krelldreams
thanks for your kind words.
I'm retired, first covid, next I have been homebound with health issues a lot, and I enjoy hopping all over learning about stuff.
I want that TT just to look at it, pet it once in a while.
Advice and recommendations needed for a turntable rig...
So I have decided to add a source (analog) in one audio system I have. I will be getting a turntable, cartridge and phono preamp. Currently DO NOT have turntable in my audio system (although some 40 years I had a Thorens TD 320 (modest belt drive TT). I like the idea of a mass loading TT and interested in a heavy TT. Looking for advice from those who have used any TT set up and why. Looking in the modest budget of $3500 price range for all components. Currently looking at a Pro-ject x8 Evolution TT with a Sumiko Blue Point #3 MC cartridge and the Pro-Ject Phono Box Ds2 phonostage (a Michael Fremer positive review).
I listen to Jazz, Blues and instrument music mostly...
@elliottbnewcombjr … If it is the Scoutmaster you’re referring to, then yeah.. it’s just doing its job well, year after year. Sometimes I’m seduced by a pretty face, or by an exciting design philosophy, but when the time comes to go head to head, it makes me appreciate what I have. I wouldn’t recommend it so highly if it didn’t earn that recommendation from me. I hope you’re enjoying your retirement. I’m still about ten years away. 🤷🏻♂️ |
I meant the Ovaltine Shaped gizmo from Bavaria. I like your VPI a lot, EXCEPT fixed cartridge tonearm. ............................................ This very positive review included this "I am glad I had so many different cartridges to play on the Scoutmaster. They helped me characterize its essential quality: accuracy. This turntable does not romanticize, nor does it impose its own sound on the music in any way I can discern. Having swapped out all four cartridges numerous times I can attest to that. I hesitate to use the term neutral because in the ears of some audiophiles it connotes sterility or, worse, a kind of sonic banality. But that’s exactly what you get here. Slap in the Grado and its fulsome midrange comes through the VPI unclouded. Or switch to the Denon (which I like so much) and there is that balanced, unhurried and unflustered sound." ......................................... I wonder how long it took this reviewer to change these 4 cartridges, on ANY fixed cartridge arm, then he says ’numerous times’. He probably owns a Jaguar 12 cylinder, a member of the Masochist club, (or a JVC TT-801, masochist membership required). Disconnect the 4 wires; unscrew the cartridge; screw in the next cartridge (often a nightmare); hook up the 4 wires; adjust overhang; adjust null points; check arm height, adjust? check azimuth, adjust (how with that or most fixed cartridge arm?) adjust tracking weight; adjust tracking force. 4 cartridges-numerous times. I’d run out of curse words and I know plenty of them. (don’t drop any nuts/washers/screws) numerous times: have some clips, silver solder, soldering skills to replace the cartridge pin clip that broke off. Insulation on clip? Rewire tonearm? I do what he did, numerous times, without hesitation, no masochist me: with my alternate cartridges pre-mounted in their own headshells. Overhang and null points done, azimuth done. If arm height is not right, my Acos Lustre GST-801 arm has the smoothest easiest arm height I ever touched, I adjust it while playing. I’m pretty quick at tracking weight, and use a blank LP for anti-skate. What I really advocate is a TT with TWO Tonearms, two cartridges ready to go; one arm with removable headshell, that arm with easy arm height adjustment. |