AnologMagik

Deciding to jump hard back into vinyl a few months ago I have put in a lot of time and work acquiring a VPI Direct Drive turntable with a My Sonic Lab Ultra Eminent EX cartridge. They blew me away from the start and happiness was all over the house when the VPI was spinning. After a few months of enjoyment and reading many posts on this forum, I started to wonder if I was getting all the bang for the buck out of my setup. Maybe a little finer tuning could bring out a little more so I researched and found AnalogMagik. It seemed like a tool even I could get some usefulness from.

When it arrived and was properly set up on my turntable, I spent a Saturday morning working thru the steps and made adjustments as best I could. I was able to get close to the parameters given in the program on most adjustments. The whole process took about 2 hours. The results STUNK! The sound was degraded from the music I was hearing before I used the program. Well crap, spent another hour adjusting the table back to a better sound. Mark that up to a failure.

A few months go by and I had the nagging feeling that my miss adventure with the AnalogMagik program may have been self-inflicted and suffered from lack of knowledge. So, I read all I could find on the set up and how it truly works and decided to give it another shot. Last Saturday I set it all back up, put a TV in the music room to watch football while I worked the program again. Could not listen to music because I had to sit between the speakers while working the AnalogMagik program. I spent all afternoon working each step, going back and forth between each adjustment because when one parameter changes it affects all the others. Well two football games and six beers later (That's over six hours for those who do not watch football) I was happy with the readings I was getting. Where they suggested a reading of .5 or better, I managed to get it to .05, reel tight to the marks. (Sailing term) Had to leave for the evening and did not get a chance to give it a test run.

Life being life I did not get a chance to turn the stereo on until last night. Forgot about the Saturday marathon of adjusting. Probably beer induced amnesia. Put on a Dire Straits album and sat down to listen. WTF, why do I hear all that bass? Why do I hear finger friction on the guitar strings? Why does it all sound so much better than it ever did before? Holy Crap Batman, did I do that with AnalogMagik? Listened well pasted midnight and it was so sweet. My setup is finely living up to its full potential.

Will be listening and enjoying a lot more from now on. Thank you AnologMagik!