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Thread: Me saying hello

  1. #1
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: North Yorkshire

    Posts: 129
    I'm Mark.

    Default Me saying hello

    Hi everyone
    I have had my old interest in hifi re-envigorated (Began as youth in mid 70's) and kept viewing AOS and decided to jump in and contribute.

    Back in the distant past when age meant I had little money I was the only one of my pier group to have an interest in hifi and consequently my system was crude but better than what my friends had and the best I could afford.

    Several years later and on the cusp of 'growing up' (Ha) I was on the verge of following the smart money of the time and getting myself on the first rung of better equipment: A NAD 3020, BUT -
    I was to be engaged and bought my (still) wife a ring. She was to buy me the amp of my desires. What a Gal !
    Well into Superfi (Leeds, when it was in King Edward st) - to have a listening test. Disappointed with the NAD and bought a Technics SU-V303.
    I treat myself to a compatible Technics turntable.
    Then kids came along, house moves with things going into boxes and I'm sure you've all been there.

    Then a few years back I went to see one of my favourite bands and remembered why I was keen on hifi in the first place - so that vinyl sounded like the real thing, not just like some reproduction medium.

    Anyway, back it came out of the loft and I promised myself better equipment.

    You won't see any logic in my later choices but it made sense to me;
    SME 3009 II imp tonearm.
    Thorens TD 124 II chasis.
    B&W DM2 speakers.

    In that order.
    I am on the verge of completing a plinth build for the Thorens and still fiddling with it, never quite satisfied and probably been several plinths to get where I am !
    Looking ahead (in anticipation of the TT being finished before summer) I am looking for a valve amp.

    Anyway that's it.
    Musically almost anything good interests me. To name but a few and certainly not exclusive or in any order;
    Fleetwood Mac, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Peter Gabriel, Genesis (when they were good), Pat Metheney, Steve Winwood, Grant Green... plus many, many more. (Oh, and just heard a Scott Walker album recently which I quite liked).
    Hope to speak to some of you some time soon.

    Mark.
    No point saying where I am:- everyone asks me how to spell it and "where is that ?" - Close to York if you are out of this region and near Tadcaster if you know the area.

  2. #2
    Join Date: Jan 2012

    Location: Athens, Greece

    Posts: 406
    I'm John.

    Default

    Hi Mark and welcome to AOS; that was a great intro.
    Enjoy your stay!

  3. #3
    Join Date: May 2008

    Location: Cricklewood

    Posts: 9,074
    I'm ILOB.

    Default

    Nice intro Mark
    Welcome to AOS
    Loves anything from Pain of Salvation to Jeff Buckley to Django to Sarasate to Surinder Sandhu to Shawn Lane to Nick Drake to Rush to Beth Hart to Kate Bush to Rodrigo Y Gabriela to The Hellecasters to Dark Sanctury to Ben Harper to Karicus to Dream Theater to Zero Hour to Al DiMeola to Larry Carlton to Derek Trucks to Govt Mule to?

    Humour: One of the few things worth taking seriously

  4. #4
    Join Date: Jan 2009

    Location: Essex

    Posts: 31,850
    I'm openingabottleofwine.

    Default

    Welcome to AoS Mark.

    Great introduction. Hurry up with the plinth - the Thorens 124/II is just too good to be left around idle (sorry, pun intended!) and the SME will go very well with it.

    Like your taste in music (well, apart from Genesis ).

    Welcome again
    Barry

  5. #5
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: North Yorkshire

    Posts: 129
    I'm Mark.

    Default

    Thanks to all for the replies.
    And Barry is right - I did hesitate about putting Genesis on the list (but I was thinking pre- 'And Then There were Three' days).
    This is a great forum in which I lose hours of my life but it always seems worth it.

    Mark

  6. #6
    Audio Al is offline Pishanto Specialist & Super-Daftee
    Join Date: May 2012

    Location: Dagenham Essex

    Posts: 11,215
    I'm Allen.

    Default

    Hi Mark

    Hello from me as well

    Nice speakers

    Enjoy your time with us

    Al
    [

  7. #7
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: North Yorkshire

    Posts: 129
    I'm Mark.

