Simplistic NJFET RIAA

diyAudio Chief Moderator
Joined 2002
Paid Member
Spent a few hours looking for reviews of these carts with various posh shaped stylii. Unfortunately I haven't been able to reach a conclusion either. I'm very tempted to spend 250 euros on an Ortofon X1.

Salas:

Will I need the pre-pre if I plug a medium output MC cartridge into the MM RIAA?
I believe the output of the cartridge is around 0.5mv.

Spending 250 EUR given the clever bargain constitution of your now satisfactory system is a leap of faith. If you have no previous experience with MC you should take into account that those are much more demanding beasts for TT uniformity and setup. They extend to HF genuinely when MM are utilizing an electrical loading resonance. They can bring to fore tracking issues and badly mixed cuts. But they bring much more transcription info along too. A normal output MC is usually more revealing than a high MC due to less weight and resistance of its lighter moving mass. Sports less turns for its moving generator. And it will need the pre-pre add on to an existing MM level stage indeed.
 
The cart arrived today, and I've set it up. Do all T4P carts weigh the same? I couldn't get a tracking force gauge... Tomorrow or soon my ultra-cheap $13 phono preamp will arrive, which I can either mod or rebuild. I want to make Alex Nikitin's MM preamp, but I don't know how to go about getting the right caps.

The AT311EP would seem to be a different kind of cart from the AT92ECD. It appears that the only difference between the AT 300-331 series may be the needle, so if I can find the AT3472LC needle, maybe...
 
DIYAudio didn't accept my last post for some reason (forum error?), so I must re-type...

Nope. I plan to get an M-Audio 192 for recording and playback... But the pawn shop wouldn't accept my mint Denon AVR588!!! The preamp is a Pyle Pro P444. It seems to be an imitation of the Behringer P400.

PylePro - PP444 - Ultra Compact Phono Turntable Preamp

Stupendous marketing:

The ultra low-noise audio operational amplifier offers outstanding sound performance.

I have the cart running right now. Many things sound the same, which could be the preamp and records I'm playing. I'd say it sounds warmer, despite being more detailed and having better instrument separation. Soundfield depth has increased. Realism has increased, except for seeming too "warm". Bass is very tight, seemingly a little faint. I've been listening for little more than an hour so I'm not sure. Before I played I adjusted the tracking force to manual recommended 1.25g, it was at 1g which I realized was extreme and I knew it wasn't the original setting, so this could have affected the sound.

The preamp I'm listening to now is part of a JCPenny 3210 Stereo Receiver. This thing is old, uses STK-blah chip amps, and has HAxxxx chips in it, I didn't look around in it much.
 
That's an idea. Maybe a CM choke and then the Kmultiplier (or a battery, I have some 12V SLA's sitting around...). I was thinking maybe I should have a separate power strip for my audio stuff, plugged into a line filter. But that won't filter noise from other equipment on the power strip.

Have you ever had one of the moments where you go into a trance and think about how you would design a phono preamp and watch the schematic form through misty tunnel vision, then snap out of it suddenly and forget what you had done? I just had that moment.
 
diyAudio Chief Moderator
Joined 2002
Paid Member
Aha! Now I see where the term ''audio visionary'' came from.;)
 

Attachments

  • vrtx.jpg
    vrtx.jpg
    22.2 KB · Views: 268
I noticed that the P-mount has some vertical play, so I can angle the cart slightly up or down. Not sure what to do here. It doesn't seem to work to push it into the tonarm to make it flush with the mount. But maybe I could use this to my advantage.

Listening to "SRO Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass". Nice stuff, but the horns seems to clip the recording equipment, not a surprise I guess.
 
I notice that the style actually makes audible sound that I can hear when the speakers aren't turned on. I guess it fades away when the speakers are turned on because it's in phase. With this stylus it's louder than the other one. Could this mean increased "compliance"? I wonder how this could apply to speakers. One aspect of low-efficiency speakers is that they are more immune to reflections inside the cabinet. I wonder what are the pros and cons of a more compliant stylus?

I suspect this SRO LP needs a glueing. I'm hearing some kind of distortion I can only imagine must be some residue in the grooves. Other than the the record is very clean, maybe it has been washed many times. The record itself is stiffer then my others, and I think this must indicate a difference in quality, for better or worse.
 
diyAudio Chief Moderator
Joined 2002
Paid Member
I notice that the style actually makes audible sound that I can hear when the speakers aren't turned on. I guess it fades away when the speakers are turned on because it's in phase. With this stylus it's louder than the other one. Could this mean increased "compliance"? I wonder how this could apply to speakers. One aspect of low-efficiency speakers is that they are more immune to reflections inside the cabinet. I wonder what are the pros and cons of a more compliant stylus?

Means more groove contact and tip-cantilever vibration. One thing is you upped the VTF to +0.25g and the new tip profile possibly tracks better. Compliance is about the softness of the suspension. Usually allows lower vertical tracking force and correct resonance for lighter body mass carts.