Gromit's music centre...

[Barry]

Awesome I love sparce but comfy rooms..love Berber type carpets ..

Agreed. I wish my room was as free from clutter, though I do have a Kashmiri silk rug and a Persian wool rug.

[Gromit]

Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose...innit...

A few weeks ago I finally got the PL71 arm all sorted (it was humming badly) so got it fitted to the Garrard...



I sounds good - better than the (AO-fettled) 3009 II - but it wasn't the sonic bullseye I was hoping for. So, feeling sorry for my poor little PL71 sat on top of the wardrobe in our spare bedroom, I finally got round to bring the old wooden wonder downstairs this morning and re-acquainted it with its own tonearm.



It doesn't have quite the sonic fireworks of the 401/PL71 combo but it's just so darn listenable and effortless in its music-making. Sure, some turntables have more resulotion, more impact, tighter bass blah blah but this is just so much fun. Johnnie's re-working of the Pioneer arm has been a small revelation - it's now Cardas'd up to its base where he's modified a Cardas plug/socket to fit under the turntable. He re-adjusted the bearings and generally gave the arm a good once-over.

Not sure the SAS Jico'd M75 is a great match for the heavy Pioneer arm but it's not doing too bad a job all things considered.

[DSJR]

In this case, you could try a rigid but lighter weight headshell which may shave a few grammes off the overall effective mass. Some posh headshell wires would also make you feel better about supposedly "downgrading" the shell

[Gromit]

In this case, you could try a rigid but lighter weight headshell which may shave a few grammes off the overall effective mass. Some posh headshell wires would also make you feel better about supposedly "downgrading" the shell

I've still got a Tecchy headshell Dave - might try that. Strange thing is that on the 401, the Pioneer/Shure combo doesnt cause any cone-flap (in the SME it was pretty bad at times). The same arm/cart combo on the PL71 flaps a fair bit - not as bad as the SME/401 though.

Think it may be a siting issue - at present the Pioneer TT's sat on an Audiotech table top board with Michell spike 'cones' underneath, the whole thing sat on a heavy oak media unit thingy. I'm going to try 'squash-balling' the board (ie half a ball in each corner as I did with the Garrard) to see if adding a tiny bit of isolation to the proceedings helps vs the present state where it's coupled to the shelf via the spikes. The Pioneer has lightly sprung feet though so I'm not sure how successful this would be.

[Gromit]

My ex-Spacey M3D...





Presently using the PL71's mat on the Tecchy which has made a fairly worthwhile difference.

[spacey]

See, how come i couldn't take such nice pics of it! I notice the blue light isn't on

[macvisual]

Hey Gromit;

What do you think of your NVA pre & power? Love to hear your views please.

Are they British made?

[Gromit]

I notice the blue light isn't on

Good reason for that Raj - my perfect pitch has been tested at A442 which means I always run a pitch adjustable turntable at approx +0.5% which is a lot more comfortable on my ear.

Peter - sadly I don't have my NVA pre-powers any more, I sold the lot when we were raising every last £ for our house purchase 18 months ago. As to how they sounded, I'd say that they were quite possibly the finest amps I've used in my home system - wonderfully neutral, extremely detailed, they just didn't appear ot get in the way of the music. No added sonic signature (ie they didn't sound fast nor slow - they let the music do that) and seemed to make sense of really sophisticated rhythms/musical patterns which had other amps falling over themselves. Good kit.

[Marco]

Presently using the PL71's mat on the Tecchy which has made a fairly worthwhile difference.

So how's it sounding 'as is', Richard, and what are your plans for it?

Marco.

[DSJR]

Peter - sadly I don't have my NVA pre-powers any more, I sold the lot when we were raising every last £ for our house purchase 18 months ago. As to how they sounded, I'd say that they were quite possibly the finest amps I've used in my home system - wonderfully neutral, extremely detailed, they just didn't appear ot get in the way of the music. No added sonic signature (ie they didn't sound fast nor slow - they let the music do that) and seemed to make sense of really sophisticated rhythms/musical patterns which had other amps falling over themselves. Good kit.

No agenda, and please don't take it the wrong way, but I do have a hunch that you could do a lot better than an Incatech these days