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What equipment upgrades or tweaks will improve the sound of drums?

Having just purchased a few quality vinyl recordings  of Elton John after watching Rocketman ignore his band, I'm looking for ways to improve the sound of Nigel Olsson's drumming.  My current system in a Line Magnetic tube amp, Rega Planar 3 w/Ortofon Blue Cartridge, and Audio Physic Step Plus speakers and a JL Audio sub (can't find model no right now).  I'm looking for the punch his drumming deserves.
TT upgrade?, cartridge? Other tweaks?
udog
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
As fate would have it in some cases people are sitting right smack dab in the middle of a standing wave. Can you believe it? It’s bound to happen sooner or later. Try walking around the room a little to see where the drum sounds louder, fuller, deeper. Also, try sitting on the floor.
gosta's avatar
gosta
839 posts
 
The new cd from The Raconteurs gives you some heavy drumming and top notch sound. Vocals too!
bigkidz
3,381 posts
 

IMO and in upgrading audio components, larger power supply caps in the amp would help with increasing the bass output level.  From there you can swap out the transformer if it is a lower grade unit, add AC filter chokes to add clarity, dynamics, tone and speed, change out the amp capacitors to Nichicon and V-Caps (I prefer them), and add Caddock output resistors, etc.


Happy Listening

morningstaraudio's avatar
morningstaraudio
154 posts
 
Look into the LessLoss line of cables especially their LessLoss C-Marc power cord . I hooked the Power cord up to my Pass X250.8 which in turn lowered the noise floor significantly but also has that" Live" factor in spades.
dtximages
365 posts
 
Huge Elton and Nigel fan here.  I've never found Eltons recordings to be worth a crap except for his newer and awesome Peachtree Road album and his live albums.  

His older recordings are just bleak on anything other than vocals IMO.

However if you're interested in cd or dvd, check out his live concerts.. In particular the One Night Only concert and the Live at the Royal Opera House concerts.  

The drums in those are what I'm wanting to hear.  Mixed well, powerful, and made my Klipsches dance!

I know this is about vinyl but if you want good drums with Elton, you have to get away from his old original recordings.
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