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AnologMagik

Would like to start by saying I have no affiliation to this company or its products other than being a customer.

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!

 




notnow0329
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
notnow0329, for most people it is going to be at least $850. They have to buy an ADC to digitize the output of their phono stage. Without the ADC Analog Magik is worthless. For those who are already good at set up Analog Magik might make small improvements. The question is will $850
make more of an improvement spent elsewhere? I do not know the answer to that question.

There are also some inconsistencies in Analog Magik's explanations. What good is setting your VTA to that of their test record when the actual VTA changes from one record to the next? They fail to mention this. Then there is the argument between physical and electrical azimuth alignment. I prefer physical so what they do is worthless to me. I do not mind spending money. I bought the SmarTractor alignment device. Nothing yet has interested me in buying this product and I already digitize my phono stage and my ADC has a USB output. 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
If you hear big improvements then it was probably worth it. For that kind of money you could get the Origin Live belt, mat, and Enabler, and Synergistic PHT. These I know for sure would be a huge improvement. Or alternatively you could put the table on a Townshend Shelf or put the whole rack on Pods. These would also be a huge improvement. Whether as much improvement as you just heard depends largely on how good your setup was to begin with. Probably you could get within a gnats hair using a template downloaded for free off the internet.    

But then you would have to learn to listen in order to fine tune VTA. The prevailing message repeated over and over again on the Magik site ( I visited, and studied) is that this is not "scientifically repeatable". Don't listen, measure, is their mantra. Even though they also admit over and over again how often their measurements don't work. Oh. Well....       

It does make me wonder when I see a .5 lb/in torque wrench for $200 that is sold on Amazon for $50. Hmm. Especially when they admit on the site this is another one of those things that varies and only works 75% of the time. It makes me wonder, if after setting the torque you still need to try and compare, why then did you need the fancy wrench in the first place? Things that make you go hmmmm....     

But hey, the bottom line is you put a lot of time into learning first hand how all this stuff works. I bet you know a lot more now about VTA, VTF, and the profound affect setup has on LP playback. That alone is probably enough to get your money's worth out of it. I'm just glad you persevered and came out a winner in the end. Well done! 
audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,018 posts
 
I'll spend my money on more records....
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
More records are always on the ticket:-)
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
The torque wrench thing made me curious so the other night I tried a few more adjustments. Had done this before and knew loosening was going in the right direction, no way I wanted to go tighter, so tried a little bit looser still. Only turned the slightest crack, barely 1/16 of a turn if that, but it was enough to open up midrange clarity and top end extension, without losing any bottom end, not that I could tell anyway.  

I've never been one to over-tighten anything, least of all a phono cartridge. They just don't need to be that tight. Even so I was surprised just how tight they do NOT need to be!  

I would venture a guess the vast majority are way too tight and the easiest improvement most can make is to just loosen the cartridge bolts very slightly, a tiny little bit at a time, until you stop hearing improvements.    

If the $200 torque wrench is what it takes to get someone to do this then I say well worth the money. But you can also do it like I did, for free.
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