Techno funk

[Oldpinkman]

This review was triggered by my guessed answer to a question by Tony from Glasgow – “should I upgrade the arm or the phono stage first”?
Turns out I’m a good guesser. First – to answer the specific question, my answer is “either”. If you don’t have the budget for both, don’t listen to both, cos you’ll want both. If you are like me. I have heard a better power amp, and although I wasn’t looking for a better power amp, I now know what I will be missing when I haven’t got it.


I’ll break this into bits, to make it more digestible. I’m also writing it on the fly. A few bugs made me think I would abandon this for now, but surprisingly I have a basis to proceed. So the problem is, left to set up the decks myself (madness) the F5 on the technics hums. Not when in the arm rest, but with the techie on and the arm free – so its an arm earthing issue. Game over.

Surprisingly not. First surprise, is that even with hum the F5 is significantly better than the stock technics arm without hum. And not as I first expected. Which I think is down to the power amp.

I listened first on the PT with F5. The constants are Goldring 1022, 5mm achromat, Pip, Integral and Ventricals, all leads except armwires. I should note, that includes the speaker leads Paul made for me, which I promised to review for him elsewhere. Suffice to say for now, they are in the system, and I could have taken them out if I didn’t like them.

So – standard techie (including standard headshell cos I broke a lead on the flash headshell Arthur lent me – he should know better than to let me set tt’s up). I expected really dull. I recall that my early comments on this forum, before I realised it was an SL1200 shrine, was “ditchwater dull”. It wasn’t this time, and it was exactly the same turntable and cartridge. Very odd. The only differences were coming from PT F5 to techie, rather than PT mission 774 to techie, and the power amp.

[Oldpinkman]

So, with top drawer equipment, the standard techie (plus achromat) is really not bad. So much so, at first I thought it was no different to the PT setup. What I expected was to lose the bass. This didn’t really happen at all (I mean “weight” of bass – not articulation). But I still expected the F5 to have more bass. Because my “wow” with the F5 was coming from a 774 I loved. And the most obvious thing was the rich bass. The difference was much less apparent with the techie to the F5.

What smacked you in the face, in spite of the hum, was the other difference the F5 had over the 774. And this time, it has it over the technics in buckets. Detail. Space. Silences. Sweetness of tone. It also reduces somewhat the harshness (I am using Katie Melua Secret Symphony – a good recording with real orchestral instruments, and Adele 21 – which has her voice to far forward in the mix, and it is really quite strident). Its less “ouch” listening to Adele with the F5.

So – Phono stages. Swap Pip (perhaps the best phono stage in the world ever – just put that in to start some banter) for Nad 3020. First up, I have to say, this is not at all a bad MM phono stage. I toyed with the idea of a complete 3020 setup – but the ventricals are just too tough a load, and the preamp keeps up with the opposition better than the power amp on a 3020. I think I prefer the 3020 phono stage to the Quad 34/44. What it lacks a bit in clarity (add fuzziness) it makes up for in lack of bare walls sterile which the quad has for me. Anyway, I digress.

Clearly we lose a lot with the 3020. I am back in this nonsense because I moved heaven and earth to find Owen to mend my PIP because I couldn’t live without it. I repeat – it is the best phono stage in the world (probably – by concession to Carlsberg) The 3020 is a bit muddy and muffled by comparison. Well quite a lot actually.

But – to answer Tony’s question, you can clearly hear the arm differences on the nad 3020. So upgrading the arm without the phono stage works. And upgrading the phono stage instead of the arm works. You don’t need one to appreciate the other. As I said before – chose one before you go auditioning or you’ll want both.

Which brings us to platters. I stuck the funk platter on the humming F5 SL1200 first. Again – from PT based experiences, I expected this platter to hit me with its bass depth. It did a bit, but the first thing to hit was the soundstage depth. Now my listening room setup isn’t good for this. Even the PT can’t do that much. I have to go back and play, but I rather think techie /funk platter 2 is better than my PT (both with F5). And that’s fighting talk. I need a good friend of mine to do me a custom PT platter pretty damn quick (and suspension mod...). Depth, imaging, and again to my surprise “distortion” are the results. By distortion – Adele is even less strident.

OK – back to try SL1200 techie arm with the 2 platters with pip (I have made the point about the 3020, and don’t propose repeating every audition with it). (But time for a lunch break)

[twotone]

Thanks Richard.

Tony

BTW, I bought a Graham Slee Gram amp 2 SE phono stage and it defintely made a big difference vs the phono stage in my A&R A60 amp, certainly in terms of gain or volume call it what you will?

So much so that I tried out a Goldring cart I had bought from Sensei (Dave) which I had previously thought was faulty because I had to crank the volume up big time to be able to listen to the cart but with the Gram amp the Goldring cart sounded perfectly fine in volume terms compared so my SAE 100LT cart which has an output of 2.5mv.

I'm not entirely sure that Gram amp sounds better than the amp's phono stage but it's definitely easier to listen to vinyl with Gram amp via the A60.

