Test LP group buy

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I was called at work.
'you have a parcel'
'what does it look like'
'records'
'well it's probably records then' :)

My worst trouble was when I dropped her at the airport for a business trip then set off on a 200 mile round trip to pick up a bootful i'd bought on ebay. She lands and calls me. 'why are u driving?'. Luckily she is wonderful.
 
Tests that lead to a deeper understanding of setup -> sound output is what I'm most interested in.

That's the point put it all on one LP for a DIY budget. To reduce it to the simplest terms tracks to optimize pitch, yaw, and roll, check the rotational properties of your TT, the resonance/damping of your tonearm/cart, and frequency response of your cart/pre-amp.

Lucky made a good point of frequency response varying with level, are some carts better than others, I don't know. We could include a sweep or pink noise at two different levels as a check. One of today's links showed dramatic variation of FR with temperature due to the properties of the elastomer dampers.

As Kevin says vinyl reproduction is subject to so many variables there has to be a limit on how much bother it is worth. Our original idea of a cheap all in one solution with a free software howto might have a few rough spots in the beginning but it has a place.
 
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OK, OK, I promised to update the playlist this week, but a rash of work come up and it's eating up my time. 250 miles of driving back and forth to work just today. :xeye:

Should have a short day of it tomorrow and will review and update the playlist. I'll miss a few things, so will want the group to chime in with help.
 
I got my father's Magnepan MG-1's today $85 shipping. I packed them myself a few weeks ago as we emptied my mother's house for sale, UPS tried to puncture the diaphragms in several places but I think I thwarted them. We shall see.




After many problems with UPS, I’ve become a FedEx guy for large items.

From what my packages arrived looking like, one would think the ups guys pull out samurai swords and go at the boxes while no one is looking, before kicking them down a flight of stairs.
 
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Lucky made a good point of frequency response varying with level, are some carts better than others, I don't know. We could include a sweep or pink noise at two different levels as a check. One of today's links showed dramatic variation of FR with temperature due to the properties of the elastomer dampers.


I wonder what that means for Pano and I in the electronic death gauntlet. quite possibly the worst combo of humidity / temp / saltwater....

Anyone know of a cartridge designed for use in a swamp?
 
A downloadable reference source material from the Lathe Cutters (From which the tracks were cut), The VTA etcetra used, environment it was cut and other important details will help in comparing/evaluating the measurement of individual system. Isn't it ? It will also chaff out minor drawback and limitations inherent to the cut vinyl. As those would be common for all. For example if test record has minor offcenter it will show in all the measurements different individuals take. (The reference would be a marking on lable or 'click' of lead out groove. Which I suppose would be same to all test records).
Regards.
 
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Ref cart rubber vs temperature, which I am going to say is in scope as this might be something you might find in testing, Technics did some heroic efforts to fix this with the EPC205 and EPC100 mk3 and mk4 with the unfortunate drawback that the rubber perishes over time. As such buying one of these second hand is a lottery which is a shame as they are exceedingly good examples of the peak of MM in the late 70s/early 80s.

As for what to do. I would recommend low compliance MCs that a nice Russian guy I know can replace the rubber on easily. He gets a lot of SPU in for rebuild! That or patent a turntable humidor.
 
Somone does have a cartridge humidor.

IMG_1339t.jpg

Conufusing thing is, why would a 40/50 year cartridge's elastomer will not get deteriorated ?
Regards.
 
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OK that is hardcore!

Some rubbers are more resilient than others. This is where SY is sorely missed as his polymer knowledge is very useful. Also some climates are a problem. Heat, humidity (and changes thereof) and UV light all take their toll.

UK is quite benign. Parts of USA (florida) and certainly large swathes of India are rubber hostile.

I will find out if my SME30H cartridge has hardened soon. If it has this will be a problem as you cannot get high compliance Stylii any more which this setup really needs due to insanely low mass.
 
You can correct for that, and in any case most of the examples had nearly coincident nulls. I simply question the audibility of the extreme nitpicking of azimuth. The audibility of VTA on a good setup shocked even me.

I can agree to some degree but in my experience, all the best specified and best measured cartridges also sound at the best in term of low distortion in high frequencies etc. This includes crosstalk where my current one is around - 40 dB @ 1 kHz when fine adjusted both channels with a good test record. Crosstalk is a form of distortion even if the signals are related. You can add it if you want, e.g. for headphone listening, but for LPs poor crosstalk may end up with that high level of high frequency signals goes into mono and cause fierce sibilants. So a good channel separation correlates with fidelity.

Point is many test records with left-right channels for azimuth contain residual signals in the silent channel. So for a test record to be good for azimuth check, you need to have a good QC during production. The best for that in current production I know of is the Ortofon.
 
Point is many test records with left-right channels for azimuth contain residual signals in the silent channel. So for a test record to be good for azimuth check, you need to have a good QC during production. The best for that in current production I know of is the Ortofon.

Not sure what you are referring to here. Do you mean the azimuth/crosstalk of the cutting lathe, I agree this has to be perfect? Phase lock to the 1kHz signal is easy so noise, etc. can be ignored. The current SOTA allows even the most basic PC to do some very sophisticated signal analysis on the test tracks with free software.
 
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