fdegrove, everything in the cable is cardas, from the clips to the phono plugs and cardas eutectic solder has been used exclusively throughout.
I did a cleaner double blind test earlier this evening, using two brand new records. Neither myself, nor my brother, nor my girlfriend could detect a difference.
I'm quite sceptical towards the thesis that the "veiled" nature of the mixer prevents us from hearing a difference that would otherwise be audible...if more or better information were to travel from the cart to the phono section, I would expect to hear some difference anyway.
Nevertheless, my next project is to make an audiophile mixer by wiring two decent valve driven phono stages into a valve summing circuit and into a line-level pre-amp stage. So, to extinguish all possibilities, I'll keep the wire till then, give it another chance and sell it afterwards.
In the mean time, here's a picture of the wire I made.
I did a cleaner double blind test earlier this evening, using two brand new records. Neither myself, nor my brother, nor my girlfriend could detect a difference.
I'm quite sceptical towards the thesis that the "veiled" nature of the mixer prevents us from hearing a difference that would otherwise be audible...if more or better information were to travel from the cart to the phono section, I would expect to hear some difference anyway.
Nevertheless, my next project is to make an audiophile mixer by wiring two decent valve driven phono stages into a valve summing circuit and into a line-level pre-amp stage. So, to extinguish all possibilities, I'll keep the wire till then, give it another chance and sell it afterwards.
In the mean time, here's a picture of the wire I made.
Attachments
Intersting stuff.
I make lots of vibration measurements using piezo-electric accelerometers for a living. there are two types of accel's, charge type and voltage type. for charge type, a charge signal is output. This charges a capacitor at the other end and you measure the voltage on the capacitor. (with a bunch of op-amps) For these accelerometers, very special co-ax cables are made that reduces changes in capacitance in the co-ax wire itself that might add noise to the signal. these co-ax cables are about .06 in dia. The voltage mode accelerometers have a amp built in and you measure voltage at the end of the cable.
These cables are on the heavy side and maybe on the stiff side compared to what is being discussed here. You could probably negate the stiffness issue by looping the cable up 10 inches or more so you are twisting or bending a long length.
But they are probably among the best for rejecting external noise.
you might check out PCB.com and search their cables. besides single co-ax cables, they have a cable with 4 wires in a shield. Their cables have funky micro-dot and BNC connectors, but you might be able to buy a length of bare cable.
If someone is willing to try it out and report back, I can probably find some bad single co-ax cables and send out several feet.
One final note: for a co-ax cable to work, you have to ground the shield only at one end.
I make lots of vibration measurements using piezo-electric accelerometers for a living. there are two types of accel's, charge type and voltage type. for charge type, a charge signal is output. This charges a capacitor at the other end and you measure the voltage on the capacitor. (with a bunch of op-amps) For these accelerometers, very special co-ax cables are made that reduces changes in capacitance in the co-ax wire itself that might add noise to the signal. these co-ax cables are about .06 in dia. The voltage mode accelerometers have a amp built in and you measure voltage at the end of the cable.
These cables are on the heavy side and maybe on the stiff side compared to what is being discussed here. You could probably negate the stiffness issue by looping the cable up 10 inches or more so you are twisting or bending a long length.
But they are probably among the best for rejecting external noise.
you might check out PCB.com and search their cables. besides single co-ax cables, they have a cable with 4 wires in a shield. Their cables have funky micro-dot and BNC connectors, but you might be able to buy a length of bare cable.
If someone is willing to try it out and report back, I can probably find some bad single co-ax cables and send out several feet.
One final note: for a co-ax cable to work, you have to ground the shield only at one end.
Do you mean the shield should be connected to ground at the other end? In this case suing the individual coaxial wires to do this sounds like a massive pain... If anyone does try the experiment, cannot recommend enough that you use the four-in-one conductor construction. Shielding will still be in place for the part of the construction that matters, i.e. outside of the tonearm. The inside bit is by default shielded, assuming tone-arm is made of metal (and often connected to ground). I guess you could connect the shield to ground either at the turn-table end or at the phono plug end. Thinking about it, I should have done the same with my Cardas construction...eh well!
Basically the shield works as a Faraday cage and any external magnetic flux is reflected away. There is also a basic need for a shield to work is to have the shield grounded at one end or the other, but not at both ends. If the shield is grounded at both ends, it is possible for a current to run thru the shield and reflect noise on the inner wire. With the shield grounded at only one end, no current can run from one end to the other.
The other way to reduce the noise from other wires is to twist the wires as mentioned. The theory is that the flux will impinge on each of the two wires of a signal equally and opposistely and and cancel each other out.
Some day I may try the two co-ax cables since this would shield one channel from the other the best. I don't have any means to test it quanatively and my ears are old and damaged from doing vibration testing in noisy enviorments. Not that the rock concerts of my youth had anything to do with it.
