Nice to see you back Andrew, I always enjoy your posts. Fine-tuning vinyl playback gear is more fun than just buying new boxes!
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Nice to see you back Andrew, I always enjoy your posts. Fine-tuning vinyl playback gear is more fun than just buying new boxes!
Alright Charlie, I'll have a wee update, probably on Sunday about my exploits!
The Garrard 301 Restoration Project PT LXXVII - MONOLOG - A sub blog! Pt X - More MONO Optimisation ...... :wowzer:
It's Sunday so it must mean another update for this never ending blog. The 301 MONO side of things has been at times something that has very nearly left me bald (I ain't got that much thatch as it is). Sometimes the MONO side of things would produce some amazing sonics, sometimes I'd hit a brick wall. I never doubted that I'd get to where I wanted to be. Presently I've been bugged with track distortion as I got to the end of the record. I of course knew that I had to mess around with anti-skate and tracking weight of the MONO SPU. These issues have now been fixed thanks to a very small amount of additional tracking weight, I'm now at 5g which is the upper end of what Ortofon quotes for the MONO SPU but I figure that I only play my MONO records for maybe a couple of hours a week and then I have them on rotation so any wear and tear on the records will be kept to a minimum. I would also expect that some on the 60+ year old records already have quite a lot of wear and tear anway so it's just a case of keeping this to a minimum. I have also stopped faffing around with platter mats and the VTA for the SPU is working very nicely. So, overall the SPU is about 95% sorted.
I have a couple of things left to do, this is very very fine tuning of the bias and also a need two new sets of MArk Grant IC's for the 3009, presently I'm using a pair of Yannis Tome IC's but these are from my Technics 1210 system and a pair of "REAL SOUND" IC's that I made up years ago. This mish mash has been put together to so that I could here a noise through the speakers and make sure that everything was working. I have to admit that they are making a very nice sound but I do have a full loom of Mark Grant IC's sitting in my 301 Reference system and can only think that I might be able to get a little bit more out of the system. I'll have to price things up and see how skint I'll be at the end of this month ;).
Now for some bad news! It seems that my SPU is not compatible with the Ortofon MONO SUT, so it looks like I'll be sticking with what I've got at the moment. I suppose money saved on this will go towards the IC's. OK I think that just about winds it up for this time around. Stay tuned.....
In what way is your SPU Mono (exactly which model is it: an original, or the later SPU CG25) incompatible with the Ortofon mono SUT (again exactly which model)?
Regarding record wear, that all depends on the date of issue; whether they are original pressings or reissues. Original pressings were intended to be played with a 25um stylus, reissues are probably intended to be played with a 17um stylus.
I've spoken to HUGO already, he stocks the MONO SUT. My SPU is the 3.5mv output CG25, and it's the latest oRTOFON MONO SPU that I'm talking about. All my MONO'S are original press 25um stylus.
The SUT provides 12dB voltage gain, so the 3.5mV output of your SPU is transformed to 14mV, which will overload an MM input. I'm not surprised you are having problems.
I never had problems! I just wanted to try the MONO SPU, but it's obvious that's not going to happen because of various things such as a 14 mV load for the phonostage, even Shure didn't produce MM's with greater mV loading. Can you imagine the treble on that, 14 mV, it would probably strip varnish from wood at a hundred paces!!! :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry
The Garrard 301 Restoration Project PT LXXVIII - MONOLOG - A sub blog! Pt XI - The waiting game.... :zzz:
Hello gentlemen, it's been a while and there have been a couple of new developments with the MONO system. Firstly I decided to make new some IC's for EAR 834 phonostage going into the Croft pre-amp. OK, so it's not Mark Grant cable but at least I have a full silver loom going from the SME 3009 into the Croft Pre-Amp. These IC's were made from some bits in the garage (see below picture), and yes, I can always experiment as I can put some Mark Grant IC's in as a replacement if they sound crap! I also ordered some WBT RCA's https://www.hificollective.co.uk/pho...signature.html (yes I have no link to HIFI collective). I've always used these RCA's and found them to be excellent and everything else in the 301 has these RCA's so why change. The MONO setup is slowly being tweaked and I've recognised that the EAR 834P might just have too much gain and produce a hum through the Ortofon MONO SPU, certainly the SPU sounds great at low levels and has plenty of gain so as to be great at music reproduction at low listening levels. So, it might be a seperate MONO only phonostage with less gain to get more out of the SPU with a quieter background :confused:.
