Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Curious really, to hear the difference with MC vs MM. I'm totally sold on the Shibata or Paratrace stylus cut. Wouldn't want to go to an MC with an elliptical cut for example.

I have a high output mc dynavector and none of my other MMs have come close. Shure, grado, and ortofon, but to be fair they have been half the price or less.

What's the stylus cut on your dynavector?

From Google
Nude Diamond "Shibata III" Line Contact

That's pretty much the level I'd want to hear. Are you using an MM phono stage?

Damn, just googled it again. It's still top of my list. Maybe next time.

Sadly I have had little accidents with all my styli, tiny clumsy things over many hours of use. That's why I held off the £5-600 bracket last time round. I let a friends son try cueing a record with an AT95e one time, he basically squashed the stylus onto the record! Luckily it was cheap to replace.

I'm a big fan of class D amps. So efficient, tiny & cheap.

it must be me but I find class D amps, even 'good' ones, really fatiguing for anything more than an hour's listening. I've heard great things about Hypex Ncore NC500 amps (and the Cyrus 200 gets great reviews) but I'm still not convinced I'd take the risk at that price...

Yep mm phonostage. I got the cart lightly used, wouldn't have spent retail on it, but it may have ruined me. Needle replacement is the real kicker with MCs isn't it? I've been lucky so far. Next time I'm probably gonna do something stupid like decca, or audio technica if I'm being sensible.

i had a rare denon dl109d mm cart with a differnet cart and and it was absolutely amazing. i am kicking myself for selling it.

I had a DV 10x back when they were at mkiii and cost about half the price of what it is now.

Into a Trichord Dino phonostage, it was a superb combo.

I still have the phonostage but I'm not in a big hurry to spend £500+ on a cartridge right now, as I don't listen to vinyl that much.

Although I am considering an Ortofon 2M Black plug n play for my Technics deck, which is, err... £550 or so. But then, I've been considering it for about 5 years without actually pulling the trigger.

:)

You might be right. Post-apocalypse I'd like to borrow something fancy, maybe valves, to try with the Tannoys.

Settled on 80ltr ported cabinets after much research, gonna build them in the next couple of months I reckon, when the paid jobs dry up.

I bought a subwoofer in the end, a REL T5. Setting it up is quite a thing, all advice seems to be that you turn it down until you don't really notice it but when you suddenly have bass that was never there before I found myself turning it down to the point where if I turned it off I couldn't notice the difference. I've moved it all over the room, messed with the crossover and eventually went home quite frustrated.

Coming in this morning with the bass sound and feel no longer being completely new I've found a point where I'm happy with it. Corner placement is best, crossover turned up to just before the point where the mid bass starts to boost as it doubles up with the speakers' output, and level set just so. Making its position undetectable doesn't seem like an option given that its playing above 100hz into directional frequencies (the main speakers really don't dig deep at all), but its discreet and has really added a whole lot to my sound. The vibration across the floor and through the chair makes me no longer wish to crank the overall volume up to silly levels.

So glad I put my sub back into my system. Hopefully won't need it with the new cabs but we'll see.

I've spent so long tuning mine, level especially. What works for Chet Baker is mental for Blood Orange. For the sake of my neighbours I just can't listen to hip hop, but that's ok, I don't anyway.

Depending on how you're doing the crossover, you could bump the bass up on the mains to allow you to set the xover point lower.

With your tannoys? I guess once they're ported you won't need a sub. And it's only due to being sealed on low power you need one now.

Yep, they roll-off steeply below 100Hz. Doubling the cabinet volume and porting them should provide plenty low end. I think it's a case of "ok, you can have massive speakers, but the sub has to go" so hopefully it works out.

My T185s are in 49L, with a passive radiator, and I feel no need for a sub. The bass level is honest, which I actually enjoy. Rather than feeling enhanced.

Which reminds me, when I bought them the guy demod them on an old Marantz 4430 and they sounded great. I still need to get an old Marantz myself.

1982ltrs!?

Yeah I do find that I want to adjust it depending on genre right now, but hopefully that will change once I'm fully settled in with it. I don't have any means of adjusting EQ on this system but I'm very happy for now.

I think these Klipsch are in the same boat as your Tannoys - small cabinet for the size of the driver and no port. The new revision has a bigger cabinet and rear horn loaded port and apparently solves the bass shyness issue. Those cost double what I paid for these though so the addition of a £250 used sub seems like a good way to fix it. Everything above the bass on these is magical.

Sorry not paying attention. 49L

Sounds very similar - same era, horn loaded tweeters etc. I like how the sub sounds with these so I’m sure your setup is 👌🏻

Not true I'm afraid. BS1363-2:2016 covers these types of 13A/USB sockets.

I would, however, only buy from known UK/EU brands though. Some of the cheap imports regularly fail testing.

Ah this was a good few years ago, maybe it got covered later. I think the point about 99p ones off ebay which then get self installed is a good one though.

Definitely. It's build quality of cheap electrical items is shocking.

Thanks to everyone for the cartridge advice.
The MP-110 arrived today. It sounds great!
Isolation time at home has allowed me to build some new shelves, get all my records on them, get the hi-fi out of storage and the new cartridge is the cherry on top.

Good news, I had some great sessions with mine. I should give it another spin. :)