A Final Go With Vinyl

Ali Tait · Post by **Ali Tait** » Fri May 30, 2014 2:11 pm

I'd agree, a good classic deck such as a Garrard is a good investment, and can still be had for reasonable money.

Ali Tait · Post by **Ali Tait** » Fri May 30, 2014 2:12 pm

I'd agree, a good classic deck such as a Garrard is a good investment, and can still be had for reasonable money.

Cressy Snr · Post by **Cressy Snr** » Fri May 30, 2014 2:23 pm

OK Mark, I'll try but it is difficult to put into words.
I'll start with what I'm looking for:

I don't want massive expense as vinyl will be a secondary source.
What I want is a turntable package that comes with its own arm.
The Inspire turntable is £560 and comes with a Rega 202 arm. You have to choose your own cartridge.
Having read up a bit more it would seem that Rega arms and DL103s are not exactly a match made in heaven.

The question of what it is that I hear with vinyl is difficult, but I'll have a go.
There seems to be an all pervading soft fizz over everything, particularly with vocals, a sort of "ffffffffff" sound that invades the whole presentation, insinuating itself into the sound of instruments. Percussive sounds such as pianos, drums and stick hit cymbals lack a clean attack transient, instead the transient is lengthened and fuzzed up somehow. This seems to then spoil the decay, leaving a sort of splashy quality. Severe cases give a most unpleasant grating transient, like a fingernail across a match box sandpaper strip before the decay begins. This is most evident on electronic drum sounds or heavily gated real drums of the type that was all over records in the 80s.
We then come to the question of plosives and ss sounds on vocals. The least said about this, the soonest mended, because no matter how good a setup, someone thinks they have brought to a meet such as Owston, there it is large as life, yet it seems to bother only me.
I have only ever heard three vinyl setups in my life that did not exhibit this problem: these were Will's Lenco with the ebony arm, Richard's parallel tracker with the Len Gregory, air bearing arm and Dom's Garrard 401/12 inch SME series V, with his newly developed cartridge at the last Owston.

Oh! I forgot about the then new Thorens TD160/SME Series II fixed headshell arm, with Shure V15III into Quad 33/303 with Spendor BC1 speakers I heard at Harrogate when I was but a 17 year old lad in 1975.

I guess that totally unflappable SME Shure V15III is the lost sound of vinyl, that I badly want back.
It ought to be obtainable today surely? or am I wanting something that can never be recreated and is gone forever.

Cressy Snr · Post by **Cressy Snr** » Fri May 30, 2014 3:04 pm

Truth to tell, my ideal tonearm would be the hopelessly unfashionable, ultra low-mass, SME Series IIIS, with a Shure V15VxMR in the headshell.

Just seems so right to me.

Anybody got one?
Nah....didn't think so

pre65 · Post by **pre65** » Fri May 30, 2014 3:17 pm

Steve, I've got somewhere (if I can find it) a v15 vst v body, and last time I checked Jico did a stylus for about £100.

Interested ?

Cressy Snr · Post by **Cressy Snr** » Fri May 30, 2014 4:08 pm

pre65 wrote:Steve, I've got somewhere (if I can find it) a v15 vst v body, and last time I checked Jico did a stylus for about £100.

Interested ?

Sounds like a start Phil

slowmotion · Post by **slowmotion** » Fri May 30, 2014 4:13 pm

You want vinyl to sound like good digital?
Did I get that right?

Get a good direct drive turntable.

Cressy Snr · Post by **Cressy Snr** » Fri May 30, 2014 4:26 pm

slowmotion wrote:You want vinyl to sound like good digital?
Did I get that right?

Get a good direct drive turntable.