https://i.ibb.co/b54MtffX/IMG-1758.jpg
I also intended messing around with some pieces of speaker cable into either a single Quad ESL57 or Tannoy 15" MG speaker that I have in the spares box, but have decided against this as it would mean quite a bit of re-organising of the room. I think the big Tannoy's produce a decent MONO image and I'm happy with that at the moment. So, the waiting game continues until these RCA's turn out. I might have some test results for the next update, so, as ever, stay tuned......
The Garrard 301 Restoration Project PT LXXIX - £11 goes a long way...
It's sunday night. I've given up the whiskey for a while (no single malt for 3 1/2 months :eek:). Anyway, I decided I needed a treat to mess around with over the weekend so I bought an Olsen mains block. This example came from eBay for the princely sum of £12 delivered. WOW, what an investment. Firstly the mains block was non-standards for UK plugs, see the next two pictures.
https://i.ibb.co/q3bmsqXQ/IMG-1787.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/b5ZYH5Kk/IMG-1786.jpg
As you can see the plug is slightly too big. I did actually weigh this plug in at the local scrappers for the brass content, I nearly got back what I paid for the main block :lol:. I actually need some more plug sockets and the cheapest option was to buy a mains block rather than getting some new plugs installed in the listening room and besides I didn't want the expense, the mess, or the down time from listening to vinyl. I'd seen a few threads disucssing Olsen blocks before and decided to do a little research. I really liked the design asthetic and these guys really knew how to construct a decent mains blocks. Check these photo's out.
https://i.ibb.co/d4wbN2Hd/IMG-1788.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/YBQnmsGh/IMG-1789.jpg
Star-Earthed and this also has a mains filter installed (sorry no picture). The cable is x3 4mm !!! Yep, £12 delivered. These mains blocks are supposed to by rack-mounted and as a consequence have a mains lead sitting at an awkard position for us hi-fi geeks. So, I added a decent plug and re-routed the mains lead and then commenced to plug in the 301 system. The 301, Paradise phonostage and the EAR 834p are now all powered by this mains block.
OK, what does it sound like? Well, I'm a cable sceptic but I'm happy to try sound (sorry for the pun) electric engineering principles in my system to see if things can be improved. My old Tannoys have always suffered from slight transformer hum from my valve amps, you can't hear this from ny seating position but I know it's there. I always presumed that it didn't make much of a difference to my listening sessions but BOY IT DID! Using the Olson block has lessened the hum through the speakers and to an extent improved what I hear through the Tannoys. It's not a massive difference but it's enough to know that my £12 was a very worthwhile investment. Knock yourselves out and have a look at there website https://olsondirect.co.uk/ These Olsen units do come up on eBay quite often. All I can say is that the 301 is performing better than ever and there seems to be more consistancy in this performance, sometimes the 301 might have an off day and not sound quite as good. Things appear to have stabilised with performance. The soundstage presentation is slightly more quiet and focused and yes I'm hearing more details from the recordings. The Olson block will be going nowehere and has working well in my system, YMMV. All I can say is....
Stay Tuned.
I have a couple of metal-clad Olsen distribution strips. One is a 6-way strip where all six sockets are wired in a 'daisy chain' manner, and was fitted with a neon indicator on-off switch. The latter I removed as neons can introduce noise into the system. I see no advantage in 'star' wiring as the lengths are too small to make a difference.
The second is a four-way strip. In this the sockets are wired as in a ring-main back to an internal fuse with neon indicator. Again the latter has been disabled.
Neither of these distribution strips are used now, as I had a dedicated ring main of 16 sockets installed purely for my audio system.