Roll Call ! Scalford Hall Wig Wam show Exhibiters

[jandl100]

The show had its usual amazingly positive vibe.
The Park & Ride scheme went off without a hitch as far as I could ascertain.
The 2 main charity schemes raised £2,900 for the mental health charity Mind, which was the Show's designated charity, and over £1,700 for Cancer Research UK. Over £4,600 total. I think that's great.

A very wide choice of systems. Horns were on the up (as it were) with some fairly astonishing configurations.
Ultimate gold-plated bling in the SME arm and tt demmed by James / Jampal. You'd have hated it, Marco.
I had a shared dem room, so didn't get out much, but from a quick and fairly arbitrary whisk around some rooms, my own fave was a system with refurbed (and much updated) Quad II amps and matching pre - JBL L40 speakers were sounding wonderfully fine at the delivery end. I can't recall the source.

Shame you weren't there, Marco - I did look out for you!

[anubisgrau]

haha, i was horrified with a look of that golden SME thing. i would imagine it to sit in a living room of vladimir putin!

[narabdela]

.. my own fave was a system with refurbed (and much updated) Quad II amps and matching pre - JBL L90 speakers were sounding wonderfully fine at the delivery end. I can't recall the source.

One of my favourites also...as for the source, that was rather intriguing.

Thorens TD 160 Super, with a Philips ceramic cartridge.

Audioflyer of this parish was the man in charge and it all sounded rather wonderful.



http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...dge-NOS-1970-s

[jandl100]

Well! - Ceramic, eh? - £37.50 del from Musonic.
I couldn't miss out on trying that! The system sounded fab. Ordered me one.

[Starterman]

Nice one, Jerry. Looks like some nice systems there! How was the show in general, then? Any surprises, sound wise? I missed it due to family commitments.

Marco.

That's a better excuse than mine. I missed it due to apathy.

[Marco]

Well! - Ceramic, eh? - £37.50 del from Musonic.
I couldn't miss out on trying that! The system sounded fab. Ordered me one.

Linky please to the specific cartridge in question?

Marco.

[Audioflyer]

I'll post some more details and photos of my set-up.

I was in room 209 and thank you to all who pop in and said hello.

Sadly the TD160 Super with RB300 did not make it due to a last miniute broken cartidge lead.

So the Phonosophie No3 with Thorens TP90 arm was use instead.

The Philips (GP390) low output ceramic cartridge was last made in 1968 for me it the finest cartridge I've ever heard. It output is only 1mV and was design to work in a standard 47K MM riaa stage.

Riaa preamp was a High Octane Riaa phonostage (DIYAudio)

Quad II's with regulated power supplies.

Modified Quad 22 preamp.

1987 JBL L40 speakers restored a week and a half before the show!

Speaker stands built a week before the show.

And to top it all a £6.00 optical 24 bit 96k dac used with my Marantz cd63 KI II.

Sharif

[Marco]

Hi Sharif,

Most interesting...

First of all, where did you buy the cartridge from, and secondly, isn't there a lack of gain with the output being so low?

Normal output from an MM cartridge is around 4-5mV, which for me is about right. I couldn't imagine using something that only kicks out fraction of that, without having to severely crank up the volume control, thus introducing other issues that would be less than ideal, namely the partnering preamp 'running out of steam', as it were (on low-level recordings), or is there some way of boosting things to compensate?

Marco.

[Audioflyer]

Hi Sharif,

Most interesting...

First of all, where did you buy the cartridge from, and secondly, isn't there a lack of gain with the output being so low?

Normal output from an MM cartridge is around 4-5mV, which for me is about right. I couldn't imagine using something that only kicks out fraction of that, without having to severely crank up the volume control, thus introducing other issues that would be less than ideal, namely the partnering preamp 'running out of steam', as it were (on low-level recordings), or is there some way of boosting things to compensate?

Marco.

Hi Marco.

The Philips GP390 cartridge was from Musonic (UK) Limited.

The 1mV output was to some German Din standard used by Philips at the time I think under normal riaa standard it is 5mV.

Sharif.

[Marco]

Thanks for that. I see that Musonic no longer sell the cartridge in question.

So how do you address the gain situation?

I'm sure you'll agree, that dropping from 5mV to 1mV is rather significant. I'm not sure that's something I could live with. It's a different thing with low-output MCs, because one would always ensure that the partnering phono stage (and/or head amp, SUT) had the required [often adjustable] gain to cope, but most MM stages have fixed gain.

Marco.