of digital versus analog.  I just simply prefer analog for the experience.  The analog experience is a bit more involved than the digital one.  For one thing, when was the last time you cleaned a CD?  Looked for scratches?  Cleaned the CD Player lens?  Seems strange to be asking those questions?

Well, when playing an analog format there is a ritualistic series of events that are taken to get the very best sound possible from that analog source.  Let's take a LP record.  First, it is housed in a sleeve within the outer sleeve.  The record must be removed very carefully to prevent adding scratches or fingerprints to the surface.  Then it must be placed onto the spindle on the turntable.  Ready to play yet?  Nope, not yet, or I may still not get the best sound from the recording!

Once the LP on the turntable it is time to do a simple cleaning.  I use an anti-static carbon fiber brush to remove the dirt from the grooves.  Once I have finished, I take a look at the record, I look for finger prints, scuffs, stuck dirt or anything else that may interfere with the playback.   If I find any offending dirt, it is time for a deeper cleaning.  I use a record cleaning solution and a series of velvet brushes.  I use the Smart line of products to clean my records and have 4 velvet pads to progressively remove the moisture from within the grooves once I have cleaned the record.

Is it ready to be played yet?  Probably, but is my turntable ready?  I use a stylus cleaner to remove dirt from the needle.  This dirt builds up with each play.  Are we ready yet?  Maybe, is the record Mono or Stereo?  Do I have the correct needle mounted?  Once all those questions are answered I am ready to go. 
A different, but similar process would be experienced using a reel to reel tape player.  I clean mine nearly each time I play them.  The decks need lubrication and cleaning to be in top working order.  The heads not only need to be cleaned, but every once in a while the heads on the tape deck need to be demagnetized. 

These "rituals" are probably why analog playback devices lost their general market appeal over time.  Too much fussing around for some people.  When you look at a digital format, either CD or computer delivered music you click a button perhaps on a remote control and it plays immediately.  If you don't like it you press or click to go to the next track.  With analog you have a couple options, lifting the record needle and carefully moving it to the next track, or with a tape player, you can fast forward the tape to the beginning of the next track; once you find it. In the case of the analog listener, quite a number of people actually play the entire tape or record in one sitting.  I think this adds to the relaxation factor when listening to music to hear the entire thing.  I find it too much of a hurry to listen to a song for 12 seconds and fast forward it if I do not love it.  Sometimes an artist is actually trying to say something in a deliberate fashion song after song on a "album".  I think people that just download one song or fast forward through digital media are missing out on the jewels hidden amongst the most popular songs of a collection. 

I will post on here once in a while with whatever I feel like discussing.  It may be a new record or tape; it may be just to rant or discuss something. 

Just keep listening!

Jeff

Posted 25th December 2011