System and room

[Thing Fish]

Same shelf syndrome synergy sin. I know!

A wall shelf for the lp12 will be an addition as soon as I can get one off eBay for sensible second hand money and not for a measly 10% cheaper than they cost new!!!

[jason]

Hi Dave, yes Its very addictive stuff acoustic treatment. It makes my system sound very deep Its like the sound stage is as deep behind the speaker as it is in front, hard to explain but It sounds good I have just added a pic of mine. Good Idea with the zappa picture, I have an original quadrophinia poster in my hall from the release of the album I love album cover pictures/posters like you say alot of them are good artwork

Jason

[Alex_UK]

Yesh, it does look good, but you'd paint the bloody room lilac to match your favourite dress, wouldn'tcha, and make an arse of it!



Marco.

And install a cold wood floor!

[Mr Pig]

Hi Dave,

Talk about deja vu. I've had or used just about everything you've got there so can offer you some, hopefully useful advice. Assuming you like the kind of sound you have now and want to stay on the same track but improve on it?

Linn Kans would be a low-cost upgrade for the Keilidhs. They don't look as pretty and do an octave less bass but they paste the keilidhs in every other way. They are more open and dynamic at all volumes, unlike the Keilidhs which only stop sounding boxy at high volume, and they are much tighter, especially in the bass.

A wall shelf is a must really. The cheapest option is a DIY shelf, a couple of 'L' brackets and a square of plywood. If you mount it just above the rack it'll virtually disappear. Even a simple shelf like that'll sound fine. If you want a proper upgrade get a Mana wall shelf. There's one on eBay right now. There is nothing that an LP12 sounds better on than Mana.

Upgrading the amp is tricky. Staying on the Naim ladder gets murderously expensive and to be honest the value just isn't there. You need to spend thousands for a light upgrade. What I did was buy an old Meridian 101/105 amplifier, there's one of those on eBay just now too. I paid about £200 for it, plus £60 for a service at Meridian and sold my 72/Hi-Cap/250 for about £1400! So I got an upgrade and made about a grand! The Meridian sounds very similar to Naim but is more tuneful and a lot more powerful. You do need to replace the standard interconnects though as they are rubbish.

The K18 is quite a harsh cartridge, even for a moving magnet. If you want to stick with a moving magnet the Goldring 1042 is a bit better but I'd recommend the budget Denon moving coils. I use a DL103 and it makes the K18 sound like a bag of nails! There are a few Denon carts to choose from, they are all highly regarded and they all cost less than a stylus for the K18.

Incidentally, when was the last time you changed the oil on the LP12? If it's a few years it'll be in pretty bad shape and not doing much good. I now use Audio Origami oil, it only costs around £15 and sounds much better than Linn oil.

Don't thank me, just throw money! :0)

[Mr Pig]

There you go, Meridian 101/105 and also the matching tuner: LINK

Mana wall shelf: LINK

By the way, you'll notice a very slight improvement if you don't sit the Hi-Cap next to the pre-amp. Chuck it down next to the 90.

Also, did you know that you can change the chrome bumper boxes to match the olive stuff? On some of them anyway. You turn the case around (the back edge is not ground), Swap the knob and front plate and fit the NADI display light. You can get all of the bits from Naim.

[Thing Fish]

Thank you for your suggestions Mr Pig. I owned kans for several years but frankly never got on with them? when I bought the Keilidhs I thought wow. perhaps my ears are tuned differently.

The hicap is on the lower shelf its the one with the chrome bumper.

As for the mana wall shelf i'll keep an eye on it but I fear it will soar above my price level. But you never know.

On the cartridge front I always heard the Dynavector 10x5 was worth considering? Is that not so?

Thanks again...

[Mr Pig]

The Dynavector 10x5 is probably in the same ball park as the K18, maybe a bit better. The Denon cartridges are a lot better.

Kans should've worked fine with your system although maybe a bit too edgy with a K18/Ittok. It's a bright cart and a forward arm. In the end I got fed up with the Ittok's upper-mid/lower treble forwardness. It makes a small percentage of your records sound fantastic but the rest so harsh you don't want to listen to them. Although maybe with the Keilidhs that sort of balances out.

Yeah, I'd still move the Hi-Cap. Same deal, big transformer right next to the pre-amp. You'd notice it more if you had a moving coil stage.

[Thing Fish]

Just an update -

I had a bit of a belt (peter) afternoon the other day and decided to make some changes to the system so Douglas drill, Harold hammer and Sammy soldering iron came out of storage...!



The first thing to occur was the fitting of a newly acquired Target wall shelf. After 1 hour of planning, sweating, violent hammering and looking wild of hair and eye I managed to get 5 of the six thumb tacks in place and decided enough was enough. I can now dance naked in front of the turntable without so much of a tremor whereas before you had to creep up to it with the deft footfall of a rapist just to change a record! It also allowed me to space out my pre/power amps.



Brimming over with newly acquired confidence and on a roll I decided to attempt the old cross head screws under the speaker spikes upgrade. I was worried because my previous attempt at lining up of a mere 6 nails had gone slightly wrong and had used up all my lactic acid in the process.

With wobbly limbs I picked up Douglas. I needn't have worried. 8 holes drilled 8 screws lined up perfectly ( and I'm an atheist!)

Feeling a tad faint with power I decided next to place some acoustic foam behind the speakers. This took a mere 12 dozen sporadically hammed nails placed with the accuracy of a madman drunk with power.

Lastly Sammy was used to solder on 2 loose banana plugs.

The effect overall is very pleasing. I didn't listen between upgrades so can't say which made the biggest difference but I found myself listening to a goodly portion of my records with a smirk on my face. So all in all a good if not mentally draining afternoon...

Cost of upgrades - Target shelf £50 (fleabay), Foam = free, screws = free, 3 1/2" screws and raw plugs (you really thought I used nails!) = £3 .
Incidentally the foam is free standing.



Thank you and goodnight...

[Alex_UK]

Superb post Thing, made I smile - and sounds like the fruits of your labour made you smile too, so a great result!

[keiths]

Good work

I've always been a fan of speaker spikes into cross-head screws on suspended floors.