re: Audiophile/Vinyl Thread - Post Pics, Advice, Questions, Setups, etc.

On now...





Tesla--"Mechanical Resonance"...Geffen Records, 1986.

And now...





Rush--"Presto"...Atlantic Records, 1989.

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HerbertFest08

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Yeah, that's it--the Nomad. Sorry, I confused it with the traveller.


...and spend the extra $100 and buy it new vs. the demo--trust me.

Up next...





Dio--"Holy Diver"...Warner Bros. 1983

The Vandersteens should be fine. MD will stand behind them if they aren't.
If given the option of new vs. demo/used and the difference is minimal, like $100, I will always opt for new.

There is a very good chance the demo turntable is perfect, but when it comes to cartridges/needles and precision pieces such as turntables--I always envision someone with a 6 year old kid on the demo floor, and that whiny parent with the "perfect kid" that believes little Johnny has the natural born right to play with the record player...you get the point.

The Ortofon 2M Red cart, however, is pretty tough. The stylus is not of the "nude" variety (where the needle protrudes out from the body of the cart and is unprotected from man's follies), so it should be fine.

I guess I am just a little leery because I am used to the higher end tables and carts where if you sneeze in the wrong direction, it can cause damage. I broke 2 Lyra Titan-i cartridges in a week's time. I was cleaning the plinth (the base of the turntable) and the dust rag I was using caught the stylus (the cantilever with the diamond tip), and it vanished--I never found it. So I ordered a new one ($5500) to replace it. A couple days later while lifting off the VPI periphery ring (the 5lb. steel ring you see that sits on the outer edge of the record in all my pics), my pinky barely nipped the cantilever, and presto...gone in an instant. I had to order yet another entire cartridge.

Knowing how finicky and fragile cartridges are in my experiences has led me to only buying them new.

And for $100 more, you get one new out of the box--worth it IMO.

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Will do.... Got the ol lady convinced that I'm turning 40 at the end of the year and I need this! Have a couple unexpected expenses right now so I'm ironing things out. New lawnmower, new tires... A new computer as of this afternoo

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Dude...It. Never. Ends.

I have a 5 ton A/C on its last leg I am hoping makes it through just one more summer!!
I replaced all the windows in the house last year due to crappy seals letting all the Argon gas escape, thus fogging over.
I'm sure something else big will crap out in the next 12-18 months and need to be fixed.

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HebertFest08

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I would imagine machining a platter to tight tolerences using MDF is costlier than it seems on the surface. Also, the tonearm is quite a jump up from the ProJect table as well.

Harry Westfeld at VPI knows what he is doing--he's been at it for 32 years.

You can change the arm out to a JMW 9 and I believe you can also change the platter too...but don't put the cart before the horse--give it a listen before itching to change things. You will be impressed with what you hear.

Get used to the sound of the table--what you like and what lacks--and then you can make changes. You will have a reference point to judge against as you change gear and will begin to understand what change affected the sound to what degree.

The single biggest immediate improvement one can make for cheap (under $100) on a sub $5000 table is isolation--read my rants in this very thread regarding this. It involves a granite slab and VibraPod feet. River_man, who posts here has done it with success--and he did it for around $75 total.

The other, which costs a little more, is changing the cartridge.

Try to think of a turntable this way...the platter, plinth, and tonearm are all nothing but devices that act together to properly "hold" the "engine" in place. The cartridge is the engine of the table. The table will dictate what level of potential the cartridge can reach.

A great table will allow a cartridge to reach its full potential. It will not, however, make a cartridge better. A cartridge is a bundle of potential only being limited by its keeper (the table).

Knowing this, would you spend $300-700 eventually upgrading the "holder" (table/platter/arm combo) to squeeze out the last little bit of potential out of a $100 cartridge, or would you spend $300-700 getting a new motor (cartridge) that has a vast amount more potential that your table can immediately unleash?


There does come a limit where a table/arm/platter just can't deliver the finesse and stability needed to extract all the potential out of a cartridge, but those combinations begin to occur well beyond the price points we are currently dealing in.

Uncle Ted and the boys...





Damn Yankees--Self Titled Debut...Warner Bros., 1990

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the 'prince' on a sunday.

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My man...

On now...





Little Feat--"Representing the Mambo"...Warner Bros., 1990