Unsafe At Any Speed

Apologies in advance to Ralph Nader for a wee bit of appropriation.  

 

Garrard 301

 I know the inerwebs are filled pictures of beautiful Garrard 301's and by that standard this one is a bit pedestrian.

If you take a step back and see that it is partnered with a vacuum tube based phono stage and amplifier things get a bit more interesting

another 20 steps back reveal that this is then paired with a pair of Tannoy Westminsters in a Japanese restaurant in NYC and suddenly that first picture isn't so pedestrian any more.

Makes me really want to exit my bubble and be one of the lucky folks who gets a table during the 25% seating capacity phase of the pandemic.

Laser Zenith

 I have recently found the need to adjust Zenith by small repeatable increments and it seems that hot glueing a laser to the side of the cartridge proves to be quite effective.

 The need for this type of repeatable precision was so I can plot the change of IMD against Zenith angle and the results are telling.

If you want all of the sordid details have a look at the link below.

http://www.intactaudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1660

and for an update on some old dirty laundry check this out:

what comes around...

dave

Cartridge Experiments

 Expanded my bubble with a covid test and a visit for a weekend of listening to cartridge variations in DC.

Thus far the cantilever, diamond profile and suspension have been determined so the primary goal of this session was to confirm results of 10 different variations of tieback and coil winding materials. Comparing copper, silver and gold coil wires was interesting and a consistent sonic pattern of behavior is starting to emerge.  The system was Garrard based with my stacked quad57's and the tonearm for the primary swaps was a Schick and then ultimately the winner was installed in the 12" dymondwood "Chunk" and compared to the previous reference in the 16" magnesium "MegaChunk"

In order to do quick and effective swaps the head shells were all mass loaded to net the same VTF and in the case of the mono carts some substantial mass was required.  Zenith and azimuth were set electrically and the SRA was dialed in by ear for each cartridge to best isolate the variable being compared.  It has become abundantly clear that setup usually dominates the sonic results in comparisons like this so extra care must be taken to assure proper setup.  Once a general feel for the variable being examined was determined the pattern of results correlated nicely to the same set of tests in a different system.  The next step with this batch of cartridges is to repeat the comparison in a third system and then move onto coil formers and magnet types with the ultimate goal being a more finessed version of the field coil.

stay tuned.

Boptura

 Random said number 5

boptura needs to get me an address.

Festivus

 It is that time again.  Everyone air your grievance below in an identifiable comment and before the year ends Random.org will pick a winner of a pair of the Slagleformer Modules.  We will cover shipping worldwide.

peace.... 

us.

Silver and Gold

 I've used this title before around the holidays and this time I'll take it 100% literal.

Being a huge fan of silver wound things and loving the sound of silver wound cartridges I decided to take my game up a notch and see what 0.9999 gold coils sound like. 

It has been posed to me by Dick Sequerra that it is the oxide semiconductor boundaries within wire that that make silver a better sonic choice since silver oxide is a more benign conductor than copper oxide which creates a diode.  Dick made the compelling argument a few months ago that since gold doesn't oxidize at all it should be the ultimate choice for the low level signals found in an MC cartridge coils.

Stay Tuned.