    Default

    Thanks Al,
    Well, I have to confess having those speakers recommended to me by a pretty good source of info.
    I wanted (as everyone does) what I couldn't afford but a very good piece of friendly advice put me onto the B&Ws, which I could afford: And very impressed with them so far.
    Once the TT is operating I want to begin seriously looking for a Leak ST20. A friend from work has one and has given me first refusal but I think he has become quite attached to it and suspect when it comes down to it - he won't be able to part.
    Naturally I would prefer his since I know the history etc but I have to be realistic and if something good turns up ....... (I could always end up with two !)

    The TT is amost complete and I will post pictures but not until it will hold it's own in such auspicious company as I see in these pages. I was even thinking of patenting the plinth design, but that seems a little pretentious... Only because I may have to rely on building plinths if this recession keeps up it's relentless progress.

    Thanks everyone.

  8. #8
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: North Yorkshire

    Posts: 129
    I'm Mark.

    Default

    Goodness me, is it really that long since I posted here ?

    Apologies for not getting back sooner.
    By way of an update - this is the present situation;

    I got frustrated at waiting for my friends Leak Stereo 20 and stupidly bought one off e-bay. All I needed to do was finish off my chassis to the TD124 and it would soon be working.
    As I was gradually getting to the point of completion, my friend rang me up out of the blue and guess what ? He offered me his ST20 !!
    It wasn't working and looked a little sorry for itself, but it came with a Varislope pre-amp and he didn't want a lot of money for it. That was it, the e-bay ST20 went straight back up for sale and it hadn't even been used by me.
    I took possession of the new Leak and had new life breathed into it by a certain Mr Croft, who some of you may be familiar with.
    He warned me about the Varislope and he was quite right. That quickly went into hibernation.
    It was replaced with a Cambridge 540p phono and an NVA 50 passive pre-amp.

    The TD124 worked a dream from the start and for a while I was merrily playing my LPs, as well as obtaining new ones to swell my collection.
    But, all was not well and even now I'm not entirely sure what the problem is - it may be me of course.
    Whatever I play has astounding mid & high frequency sounds (I'm not technical enough to call it anything other than that) but I'm a little disappointed with the bass.
    There is a bass sound but it isn't so much a punchy thud, more like a rush of air that suggests bass but not a sound that upsets your stomach.

    To be fair I have un-professionally messed around with a number of things and ruled out some elements and had inconclusive results with others.
    For instance, playing CDs - the sound is quite flat and doesn't have the lightness of touch that my LPs possess. And it doesn't reproduce bass any better.
    I dragged out some old speakers and listened with them, but similarly - the music lacked all sorts of 'bandwidth' - so unable to be clear with that.

    I still have a few things to try, but it nevertheless is still pretty impressive and despite the lack of bass is way ahead of anything I ever used previously.

    I did change the tonearm and it now has an Ortofon AS-212, which I know is sacrilege but personally I find it far less fussy in appearance than the SME as well as more in keeping with the age/look of the TD124. To me, I like the sound it reproduces and I'm sure I hear things I didn't with the SME. There could be countless reasons why that should be so, but I'm happy with it. Oh, and I replaced the original armboard while fitting the Ortofon.

    Behind the scenes I am messing around with speaker cables at the moment but that is just something to avoid the inevitable draw to searching out a replacement for my phono/pre-amp combination.
    My inclination is for Croft pre-amp with built-in phono, but typically nothing seems to be on the market at present. A few of you good folk have just pipped me to the post as there seems to have been some good units for sale since last September. But now I'm in the market - things are remarkably quiet.

    With a quick look at the dates of this post and its original version you can see that all this is anything but a quick process. I have been tinkering on and off with it over several years and I had to deal with life along the way and sometime the gramophone has had to take a back seat (e.g. flooding in winter 2015 !!)

    I'll keep looking and update you in due course with either a bass solution or news of an alternative pre-amp. And if anyone is having a spring clean - think on !

  9. #9
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: N E Kent

    Posts: 51,624
    I'm Geoff.

    Default

    Hi Mark. Welcome to AOS from me too.

    Some photos of your Thorens project would be good. We have a Gallery section.

    Every aspect of Hi-Fi is covered here, so get involved and have a chat with the members.


    Enjoy the forum,
    Geoff.
    It is impossible for anything digital to sound analogue, because it isn't analogue!

  10. #10
    Join Date: Feb 2013

    Location: North Yorkshire

    Posts: 129
    I'm Mark.

    Default

    Thanks Geoff.

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