The Marco-boy main system, as of August 2020

[Discopants]

Its great when you find a system tweak that makes really significant gains. Congratulations


I’m a firm believer in isolation of components and control of vibrations and I can imagine turn tables having a lot of opportunities to improve things in that regard (but no real direct experience here as I’m a streaming guy)

If you find £300 expensive but want to try cheaper alternatives you can buy a vibration absorbing material from Japan called fo.q they do a 0.5mm thick pack of 2 sheets about A5 sized for about £35 on ebay UK. You could use it throughout your entire system to very good effect but tone arm , headshell and on the cartridge are supposed to respond very well to it. The headshell is very sensitive and needs fine tuning with amount of material.

They also sell a pack for £150 where you get a 1mm and 2mm turntable mat of the same material and you can stack mats if that works for you and a small amount of 0.5mm tape for the tone arm components, that gets good reviews.


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[CageyH]

Indeed. Kev, you've just got to get one - it's *that* good!

Especially as you're a confirmed Funk fan...

Marco.

I don’t have any high end cartridges, so £300 is almost the price of what I am using.
My current cartridge (Cartridge Man Music Maker) already has something.

My other cartridges could well benefit from one, but the next purchase was going to be an ART-9, then COVID-19 reared it’s head and I decided to be sensible and stop spending money on non-essentials as job security is not 100%.

It may be a couple of years before I go back to my usual spending habits.

[Marco]

Its great when you find a system tweak that makes really significant gains. Congratulations


I’m a firm believer in isolation of components and control of vibrations and I can imagine turn tables having a lot of opportunities to improve things in that regard (but no real direct experience here as I’m a streaming guy)

If you find £300 expensive but want to try cheaper alternatives you can buy a vibration absorbing material from Japan called fo.q they do a 0.5mm thick pack of 2 sheets about A5 sized for about £35 on ebay UK. You could use it throughout your entire system to very good effect but tone arm , headshell and on the cartridge are supposed to respond very well to it. The headshell is very sensitive and needs fine tuning with amount of material.

They also sell a pack for £150 where you get a 1mm and 2mm turntable mat of the same material and you can stack mats if that works for you and a small amount of 0.5mm tape for the tone arm components, that gets good reviews.

Cheers, Martin. Good advice there. Most systems/components don't have enough damping, IME, and the ingress of vibration, hobbling music signals, is one of the biggest enemies towards getting a great sound!

Btw, in terms of turntable mats, aside of course from Funk's Achromat, which is excellent, I've been getting superb results with this one from Soundeck: https://soundeck.bigcartel.com/produ...luminium-black

It's so good, it's ousted my (already excellent), and much more expensive, Nagaoka glass mat - it just offers better damping/isolation I think, and consequently allows more information to be retrieved from the grooves. I intend on doing a separate review of it soon!

Marco.

[Marco]

I don’t have any high end cartridges, so £300 is almost the price of what I am using.
My current cartridge (Cartridge Man Music Maker) already has something.

My other cartridges could well benefit from one, but the next purchase was going to be an ART-9, then COVID-19 reared it’s head and I decided to be sensible and stop spending money on non-essentials as job security is not 100%.

It may be a couple of years before I go back to my usual spending habits.

No worries, Kevin. Sensible move, considering the circumstances, and I hope your job is secure.

The point being though that you don't need a 'hi-end cartridge' to use the Houdini. I don't have a hi-end cartridge either, the 'highest end' one being a DL-103. The point is that fitting the Houdini allows even the most modest (but well-designed, good quality) cartridge and arm to perform like something MUCH more expensive - and it DOES!

Honestly, I'd comfortably put the 'lowly' Shure MM I'm currently using [fitted with the Houdini] against ANY cartridge up to £1000, and would be confident of it holding its own - no joke... I know exactly what I'm hearing, and the sort of performance this little device is delivering in that respect, in terms of allowing the music to shine.

Quite simply, once you've heard it, there's NO going back - as going back just guarantees a worse sound!

Marco.

[CageyH]

I shall have to drop AK a little note...

[Marco]

I would, seriously... If there's only one thing you buy this year for your system, or turntable, make it a Houdini. Honestly, you'll thank me for the head's up!

Marco.

[Marco]

Since I've revisited the system (and turntable), I've been playing around with some of the record clamps and weights I've got, and rediscovered something that I used to find very effective, in terms of damping any vibration on both the record and spindle: SRM-Tech 'The Revolution'....

Details here: http://srm-tech.co.uk/epages/4c00892...8/Products/RSC

And 'in action':



For less than £30, this really is quite a remarkable little device! More folks should be using them, as they are extremely effective, creating a much lower noise-floor, during playback of all vinyl records, plus reduced groove noise with subjectively lower distortion, which subsequently reveals significantly more musical information.

Its 'clamping effect' is achieved via the tacky/slightly sticky nature of the Sorbothane base material 'sucking up' the record when pressed down onto the label, so that records can't 'slip' during playback, plus it dampens any vibrations both in the record itself during playback, and also importantly on the spindle - and is forming a brilliant partnership with the Soundeck PM Black T/T mat. The cumulative effect is simply more music!

Aesthetically, I think it also suits the look of the turntable

A highly recommended T/T mat/record clamp combo, forming an effective damping/vibration killing solution [plus the use of a handy little levelling bubble], for less than £120!

Record shown: Mo-Fi Ltd Edition 45RPM Original Master Recording of "Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis.

Marco.

[struth]

ah the revolution.. i had one of those on my srm deck.

[Marco]

Nice, mate. You should've kept it (and the T/T, lol)! How did it sound?

For me, they're one of those manufacturers that offer high SPPV.

Marco.

[struth]

Nice, mate. You should've kept it (and the T/T, lol)! How did it sound?

For me, they're one of those manufacturers that offer high SPPV.

Marco.

was a good deck.. a member here has it now for a number of years. the clamp was quite good. clever system. worked on most records but not all. they wear at the hole(old ones) but thats the way with old holes