Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

Heh, heh, heh...

I have tried all sorts of tubes in the EAR. If I tried a 5751, I dont remember - but I settled on a compliment of tubes sorted from my big box if nos 12A-- types. I think I saw a 5751 on my desk the other day - I'll pop it in and see what it does.

BTW - I always wanted to try a PV7, it has the reputation of making everything sound good. Of course, in our perverse audiofool ways, this has to be wrong because we know that all records do NOT sound good, so away with euphonic components that FORCE us to enjoy the music! :)

IN any case, I have come to two conclusions about vintage gear: 1) Those old tube era engineers really knew what they were doing and did many seemingly simple things, circuit wise, that have profound sonic results and 2) The carbon comp resistors used in almost all pre-70's electronics (the little brown ones) have a humanizing sound that is integral to the pleasing sound of vintage gear. Call it a pleasant distortion if you like. They are not used much in highend gear these days because of their self noise and tendency to drift.

Mike

COme on Jean, I've got a bar of soap bigger than that "ultra-Lenco" - no, wait... :)

Just kidding, that thing looks cool - very sixties pastel color. What is that "washing machine green"? We had sinks all over the house that color when I was a kid. There is something about the painted plinth and the white Lenco that is very sucessful style-wise - I like the blue one too.

AS far as coupling caps, I took a flyer on a pair of Mundorf silver in oil for the EAR. They, like your balancing of the tube types, are an excellent compliment to the EAR. Bypassing the volume pot gave another easy step up in quality - however, you many remember the trouble it gave me with MM's - there was so much gain that it caused distortion into my preamp. I ended up bypassing the pot with a suitable voltage divider.

Mike

Hi Mike, "voltage divider" huh? We're already into problems ;-). Sorry, I pour most of my energies into understanding and playing with turntables, tonearms, cartridges and phono stages, though I have assembled some tube amp kits and done my share of simple mods (replacing caps and so on), and of course am endlessly playing with interesting speakers and amps....of, forget it, I'm into everything (but minimal attention spared for digital media).

Ah, the Conrad Johnson PV-7, THERE's the rub!! There's a BIG problem with semantics in audio discussions, due to the fact than many simply have not heard a truly musical, "magical" component (just as most haven't heard a truly capable CD player or a true high-end record player), and so confuse "accuracy"/information-retrieval with the concept of musicality. I would say most audiophiles fall into this category, and so are driven to endlessly seek that which they avoid so assiduously, in a never-ending cycle of buying and selling and upgrading: "coloured" components like the CJ PV-7. "Magic" in the sense of utterly compelling and seductive, like watching Anne Margret in her prime doing a slow strip-tease just for you!! Raise the hairs on your arms, give-you-the-shivers, keep you entranced rooted-to-the-spot magic!!

Anyway, the PV-7 goes WAY beyond and much deeper than being simply "euphonious" or "listenable" or "coloured", it makes everything sound good not because it is coloured (its bass - so far - is weaker than many other preamps, and its high somewhat rolled-off) but because it is doing something very well that very few components can do (excepting certain components like the ARC SP-8 and, the Spendor BC-1s, and of course, the Lenco ;-)). Meaning that its colourations are NOT connected to its magic, which is something that was done extremely right in the circuit. I've argued this point for years in various threads on this forum: pieces like the CJ PV-7, the Lenco, the Denon DL-103, varous MMs, should not be avoided due to perceived "colourations" (i.e. it sounds too musical and enjoyable therefore it MUST be coloured, thinking which rose to full force with the rise of digital media/computer approximations of music, the "scientific" approach favoured by dissectionists/vivisectionsists which is itself a GROSS colouration, as real, live music is anything but analytical), but instead closely examined to see why they sound so musical, and design it into the next piece to achieve true progress.