[Oldpinkman]

No worries Tony. Glad you're phono stage is working well for you. This has been quite interesting. Now - where was I?

Got a bit distracted -not least by going to the Leeds Castle outdoor fireworks and aerial display show, with the Royal Philharmonic providing the background music. Officially an outdoor classical music concert, but so much more than that. And the setting at Leeds castle is just soooo beautiful. Much better to be out in the sun listening to live music, than stuck inside listening to records on a day like that. I digress, again.

Did the technics with the new platter and the standard arm. This is really pretty good. The F5 (even with hum) is still noticeably better, but both arms show the benefit of the platter (small wonder -if you hold the standard platter by putting a finger in one of the holes and bang it with your knuckles you can hear the problem). But I did just enough to confirm what I was hearing, and then, as requested by AK stuck the FX3 prototype on. My first proper experience of listening to an F dot cross arm.

Now sorry guys, but I wasn't prepared to put it on the SL1200. I have a sneaking feeling the SL1200 outperforms my PT in drive stability, and with the funk platter, bass extension, and its galling enough having to give the Integral amp back. I'm not having a bloody technics sound better than my PT in any department. So until I get my new platter and other mods to the PT, I was being selfish for the sake of my own sanity, and stuck the FX3 on the PT

Problem. Slight hum again. But only slight. I should point out this is a prototype (very temporary counterweight arrangement, due for improvement on the production version) and AK and I were neither of us really ready, so rushed and bodged the whole exercise, because I had said I would try the F5 in a 1200, and I am away in France for the whole of August. My client in Hove, cruising for a late filing penalty , announced his papers were ready, so I popped down to pick up the accounts, and swung by Newhaven to pick up TT's and stuff. Not a production arm - a prototype. Obviously a minor earthing issue somewhere. Both of us were rushed and not ready (otherwise he wouldnt have been stupid enough to leave me to set the arms up!!):doh:

But what an arm. First impression was "where's the bass gone"? Very sweet, very detailed, brilliant imaging and a soundstage that moves back. A quiet arm - had to turn the amp gain up quite a bit compared with my "normal" arms. But quite astonishing detail and subtlety and naturalness. With no risk of the technics embarrassing me (cos I wasnt going to listen to it) out went the Adele and Melua, in came Bach Double violin concerto and Elgar Enigma variations. Bloody hell! Mrs S came in, asked what I thought I was doing in when it was sunny out, sat down, and said "how does he do that"? The Bach was so natural. So life like. And here the bass oddity manifests itself. Its very hard to describe - but the bass bowing on cello and double bass were completely "live". The bass appeared to lack extension, but actually went very low. It just wasn't "fat" in the way that the F5 can be. And if we are honest, pending arrival of new platter, is perhaps a bit too lean on the PT. That said, I would definitely keep it, and have accordingly apologised to Arthur for carelessly breaking it, and offered to bin it for him here in Yalding.

I then stuck on my brand new pressing of Selling England by the Pound - Firth of Fifth track. This was perhaps the most extraordinary. These early Charisma Genesis recordings are really quite compressed, sort of Ferric cassette type. The struggle to get dynamics leads to a fair bit of clipping on things like Peter Gabriels flute. And overall, a bit muffled and muddy sounding. Whilst that basic characteristic was still there, this was the most astonishing. The detail, imaging, softness yet clarity were really bizarre and beautiful on this recording. Again the bass was odd. Those bass notes from the pedals towards the end were felt (and my speakers are pretty false in that department) and , as with the cellos and double bass on the bach, tuneful - revealing the timbre of the instrument that I just don't remember before, and yet appearing to lack full depth and extension. Bloody good though. "The bass -was odd". What do I mean by that? You think its missing, yet realise you hear it, and feel it, so much more.


I would note, having had to pinch myself to remind myself of this, all of this is with a 1022 - for which I have increasing respect. It can achieve an incredible amount in the right system. But I do remember first plugging it in after I accepted I was not going to find another 205 after the babysitter ripped the cantilever out. And thinking - "it's ok. really not bad. But I want my U205 back". Can't wait to get my new gramophone needle from Arizona - the legendary EPS 310 MC.

To conclude. Improvements in all areas are important. Its not a question of "arm more than phono stage". Differences in the arm and platter can be clearly heard with a modest phono stage like the 3020. It doesn't need a good arm to hear how much better the PIP is than a 3020. Pick one, not both, until you can afford to because you'll want both.

The F5 works well on the SL1200. It needs to be a modified version, and I guess the carbon fibre armboard AK made up for me worked well too (the modification is a cut out of the base, to enable the arm to go low enough to get the VTA right - otherwise the cueing mech fouls the base). I'm sure that will either be standard in future or readily available. I suspect though, especially with the funk platter, the FX3 is much better suited to the technics if you can afford it. I know I didn't try it - but I couldn't face preferring it to the PT. I'm a good guesser. AK asked me to try the FX3 for him because he misses my golden ears which he used to trust way back when in the PT days.

Enough rambling - going out to get a filthy brown colour all over :D