Help Me Improve My Turntable Set-Up


Hi,

Reaching out to the community in hope of some help.  I put together a system but I have been disappointed with the sound quality.  Any insight you guys can provide to make this come alive would be greatly appreciated. I have:

  1. Harbeth P3ESR speakers
  2. Schiit Aegir amp
  3. Schiit Saga tubes pre-apmp
  4. Schiit Mani phono amp
Thanks!
Andy
wibruin
Please let us know what phono cartridge you have. Also, room size would be helpful.
I agree that the Schiit setup is probably holding you back a bit, if you're in a room bigger than a small office. But could there also be an expectation gap here? In one of my systems, I have ProAc Tab 10s, which are close in specs to Harbeth, and I expected the world when I bought them. And they are amazing - super clean, articulate, can hit volumes...but they simply can't produce that depth that allows you to be enveloped by the music. I still love em and have come to terms with their character. I have vintage DLK 1 1/2 in another system for a fraction of the price and the music is "alive". Size does matter.
The Saga+ has no gain. The Aegir has an input sensitivity of 1.2V, but the Mani output should be about 300mV for a standard MM cartridge. It’s not a big surprise that you aren’t getting much life out of the Aegir. Even with low efficiency speakers it should do okay unless you’re asking for high volume. The dual mono Aegirs might help since you’ll need to go balanced to do it, and most likely use a pre with gain.

i’ve run the Saga/Aegir into 87dB floorstanders and filled a big open room to respectable volume with aplomb. However my DAC outputs 2V.