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Turntable advice / opinion on setup / sound.

Hello all you analog experts. I am seeking some advice, opinions and direction to try, based on my tastes and setup. 

I’m not loving my current TT sound but there are variables that could cause this. For reference, my favorite TT I ever owned was the ClearAudio Champion Level 2 (wish I never sold it) because it was warm and had a huge stage. 

  1. I listen to every style of music, smooth jazz to hard metal. 
  2. I have to turn the volume way up to get the get the level I like which at times has hiss and a tiny bit of hum. Compared to digital sources which have none of these issues. 
  3. I find this setup to lack huge stage and warmth. 

My current system is:

  1. Rega Planar 8 w/ Alpheta 2 MC cart.  
  2. Cambridge Audio -> Alva Duo Phono Pre amp
  3. Mark Levinson -> No 585 Amp. 
  4. Martin Logan 15a Renaissance -> 8FT apart/ 3ft off the front wall and 3 FT from each side wall. I sit 9FT away from the speakers.  

The turntables I am considering are:

1) Musical Fidelity -> M8XTT

What cart would you use?

2) Michell Audio -> Gyro SE Turntable

3) Clear Audio Champion Level 2

Thank you all in advance for any guidance and opinions you can offer. 

necrosuit
richardbrand's avatar
richardbrand
1,385 posts
 

@larryi

no excessive force required to move the arm horizontally to achieve tangency (unlike air bearing tangential tracking arms)

Have you had an opportunity to actually set up and experience the Holbo air bearing tangential arm?  The only force required to move it sideways comes from the inertia of the tonearm assembly which weighs under 50-grams including cartridge.  It has to cross an entire record side in about 20 minutes so its acceleration is miniscule angry

 

larryi
4,578 posts
 

I have no experience with the Holbo.  The concern with required force to move the arm has to do with the lack of mechanical advantage of a pivot that rotates the arm; with an air bearing arm, the arm has to be dragged to its new position.  This may be more of a theoretical than an actual issue, but owners of some air bearing arms have reported suspension and cantilever failures.  
 

Such arms tend to have very high horizontal effective mass and much lower vertical effective mass.  Some claim this is a problem while others say this is a virtue.  On some records with very deep bass, the bass is mixed closer to mono to reduce vertical modulation; this means wider horizontal movement.  Higher effective mass and the lack of movement as a pivot means that the arm resists horizontal movement from groove modulation meaning that the full bass signal will be picked up by the cartridge and not lost by the cartridge moving side to side.  I don’t know if this is the case, but the airbearing arms I had delivered very powerful bass.

elliottbnewcombjr
7,744 posts
 

@billstevenson 

IF I was going to champion a ’rigid’ design, no arm height adjustability, I would do a survey of various cartridge heights, then:

1. pick an average. sell all the 3 point cartridges you can peddle.

use Rega designed/approved shims under the arm mount, or above the cartridge for taller or shorter cartridges. Split shims for the base so the arm does not need to be completely removed. 

It’s purposely making it shorter than ALL other cartridges that I object to.

’ALL Other’ until Ortofon answered the need to make 14mm high versions. Thankfully for the OP, because that is what he chose.

And, the lack of measurements to properly mount non-rega cartridges bugs me.

Many things bug me, thankfully more things make me happy, two among them is the easy on the fly height adjustment of two of my tonearms.

billstevenson
1,186 posts
 

My aren't we touchy today?

dayglow
2,445 posts
 

Rega turntables are not for everyone!

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