Yes I want vinyl to sound like music rather than some fuzzy representation

A development is that our Ant has offered me his JBE direct drive deck.
If I can get a classic SME 3009, series 2 or 3/Shure V15 or VST V combination to go with it I may achieve something positive.
Probably not to everyone's taste these days but I think it will do me nicely. The tracking ability of the Shures ought to remove most of my objections to vinyl.

steve s · Post by **steve s** » Fri May 30, 2014 4:37 pm

SteveTheShadow wrote: If I can get a classic SME 3009, series 2 or 3/Shure V15 or VST V combination to go with it I may achieve something positive.
Probably not to everyone's taste these days but I think it will do me nicely. The tracking ability of the Shures ought to remove most of my objections to vinyl.

I just swapped one for a couple of px4's

Plenty of decks and cartridges though ... I've an early v15 somewhere a 1012 , a new shure 95 or 97

slowmotion · Post by **slowmotion** » Fri May 30, 2014 4:38 pm

SteveTheShadow wrote:
slowmotion wrote:You want vinyl to sound like good digital?
Did I get that right?

Get a good direct drive turntable.
Yes I want vinyl to sound like music rather than some fuzzy representation

Yeah. Well. ok.

lol

A development is that our Ant has offered me his JBE direct drive deck.
If I can get a classic SME 3009, series 2 or 3/Shure V15 or VST V combination to go with it I may achieve something positive.
Probably not to everyone's taste these days but I think it will do me nicely. The tracking ability of the Shures ought to remove most of my objections to vinyl.

Best

I have absolutely noexperience with Shure carts, but I did like some of the Audio-Technica carts.

I bothers me tho, that I might have to get the 4th edition of the Morgan Jones book too,
if there is a diff phono stage in there.

Ali Tait · Post by **Ali Tait** » Fri May 30, 2014 8:20 pm

SteveTheShadow wrote:
slowmotion wrote:You want vinyl to sound like good digital?
Did I get that right?

Get a good direct drive turntable.
Yes I want vinyl to sound like music rather than some fuzzy representation

A development is that our Ant has offered me his JBE direct drive deck.
If I can get a classic SME 3009, series 2 or 3/Shure V15 or VST V combination to go with it I may achieve something positive.
Probably not to everyone's taste these days but I think it will do me nicely. The tracking ability of the Shures ought to remove most of my objections to vinyl.

Maybe try a decent MM cart Steve? I'll bring down a couple of NOS Acutex I have, very good for the money IMHO.

IslandPink · Post by **IslandPink** » Fri May 30, 2014 8:29 pm

Sounds like you're heading in a good direction there Steve. Direct Drive or Lenco perhaps ? Both will have pace and a clear bass .
MM makes sense and the Shure has good tone and a following .
Somewhere James D gave me a list of all his recommended DD decks, but it sounds like you'll have something to try soon.

Quite a lot of carts ( especially MC's ) have a sort of HiFi sheen that comes from a treble lift above 10kHz. All the ones I like do not have that feature.

Ali Tait · Post by **Ali Tait** » Fri May 30, 2014 8:55 pm

Which would those be Mark?

I note Dom posted elsewhere that he will be selling his own heavily tweaked version of the 103, I asked about prices and whether he'd be coming to Owston and bringing one along, but haven't heard back from him. I'd be interested in hearing it though.

cressy · Post by **cressy** » Fri May 30, 2014 9:06 pm

I'd be interested in one of those carts ali, the ortofon is abit more buggered than i thought. Somethings not right with it, mustve had more of a battering than i thought
Cheers ant

Ali Tait · Post by **Ali Tait** » Fri May 30, 2014 9:22 pm

The Acutex?

Yes, after I sadly trashed the 103r after only having it for a couple of months, I was looking for a cheap cart to tide me over, and looking around I stumbled on a few posts on Vinyl Engine about the 312, so I thought I'd give one a go, nowt to lose really at 40 quid, and at least I'd be able to play some vinyl.

It was a lot better than I was expecting given the price. Ok, doesn't quite do the MC thang of nice air and space at the top end, but other than that I thought it was at least as good if not better than the Denon, particularly in the bass. But I guess that can be often said about MC versus MM, as ever, it's compromises based on personal taste.

I'll bring one along to try, see what you think.

audio-talk

A Final Go With Vinyl

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