Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

No bargains but a good excuse to go for a walk

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Bath?

Yup, I used to play basketball at Riverside (as signed). London roads changed man.

After discussing a bunch of options they recommend the craply named Dali Oberon 5 as the best all rounder with a sound that won't weird me out coming from Ditton 15s (I'm looking at you Bower 606).

Tell me about it, used to have some sketchy nights in there when it was a pub!!

Hi!

Hoping for some advice/knowledge from the hive mind.....

I'm new to vinyl, got setup over Christmas and have started listening.
I'm not "audiophile", just starting out.

Most of the time we love the sound, but have noticed some aspect of recording at the top end are more "present" than their digital counterparts. Occasionally on busy/loud bits of tracks, the top end can get quite distorted (e.g. snares, kazoo, choral cresendos etc).

Any ideas if this is normal/expected when starting out, and any suggestions on how I might dial it in?
Anything I might be missing in terms of basics for setup and maintainance?

Technics SL-7 > Spartan 5 > Audio Pro A10 (pair)

Go easy on me as I'm new at this!

Cartridge is the original 202 with new tonar stylus fitted by previous owner.

It’s likely a combination of things, but a cheap mm cartridge through a quality phono stage that reveals it’s shortcomings probably has a fair bit to do with it.

Cheers @Mr_Smyth.

Any recommendation for t4p cart? (and reliable place to source one?)

I've experienced similar when I changed cartridge type and I didn't have the settings on the phono stage dialed in correctly. However, my phono stage has a bunch of DIP switches (to adjust for Cartridge Loading Capacitance, Cartridge Load Resistance and Gain) that the Spartan 5 seems to lack, so the Spartan 5 should just 'work' correctly with any MM cartridge.

Are the speakers located near to the turntable? They could be causing feedback by vibrating the lid of the turntable if they are too close. In fact, that could be even more of a problem with the SL-7, where the linear tracking mechanism is built-in to the lid.

Sounds like it could be sibilance. Worn stylus, poor cartridge setup, bad records, bad gain staging could all be contributing to it.
Considering your turntable is fully auto I'd replace the stylus first.

This is a great shout, I'll try this first.
It's not a large room so may need to think more about placement.

It's the second of the ground floor rooms of a standard victoriana terrace. Speakers currently wall mounted in each alcove either side of the chimney breast, TT sits on wall mounted shelf about 60cm below the left speaker. Could easily be getting some sort of resonance in that corner.

Stylus is new, as is one of the records which I've observed the effect, so less likely.

If speaket/TT placement doesn't change anything, I'll look in more detail at cart settings on the TT before trying a new cart.

Thanks all for contributions, shout if there's a decent t4p cart you'd recommend!

I would also check tracking force before spending any money. Increase it by turning the counterweight towards the pivot and see if that helps. I’ve had that issue before with too little weight on the needle.

If it works then buy a digital scale and set it correctly to spec.

Some info on the deck here:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/review-technics-sl-7-turntable

You can adjust tracking force.
Seems there are some Audio technica carts out there including a high output moving coil that should work with a MM phono stage but check the suggested loading for the cart you have or buy to the rating of your phono stage.

may also be a consideration if you are running the digital input over Bluetooth, that'll be compressed which may sound a bit easier out of the audio pro speakers.

I clean my stylus with methylated spirit probably every 4 sides - if you look at the diamond with a magnifying glass you should be able to see the gunk. Next thing is the tracking force (the force that stylus presses on the record needs to be matched to the cartridge specs). There's also low compliance/high compliance match with a tonearm. Then there's a setup of the tonearm - the angle of the stylus (tonearm) relative to the record (VTA - vertical tracking angle) and azimuth (if you have that control on the tonearm). The record could have been destroyed (so the sound is destorted). Then everything else in the chain. Your mm will have capacitance settings but that would only influence the EQ of the sound (I think). You don't need gain for MM - if you had gain turned on that would cause distortion. There's also the stuff downstream - but I'd think that your problem is in the cartridge/tonearm domain.

Sometimes you can buy cartridges sold as with a worn out stylus and photos of it looking all blunt and rounded - once you've cleaned the gunk - you sometimes find that the diamond is mint. What played the sound wasn't the profile of the diamond, but the dirt itself. ..

I'll adjust tracking force later (this is also recommended in thr manual)

Didn't know you could run an MC cart into an MM stage if it's high enough output, I'll check the specs later.

@ChasnotRobert It's a wired input from Spartan to one of the A10s, which are connected to each other through WiFi rather than bluetooth. Would the onboard DAC contribute in some way to a dirty/distorted treble?

They are normally referred to as High Output or HOMC carts

Things like the denon dl110

MC cartridge needs RIAA decoding + gain - MM stage is RIAA, gain can be step up transformer or amplifier based. Yep, there are high outputs MCs, like the DL110 mentioned.

Would the onboard DAC contribute in some way to a dirty/distorted treble?

what i was suggesting is you have limited resolution out of those speakers and sometimes a compressed source such as digital over Bluetooth can sound easier to listen to in this type of set up if you are a-b comparing digital to analogue.

others have been far more helpful on how to get the best out of your turntable.