Advise please: phono stage?

[willbewill]

I'd give them a call and a chance to put things right for you, I know if I were the dealer that's what I would want, rather than having an unhappy customer telling other potential punters.

[Bigman80]

I spent just short of £2k inc speakers, sme rewire, cartridge, speaker cable & Pre amp


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😯

Wow. Defo give them a call. See if anyone in London on the forum can let you have a listen to their gear at your place.

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[Arkless Electronics]

I've tried fiddling with no avail - just not happy with the muffled sound. Hopefully I'd be happier with a better Pre Amp. Can someone please recommend one to suit up to £250. Thanks


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Already have but once again.... http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...hono-loan-list It's the best budget phono stage in the world by some margin. Please google reviews.

[Colinijohnson]

Interesting thanks - I'm "watching" a couple of suitable Cambridge on eBay ... hope to be in touch later


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[Reffc]

This sounds like a capacitance load issue to me. Nagaoka work best with as small a load capacitance as possible, preferably close to nothing bar the cable capacitance, so 100pF.

At 300pF, all other things considered (such as the self inductance of the cartridge and its resonant point), you'd be (example case), creating a spike at HF in resonance for no good reason and it would cause a steep roll off with increased capacitance (as capacitance is increased, it lowers the point of roll-off, quite contrary to what a previous poster said).

You have to consider and include the cable (including tonearm) cable capacitance in all of this, and for a normal 1.2m IC length, plus the tonearm section, it would be reasonable to assume that you have close to 150pF already without adding anything else, so try the set up again but with zero added capacitance...it's simply not needed.

If you don't know the capacitance of your cable, but can supply the length plus the geometry (ie is it a coax and if so what diameter/or what distance between inner conductor and shield) than I can work out the capacitance for you.

Hope this helps.

[RothwellAudio]

At 300pF, all other things considered (such as the self inductance of the cartridge and its resonant point), you'd be (example case), creating a spike at HF in resonance for no good reason and it would cause a steep roll off with increased capacitance (as capacitance is increased, it lowers the point of roll-off, quite contrary to what a previous poster said).

To be fair to the previous poster he didn't mention lowering or raising the roll-off point, just said something about a brighter sound. Yes, more capacitance does give you more of a roll-off at the top end of the audio spectrum but the increased spike is usually in the "brightness" area of the spectrum and so gives the impression of more top end even though there's actually less.
Anyway, the OP's phonostage has switchable capacitance so it's an easy job to play around with the capacitance load and find out if that's the issue.

[Reffc]

To be fair to the previous poster he didn't mention lowering or raising the roll-off point, just said something about a brighter sound. Yes, more capacitance does give you more of a roll-off at the top end of the audio spectrum but the increased spike is usually in the "brightness" area of the spectrum and so gives the impression of more top end even though there's actually less.
Anyway, the OP's phonostage has switchable capacitance so it's an easy job to play around with the capacitance load and find out if that's the issue.

Fair points Andrew, and no offence meant to the previous poster. With the Nag carts that I use (currently the MP-500 but I have had the 150 here too), increased capacitance does tend to make them sound quite muffled which is why I raised the capacitance issue. The other one very sensitive to this that I've used in the past was the Shure M97x. Hope the OP gets it all sorted anyway.

[Colinijohnson]

Thanks for that, I tried reducing the capacity on the phono amp last night - if anything it sounded less "bright". I,m now suspecting the deck set up is not right and will go as far as checking the actual tracking force weight is ok & it tracks ok on my test record, but would rather leave adjustment to an expert if I can find one. Otherwise I'll buy a better phono amp.
I bought 0.5m chord phono cables & the thorens deck has standard sme cable- although I had the actual phono plugs changed for new gold plated ones as they looked tarnished.
Thanks, Colin


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[Bigman80]

Can someone go round and help this man out ? Gotta be a cockerney on here somewhere !!!!

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[Colinijohnson]

Well if there is anyone - £50 plus tea or coffee in Coulsdon on offer to correct or check deck set up!


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