The other way to reduce the noise from other wires is to twist the wires as mentioned. The theory is that the flux will impinge on each of the two wires of a signal equally and opposistely and and cancel each other out.
Some day I may try the two co-ax cables since this would shield one channel from the other the best. I don't have any means to test it quanatively and my ears are old and damaged from doing vibration testing in noisy enviorments. Not that the rock concerts of my youth had anything to do with it.
Makes sense, although in the experiment I (and the other two that helped) couldn't tell any difference between the construction, which featured brand new cardas phonos and the beat-up non-gold plated stock stuff.
Phono pre is ready, unfortunately it doesn't work
Hope I will figure out what I did wrong in the next couple weeks...once it's up and running I'll repeat the double-blind test with it and report back.
To me at least, tonearm wiring does make an audible difference. I recently spent around £135 having my SME3009 rewired by J7 at Audio Origami with full Cardas. Money well spent and an immediately detectable improvement
You have a 'table of great potential with the SL1210 and I speak from experience when I say the original arm is pants, at least in the high fidelity sense. I am running a lightly 'modded RB250 on my SL1200 MKII with a Denon DL-110 and it's staggeringly good. Granted, the arm came to me free but the entire modification (armboard, RB250 and counterweight) could be sourced on you-know-where for around £130 plus postage
If you're thinking of upgrade and you don't want the OEM Technics arm, take it off and sell it to fund the upgrade parts I mention
You'll never look back !
You have a 'table of great potential with the SL1210 and I speak from experience when I say the original arm is pants, at least in the high fidelity sense. I am running a lightly 'modded RB250 on my SL1200 MKII with a Denon DL-110 and it's staggeringly good. Granted, the arm came to me free but the entire modification (armboard, RB250 and counterweight) could be sourced on you-know-where for around £130 plus postage
If you're thinking of upgrade and you don't want the OEM Technics arm, take it off and sell it to fund the upgrade parts I mention
You'll never look back !
The shield is effective against electrostatic fields only; to be effective against magnetic flux it has to be a magnetic material -such as the mu-metal shield on a transformer. Twisting the wires tightly and evenly will have help reduce E.M. interference somewhat. This is one of the arguments for using an input transformer.
I was under the impression that the unwanted signal (noise) was drained to ground through the shielding and not just rejected. ??? Which is why the shield is connected to ground. Am I missing something? (quite often I am)
If a tone arm is wooden rather than metal (shielded) should we use a drain wire along with twisting the 2 pair of signal wires?
If a drain wire is used should it be connected at the cart/headshell and the ground lug on the preamp?
Thanks for teaching me.
Ron
Oh, and if you decide to go ahead with the upgrade, this is invaluable
http://www.tonearm.co.uk/technics_sl1200_sl1210_armboard_tonearm_arm.pdf
Happy tinkering !
http://www.tonearm.co.uk/technics_sl1200_sl1210_armboard_tonearm_arm.pdf
Happy tinkering !
Now, tone-arm is a whole different animal! That I will be upgrading at some point, although I was thinking of one of the Jelco arms so that I can have detachable headshells (I DJ so this is essential as I need to swap to DJ carts when I don't want to ruin my "listening" carts).
By the way, I also use DL-110s and love them.
I needed some advice on how to rewire my Linn Ekos mk1 tonearm, I've searched the Internet high and low and not found much.
I've just started to read this thread about what wire to use and now I feel like hanging myself lol
Is there a video out there of how to rewire this particular Linn tonearm?
What is the general view on what wire i should use.....I just can't bring myself to go through every post
Thanks
Gary
I've just started to read this thread about what wire to use and now I feel like hanging myself lol
Is there a video out there of how to rewire this particular Linn tonearm?
What is the general view on what wire i should use.....I just can't bring myself to go through every post
Thanks
Gary
Hi,
if the Ekos is built loke the Akito ... then good luck.
The Akito is mounted together against intuition.
That means that You need to install the wires in the shaft first, fiddle them through the shaft, into and through the arm tube and then you can mount the tube and adjust the vertical bearing.
If you mount and adjust the bearing first You really can´t mount the connector in the shaft, as the wiring will ineviteably inhibit the horizontal movement.
The Akito was a very cheap and silly constructed device .... overhyped by marketing ... just m2c.
jauu
Calvin
if the Ekos is built loke the Akito ... then good luck.
The Akito is mounted together against intuition.
That means that You need to install the wires in the shaft first, fiddle them through the shaft, into and through the arm tube and then you can mount the tube and adjust the vertical bearing.
If you mount and adjust the bearing first You really can´t mount the connector in the shaft, as the wiring will ineviteably inhibit the horizontal movement.
The Akito was a very cheap and silly constructed device .... overhyped by marketing ... just m2c.
jauu
Calvin
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