Nick G modified Lentek Head Amp

[Rare Bird]

Gosh! It looks a bit of a "dog's dinner"

[Marco]

Hi Dave,

Jimmy H used an EMT with VDH tip for a while and i found, at the time, it to be a little straight laced and "correct" in an objective sense.

Yes I remember you making that comment before about the EMT, but if that's true, then I doubt Barry would've bought it, as that type of presentation isn't really his thing (or mine), but we shall see what happens when I strap it onto the Jelco....

I had a Koetsu Black Goldline (a modern one, not one of Sugano's originals) and used it with the last LP12 I owned (on a Hadcock GH242 Integra) shortly before I discovered the joys of direct-drive done well, and it never really did it for me, sounding rather bloated and 'plummy', but with curiously also a distinct treble emphasis.

I put it down to the deck and/or arm not suiting it, or perhaps the Graham Slee phono stage I was using it with at the time (Reflex MM with Elevator EXP MC head amp), so I would love to revisit the Koetsu thing, this time on a much more neutral T/T and set-up.

Your thoughts on the question I asked at the end of my last post would be interesting

Marco.

[Marco]

Andre - lol!

I think Nick explained the reasons for that, but who cares what it looks like inside when you don't see it, and it sounds so bloody wonderful!??

Marco.

[Marco]

Indeed, dude - each to their own

But there wasn't an awful lot of room inside the Lentek to have made things much neater.... And remember also what Nick said:

Just so you all know, the reason its a bit "untidy" is that the entire thing is potted in silicon, so it had to be dug out before working on it.

Indeed, and so no way would any gear Nick's made himself from the ground up look like that inside!

Marco.

[lurcher]

Where you & me differ then

Out of interest (mine) if you had two similar bits of kit, one was full of a rats nest of wires, the other had all the wires at right angles tie wrapped into neat bundles. Which would you prefer?

if you then found the rats nest one sounded better because of the reduced inter-wiring capacitance and crosstalk, what would you think and prefer then?

I am not suggesting that this is the case with this headamp, it is what it is, but in general hearing with your eyes intrigues me.

[DSJR]

I quite like the modified naim way in the 82 preamp - wires neatly routed but now without cable-ties so they are lightly separated from each other. I not that Glenn Croft is now using screened wires inside his current range, unlike the .6mm "telephone" wire he used in mine. The only crosstalk I get is from radio to CD and that's ok 'cos I turn the tuner off when not in use...

Marco, please remember that my memories of the EMT, together with my sample of Koetsu Black, are mid 1980's, and a heck of a lot has gone on since then, hence my comments about the EMT with more modern loading ideas and tonearms/turntables etc. When the 'Black was working properly, it had an almost Decca like sense of "presence" with real weight and timbre-rendition in the bass. The treble region was clean and surface noise very low indeed - and this was in the Dual 701!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Black "S" which replaced it had more sparkle and compared really well with the then dearer Troika. After this, Koetsu prices went even higher through the roof and the constant plugging by Martin Colloms and KK, IMO "playing to the converted," took them into the deluxe-cachet bracket, which I still don't think they entirely deserved..

Anyway, I'm really glad my particular Lentek circuit board wasn't potted in and it should be easy to re-cap (thanks for the details). By the way Marco, is your LED green? Mine's red, but I'm not sure of the significance of this, or indeed, if there is one.

[Rare Bird]

Nick
I feel i've upset you, this wasnt intended.If so i Appologise.

What i do know is forums & i do not mix. Once again i appologise.

[Marco]

Hi Dave,

The LED on mine is also red, mate - and no, I don't see what significance that has either...

Like I said, I'd like to revisit a Koetsu (possibly a Red), as I suspect that on a much more neutral sounding T/T, like the Techie, the results could be rather good.

I'm also not sure if Sugano's son, who since the great man's death is now responsible for producing Koetsus, has quite the same skill as his father, and that's possibly one of the reasons why modern Koetsus sound somewhat different to those you heard in the 80s.

Fancy having a go at answering this I wrote earlier:

Considering that the design of all the above cartridges harks from a bygone era, where has modern cartridge design gone wrong, I wonder?

And, btw, I don't buy the notion that modern cartridges are simply more 'accurate', as that notion of accuracy simply doesn't match what I hear when I listen live to the sound of real acoustic instruments and the human voice.

I would describe the sound of a Decca, for example, as being 'musically accurate', but I bet it doesn't measure as well as its so-called more 'accurate' modern counterparts!

We've definitely lost our way somewhere along the line with how much of the gear made today is voiced.

Marco.

[lurcher]

I would choose the neatest if the wires were correctly routed & certainly wouldnt use tie wraps.



As mentioned above, if correctly exicuted there's no problems.

Neatness is neatness, rats nests are rats nests simples..

Nick
I feel i've upset you, this wasnt intended.If so i Appologise.

No upset no worries mate.

The problem with what you say is the "correctly executed" bit, within the high impedance inputs that abound inside a valve amp, running two conductors in parallel for a few inches can induce more cross talk than you might expect. I have seen several builds of amps that have been done with obsessive care that hum and are unusable until the loons are opened and signal wires removed and directly routed. Its not a excuse for just sloppy construction though.

[DSJR]

Microscanner Decca's have a ruler flat response, but "only" 20db or so separation. The Microscanner also raises the tip resonance to over 20KHz and seems to control it better as well, compared with older "Decca" Decca's from the 80's.

The thing is, and I'll try to be careful how I word this, is that so many LP cuts were done with a boosted midrange/lower treble and just maybe, this is what many modern cartridges are reproducing - possibly. I can definitely say that all those old Decca SXL's were cut at half speed and most had oodles of eq done on them. When Decca got some shiny new Neumann VMS70(?) lathes which did a better job and at full speed too, the audio people didn't like it, despite the results being closer to what the producer originally wanted.

The thing is, many older cartridges have a bass-up/lower treble down kind of balance that possibly many vinyl cuts were tailored to, but I suspect it's the *quality* of whatever tonal balance that's the issue here, rather thanold the tonal balance itself.

You know Marco, the few very expensive "Top End" turntables I heard usually sounded dull, bland and lifeless, as though the sound had been through too many "refining-wringers." I remember a dire dem I had of the Rockport at £60K, the sound of the whole system (all Top End and expensive) being soporific in the extreme. This is where the dear old Rega 2/R200 really could run rings round many expensive concoctions, as it keeps the sound fresh and entertaining.

Anyway, that's all I can say.