In a related vein, I have never, personally, had so many moments of intense musical experience, of actual shivers, hairs rising on the body, virtual hypnotism and long nights of "conducting", dancing, borderline or actual crying as I have since I discovered the idler-wheel principle and more specifically the Lencos. And many many Lenco-ers (and Garrard-ers and so on) report the same thing, meaning that it is not so subjective, but is due to an underlying objective reality. All CJ PV-7 experiences are via the phono stage of course ;-). I see various discussions STILL on various forums as to why the Lenco sounds so good and conquers most of those who hear it, or own it and favour it over large collections of various high-end and classic record players. The answer - as for the PV-7 - is simple: because it is doing something right. Meaning that, though its speed stability - as with belt-drives and direct drives - may not be perfect (nothing is in this world), its imperfections do not detract from the musical experience, while the speed imperfections of BDs and DDs ARE more intrusive, and so more destructive of the musical experience. But, unlike the PV-7, the Lenco has no weakness in audiophile terms: its retrieval of musical information/detail is astonishing, its frequency range is limitless, its dynamics unsurpassed, its bass deep and powerful and again limitless, the soundstage it produces is HUGE and cavernous, and this is all done with a high degree of refinement (none of the coarseness of other idler-wheel drives, though again this can be mitigated to a large degree by Direct Coupling and bearing upgrades).

Anyway, get yourself a PV-7 Mike and play, they're cheap'n cheerful, relatively common (unlike the much-rarer PV-8), and unbelievably good, in the sense of sheer enjoyment and magic. The CJ PV-8 is also incredible, and will also root me to the spot, but for different reasons: its sheer dynamics, combined with clarity and detail (more detailed than the EAR even with the better tube complement) and superb bass shows things in recordings (also due to the dynamics which help "reveal" the minutiae of recording and production) I have never heard or noticed before. For instance, the other night I played the Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams are Made of This" LP, and though I've owned it since it came out and have owned various high-end turntables since that time, I have never heard it like this: every song was excellent (I previously only truly liked the title track), due not only to the music, but to how the Lenco/JMW/Clearuadio Concerto/PV-8 clearly showed how the recording/production was done, a integral part of any Eurythmics piece. It was exciting, superb, informative and MUSICAL all at once. Evidently this quality could be heard out on the street, as some sudents walking out in the street in front of my house stopped (the windows were open) and I could hear them say "Let's stop and listen to the party". They sat on the steps (giving out onto the sidewalk) through the two-hour "concert" while I worked on my soundroom. And the PV-8 handles low-output MCs with ease, the Concerto's .5 mv still too much for the PV-8 (via the sensitive Technics SB-4s) so that I still cannot raise the volume beyond 9 o'clock on the volume control. A bunch of 5751s instead of 12AX7s will tame this, AND increase resolution.

But, all that said, the PV-7 is STILL the PV-8's superior in the sense of that high degree of magic. So, I'm keeping them both :-), and will switch back and forth. Can you tell I'm a vintage CJ fan? Haven't heard the new stuff.

Anyway, let me know how the 5751 works out in your EAR Mike, thanks for the compliment on the Lencos, I really like that green and cream combination!! And have fun all, the new soundroom is REALLY an important part of the musical experience!!

I know you have someone to ask re the voltage divider :) Just two resistors to take the place of the pot - TECHNICAL! :0)

The weak bass on the PV7 "may" just be small output caps meant to cut-off low frequencies - warp and wow, etc. I would be very careful about playing with RIAA caps though. Maybe there is an upgrade thread somewhere on the web.

The LCR - on the other hand - is supposed to be the most transparent and have the most realistic timbre of any phono stage - supposedly. I also suppose the owners of Bolder and Walker might disagree, but Wavac was selling them for like $12 large so I guess they had to be doing someing right.

It will be interesting to see how listenable it is.

Mike

Hi all, for those who did track down certain vintage Sony pieces on my recommendations and reports, good news: I received my now perfectly-silent Sony 2000F back from the technician (who again stayed for some tunes via the Giant Direct Coupled Glass-Reinforced Lenco), and we immediately hooked it up in the system. Well, damned if the Sony, in terms of resolution, didn't match the two CJs and the EAR 834P. It comes with a very flexible phono stage (in fact, two!) with various settings for both LOMCs and MMs. It has drive, tons of PRaT and and an organic cohesiveness (ALL vintage Sony electronics from 1966-1976 have this: they were targetting McIntosh and Marantz at that time, and did a great job of emulating tubes via SS), and in strict audiophile terms beats out the legendary Dolan (which I owned and sold on after receiving the two CJs), except, like tube amps, in the bass. In my system as configured now, it is still edged out in terms of magic and dynamics by the three tubed preamps, but I'll set it up with a vintage Sony amp and see how it works out there. REALLY looking forward to this :-), the vintage Sony pieces are a hoot (and beautifully-built). Look for the TAE-5450 pre, the TAE-8450 (the top), the Sony 2000F, 1120 and 1130 integrateds (heavy-duty!), the 31XX series of amps and so on, including the V-fet series Sony developed (now currently adopted by Spectral), to demonstrate how serious they were back then.

