audio-talk

I am pi**ed!
Really, really pi**ed!!!
At myself...

I finally got my turntable out storage and got it back into action - the Kenwood KD-990 with the Denon 103 cartridge. 50p & 20p bluetac'd on the headshell and three AAA batteries held on the counterweight via elastic bands Tracking at 2.2gms. A Signet MK10T step up transformer into a cheap two transistor feedback RIAA stage and its wonderful

I knew it would be but I still went seven years without it so I really mad with myself... I have spent hours of time and £££s trying to get digital audio - CDs, Streaming audio, at all different bit rates and different formats and standards and none are even close to the sense of performance that 60 year old records, that were originally played on a Dansette, are giving me - my wife keeps telling me that it sounds real not like hifi...

I know all this and I still didn't get the damn turntable out of storage...

Oh well better late than never....

Now I have to knock up my phono preamp and an mc headamp design to replace the cheapo beastie as it doesn't have the clarity of the digital sources yet...

I've listened to a lot of different stuff this afternoon but what has really upset me is listening to the Borodin arrangement of the Carmen ballet suite for strings and percussion - I have six different digital versions of this as none of them have the sense of the musical performance that my memory of the Melodiya version on record had - so I played the record and its all there - the performance, the wit, the emotion, the beauty of the music...

Well, better late than never...

I've been planning a couple of new diy turntables and arms to go with the Kenwood so I guess I better get on with them as well...

That must be the one we heard at Owston several times ?

JamesD wrote: ↑Sat Nov 07, 2020 4:58 pm I've been planning a couple of new diy turntables and arms to go with the Kenwood so I guess I better get on with them as well...

Looking forward to this!!!

4 words
We told you so
I have to admit casting a covetous eye over that kenwood on several occasions

Mark - Yes this is the beastie that I've taken to Owston several times... It is a very good turntable and semi-automatic as well so one can go to sleep whilst listening.and not worry about the end of side pickup...

Ant - I know, I know - I've been a plonker.... mea culpa, mea culpa.... still need to get my V15 tyoe 11 back into action - looking forward to your expeiences with the VM760 too!

Shane - I have a donor Dual 701 that I need to rebody and add a new Unipivot arm that I'm slowly designing - actually this is likely to end up with two arms as I have a Mission 774 to mount on it too that I've got several different arm tube materials for (Graphite rod, Ceramic rod and a couple of hardwood rods to try). I have a Lenco G78 to rebody and add a Micro Seiki MA202 arm to. I also have an Ariston RD 110 that I can't decide whether to sell or strip and rebuild into a proper plinth without the suspended sub-chassis that I have a love/hate relationship with... Damn that's four and that's before the JVC TT-71 or the Sansui SR-828 that are still in store... or the Garrard Zero 100... or... to many turntable options...

Of course it will take me years to do all this...

You have my sympathy James. I know its very easy to fall into the "well it must be possible to make digital sound the best, after all its got everything going for it". After making that DAC that Mark has one of, I eventually realised that I had no idea how to make it sound any better, but the only things it did better than half sorted vinyl was all on paper. But its easy to fall into a endless spiral of different in search of better.

Its just as easy to fall into the same trap with vinyl though, although i suppose there more scope to make engineering tolerances tighter, put more effort into resonance control, isolation, tracking performance on the arm side (linear, pivoted and offset/non offset, bearings, ect), speed stability. Et cetera.

perhaps there are more things wrong with the whole thing that can be corrected.

Take my lenco work, its taken a good few years and dead ends for me to screw as much performance as i have out of the thing compared to a standard one, but i seem to be able to find a little more here and there every now and again when i get some bee in my bonnet about some aspect of it.

The linear arm for me has been something of a thought provoker, removing that alignment compromise and the distortion that comes with it has put it closer to digital in some ways.

The cole phono stage has also thrown me a ringer because it does something that just sounds right.

There are so many aspects to look at that sometimes it becomes difficult to see the wood for the trees.
For example, plugging the lenco into a balanced power supply does surprising things, and using a dc blocker with it does more surprising things. I could do with another one of nicks boards for it, which i keep forgetting to sort.
Plug the jvc into either, and there isnt a great deal of difference

So many alleys to go down.....

after all this time, you guys still listening to the equipment?!

snigger

ed wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:22 pm after all this time, you guys still listening to the equipment?!

snigger

I'm thinking of starting a new thread on similar lines.

Its just as easy to fall into the same trap with vinyl though

I disagree, with vinyl the mechanical nature of it means there are loads of obvious problem areas that can be addressed to give better results (as the rest of the post goes on to say). With digital it seems far more a case of having to invent potential problems, then try to solve them, then if the results are better decide the invented problem was real (it may have been, but in most cases I am not so sure).

ed wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:22 pm after all this time, you guys still listening to the equipment?!

snigger

Yep, and I would say than if you think differently you are misleading yourself. Remind me again why there is more than one type of microphone pre amp?

Nick wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:48 pm

Its just as easy to fall into the same trap with vinyl though

I disagree, with vinyl the mechanical nature of it means there are loads of obvious problem areas that can be addressed to give better results (as the rest of the post goes on to say). With digital it seems far more a case of having to invent potential problems, then try to solve them, then if the results are better decide the invented problem was real (it may have been, but in most cases I am not so sure).

Thats a fair point. i hadnt considered that with digital there may be a need to go looking for a problem to solve to make it sound better or different in some way

Just to add another veil of confusion. I “prefer” the sound of vinyl. In my system the phonostage goes into the ADC, from where it goes through the DSP and them out to the power amps for each driver in my active system. I prefer the bigger soundstage and more bottom end presence vinyl gives, less clinical. Technically it shouldn’t be better as it’s going through a ADC limited to 96K, plus more stages of messing around with the signal. My digital is all CD’s converted to flac files so I suppose low resolution in comparison as will all be red book 44k.
The best phonostage I have ever heard, at a show, was some jfet microphone amps..using JRivers to added the RIAA de-emphasise curves, they had obviously sorted the phase issues out in the digital domain too. Obviously other wizardry could have been at play to make it appeal, which is easy in the digital domain to apply.

Interesting the latest phonostage from Shannon Parks who has given us lots of Valve preamps in the past, the Puffin a departure is it does the de-emphasise in the digital domain http://parksaudiollc.com/. Even more to shock audiophiles it has tone controls added too.
So back to my original statement. What is it about the sound we prefer and can it be added to digital to make it sound similar to our liking. Similar to what the top level DSP preamps now do adding a “ valve amp mode” function.

pre65 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:36 pm

ed wrote: ↑Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:22 pm after all this time, you guys still listening to the equipment?!

snigger

I'm thinking of starting a new thread on similar lines.

Of course we are listening to the equipment. Short of having the musicians in the room, what else are we supposed to do?
A better question would be: if we are not listening to recorded music, then what is it exactly that we are listening to?

James, I apologise for bringing humour to your thread, I think it was misplaced.