Dig that, Carl. Here's a link to the collection if you wanted to take a look.

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/capitol

I forgot how expensive C&B is. One of these days I need to look into not being poor; I kinda dig some of that stuff. It also makes the actual vinyl they sell seem STUPIDLY cheap.

**BRENT**

On 8/20/2016 at 1:59 PM, mikeymad said:

Some morning Beethoven

Had to run it through the vpi cleaner, but cleared up nicely.

Now that's what a turntable is supposed to look like. Purple ... sheesh.

If your still looking for a budget phono stage, Bottlehead has their basic Reduction kit on sale right now for $299.

I can't say I've heard it before but I did like the Seduction although as with many tube driven phono stages, you need to be sure it has enough gain for medium to low output MC cartridges.

http://bottlehead.com/?product=reduction-phono-preamplifier-kit

I think I would prefer to stick with SS. My cart currently is an AT 440mla MM, 4mV so I don't need anything that will handle a LO MC. I was looking at AudioSector, but that one appears to be geared towards LO MC. The table is my old Thorens 320, so nothing special there.

I was looking at Thorsten Loesch's Analogue Addict's Phono Preamp, originally posted here, updated on the Pub in 2004/2006 or so, and then again on diyhifi.org in 2012. I can't find anything beyond what is in the thread there (all links/images are dead). Seems interesting though, and pretty cheap to build. It does have an add-on portion for MC, but is geared towards MM carts.

Thorsten advises P-P build instead of doing a PCB, and thinks that deadbug on copper would be the best way to do this. Something I've never done before. This needs a pair of OPA637s, which at current pricing I would be reluctant to solder directly to. If anyone happens to have more up to date info on this I'd appreciate anything I could get. Apparently he had made parts recommendations (based on more current parts), etc. I sent him a PM on diyhifi, but I would be surprised if he answers it. Maybe do a teflon PCB

The local graham slee importer is closing it's doors and is selling off the remaining stock with a 40% discount.

Naturally i picked up a reflex M and psu1.

 

only problem now is i feel compelled to upgrade my lowly DL160 PU as well!

#1st world problems 

 

also, this is the daintiest piece of hi-fi hardware i have ever seen!

Edited October 14, 20169 yr by bjarnetv

I knew yesterday about the MAG-LEV kickstarter of a turntable using magnetic suspension to spin the platter. It looks cool, but I wonder how would such magnetic field affect the pick up and the tonearm settings.

11 minutes ago, Torpedo said:

I knew yesterday about the MAG-LEV kickstarter of a turntable using magnetic suspension to spin the platter. It looks cool, but I wonder how would such magnetic field affect the pick up and the tonearm settings.

 

probably a lot, though i guess they could try to combat it with some sort of antimagnetic "mat" on top of the platter to minimize the magnetic interference on the cartridge?

i also wonder how stable the speed would be, and how much the platter would wobble playing an uneven record.

Only the finest vaporware ...

While it does seem an interesting approach, I also would wonder if it would introduce more issues that it would resolve.

Possibly, but we won't know until they try it.  I, for one, intend to follow it closely.

I believe that EAR worked on this concept and conceded to just a magnetic drive. 

Very cool video though.

Didn't Luxman use a magnetic bearing on the pd441?

i guess that gives some of the benefits without having to actually suck, like this probably will

OK - completed and part tested current input balanced phono stage by Borbeli (and Sigurd Ruschovski). Better sound good - cheap to build it was not. Need the casework and build three more shunt regulators (the thing with the black heatsink). For use with Garrard 401/SME/DL103(Zu Audio rebuild)

 

Edited October 15, 20169 yr by Craig Sawyers

I always wanted to try a balanced phono stage. That looks quite nice. Will wait to hear your thoughts. Is a balanced tonearm cable easy enough to come by?

A phono cartridge is essentially balanced, so all separate wires from the headshell in. From what I recall, the two - signals are tied together in the turntable itself, so I think that undoing that and bringing them out somehow is all you need to do. Been quite awhile, and I've never rewired one.

Team 5 Pin!

I'll probably configure it single ended first. The two small boards can be bal2unbal or unbal2bal. So for SE these would be unbal2bal.

Then rewire tonearm in a way I have not entirely thought through yet and go balanced input to balanced output. Then the small boards would be bal2unbal just to provide an unbal output if needed.

Casework will come from here http://www.modushop.biz/site/ , at which point I will be financially punished as a result of the stupidly weak pound (globally) as a result of the clowns who voted us out of Europe.

Craig, check out the owner's manual for the Ayre P-5xe phono stage for one such rewiring scheme. I just use a 5-pin DIN then either isolated RCA jacks or XLRs.

Thanks mate - will download and have a look. The Ayre stuff is pretty awesome.

Well that escalated quickly.

Since i just upgraded my RIAA, i figured i was going to upgrade my cart from the old DL160 to something slightly better.

 

Then i was given around 5 banana-crates full of old jazz and classical records for free....

Seeing as the vinyl rig just got a whole lot more important, i'm going all out ordering a GS Elevator EXP and an AT33ptg/II cart.

I didn't really need that savings account anyway

That is the sort of faultless logic I use. "Hey - I've got all this free stuff. Let's use that fact that to spend lots of money to get the best value from the free stuff".

Been there so many times.....

It really is the best and most logical kind of logic.