Me saying hello

[Vinyl turner]

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.

[vouk]

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

[John]

Nice intro Mark
Welcome to AOS

[Barry]

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 :eyebrows:).

Welcome again

[Vinyl turner]

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

[Audio Al]

Hi Mark

Hello from me as well

Nice speakers ;)

Enjoy your time with us

Al

[Vinyl turner]

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.

[Vinyl turner]

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 !

[walpurgis]

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.

[Vinyl turner]

Thanks Geoff.

[Vinyl turner]

Not sure about uploading photos and this isn't a particularly good one, but a taster of the Thorens.
I'll find my disc that contains all the build images that I took and make up a report (in due course).

Oops, that was a tad too big. Trying a smaller image;

http://i67.tinypic.com/2hr2wrl.jpg

[Barry]

Ooh - looking good! Don't be embarassed about fitting the Ortofon arm, it's all in keeping visually and performance-wise it is easily the equal of the SME. Which version of the SME arm did you have: fixed or detachable headshell? And what cartridge are you using?

Regarding the bass performance of the Thorens 124, well it's good enough for me, but others prefer the 'weightier' bass presented by the likes of the Garrard 301 and 401. But you say you find playing CDs to be bass light as well. So that suggests the problem lies downstream with electronics and the speakers.

I use B&W DM2s in my second system, where they are fed by either a miniwatt Amptastic class D amp (12 watt/channel), or a Quad 520 (135 watt/channel) amplifier. There is no lack of bass with either amplifier.

[walpurgis]

Bigger the better with photos. The TD124 looks very fine!

[Vinyl turner]

Ooh - looking good! Don't be embarassed about fitting the Ortofon arm, it's all in keeping visually and performance-wise it is easily the equal of the SME. Which version of the SME arm did you have: fixed or detachable headshell? And what cartridge are you using?

Regarding the bass performance of the Thorens 124, well it's good enough for me, but others prefer the 'weightier' bass presented by the likes of the Garrard 301 and 401. But you say you find playing CDs to be bass light as well. So that suggests the problem lies downstream with electronics and the speakers.

I use B&W DM2s in my second system, where they are fed by either a miniwatt Amptastic class D amp (12 watt/channel), or a Quad 520 (135 watt/channel) amplifier. There is no lack of bass with either amplifier.
Thanks Barry,
I'll pull off the photo from my phone where I have the SME series II improved (detachable) installed, while lining up the Ortofon arm. The cart is Ortofon VMS 20E mk II.

Thanks for your comments regarding my bass 'problem' - which may just be my perception rather than a real tangible problem !

This evening I dug out my old Technics amp and will connect that up later in the week to see if I can use it to discount any problem at the speaker end (somebody suggested a possibility may be with the cross-over !): so long as I can continually discount certain elements I can eventually come to a conclusion - " my ears ".

[Vinyl turner]

Here we go :-
http://i64.tinypic.com/2motic8.jpg

[walpurgis]

That Thorens looks very pretty Mark.

Not sure how the second arm works though. :D

[Vinyl turner]

That Thorens looks very pretty Mark.

Not sure how the second arm works though. :D

Thank you.
Do you mean it needs to be connected ?? Maybe that's why it's lacking in bass (or anything) :scratch:

[Macca]

Hi Mark

Try some NVA LS5 cable, also NVA interconnects (not the SC, the SSC) if not using them already. Will get the best out of the passive. The speaker cable will help with the bass - assuming it isn't a speaker problem. Upgrade the pre to the P50SA or if you can the P90SA.

[Vinyl turner]

Thanks Martin,
I have to admit my speaker cable is due to be upgraded as it is quite old and I made my own interconnects.
Do the two other NVAs give a bit more umph than the unit I have ?
TBH I am keeping my eye out for a decent Croft pre-amp, but wanting to eradicate all other possible sources of 'trouble' before spending that kind of money.

[Macca]

Thanks Martin,
I have to admit my speaker cable is due to be upgraded as it is quite old and I made my own interconnects.
Do the two other NVAs give a bit more umph than the unit I have ?
TBH I am keeping my eye out for a decent Croft pre-amp, but wanting to eradicate all other possible sources of 'trouble' before spending that kind of money.

Yep there is no lack of umph. The stepped attenuator units are - ahem - quite a step up all round.