Yet another CD man came by, this time far more audiophile-oriented (a HUGE stack and vintage and current classic high-end gear), who had given up on vinyl and embraced The Remote, out of curiosity at increasing reports of the Lenco POWER, something even the Lenco's "opponents" (besotted with belt-drive, the inertia of the long-dominating belt-drive Dogma and the lure of Status/recognizeable names/price tags and the support of the Audio Police [Stereophile, TAS, etc.]) grant the Lenco. Well, the first thing which struck me, both Digital visitors taken together, is how both immediately and readily admitted the Lenco's superiority to digital in terms of dynamics!! Now this is EXTREMELY important as, the ongoing/never-ending debate in the battle between analog-ers and the digital crowd is which system is in actuality de facto more dynamic. The reason this debate is ongoing is because both belt-drives and DDs lose out in dynamics against idler-wheel drives, and so in actual auditioning/comparisons, vinyl vs digital shootouts, the issue is not settled or clear. But, with the Lenco, the issue is clear, and devoted digitizers admit this within the first two minutes of exposure to the Lenco. The dynamics are more readily heard also because the Lenco is so refined, so precise, which allows the dynamic speed (the isntantaneous dynamic explosions) to be clearly heard (and not muddied by grain and various distortions). Also because, I believe, the Lencos in particular approach the speed stability of digital media (their sole advantage in my book over analogue, as the lasers do not affect speed stability one whit, leaving it entirely to the motor/transport, effectively operating in vacuum) more closely than any other 'table.

In the Shootout between the Lenco and the SME 30, the owner of the SME declared all Lenco superiority - which included dynamics and a sense of 3D palpability - a colouration. But I believe the dynamics are in the record/pressing/recording, as I also fail to understand how a slab of metal Direct Coupled to a large inert mass (Russian birch-ply/MDF) can create dynamics out of thin air. I mean we're talking as inert as a bag of sand, but without a bag of sand's killing of dynamics, which is why I favour the birch-ply/MDF recipe, which is also tonally spot-on and neutral (but, as in everything else, there are varying levels of success in perfecting this recipe, clamping and the quality of the materials have their effect, as well as implementation).

I live next to a musician and am occasionally invited to jam sessions (where beer is an important element ;-)), and get to hear live singing and playing in his living room. Those voices have no dynamic limits (this depends on the strength of the singer's voice), and likewise, on the Lenco, vocals strike the listener - perhaps more than anything else - with their limitless lack of dynamic ceiling on outbursts (and every instrument as well). In fact, the musician is so smitten with the sound of the Lenco/system he has asked me to host his jam group and entourage today to come hear for themselves. This after one of the songs they played last night: an incredible duet/stereo rendition last night, the two playing David Bowie's Space Oddity, one of the great musical experiences of my life. After THIS, which I was privileged to hear, the neighbour brought up my record players, and asked to bring them over. And to emphasize the point some more, he has no experience of audiophile equipment. We are talking SERIOUS performance for the Lenco, which also gets the music/magic right, unlike any other source I have ever heard, sounding SO close to the real thing (depending on accompanying equipment). I believe that, under the spell of the idea of "neutrality", which is actually a gross colouration (a coldness and analytical quality which is the stripping away of "flow", gestalt, organic and harmonic unity, which digital media embodies perfectly, but which certain DDs and high-mass belt-drives emulate with some success), many audiophiles embrace this artificial sound over and against something which does a good approximation of live music.

Which brings me to the two CJ preamps: they both (the PV-7 to a greater degree) somehow make ALL recordings come across as live. That includes studio recordings. I don't know what's going on, whether or not the CJ pres are adding something or retrieving, but I confess I LOVE it, as it makes my entire collection far more rivetting and involving, and makes understanding of each musical piece far easier to achieve. As with the Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams LP which until I heard it the other day I had never understood/appreciated as the masterpiece it is (and so many others!). The liveness comes also from the easy retrieval of the air and resonances in the studios (!), as well as both CJs' ability to cast 3D images, and so give the impression the musicians are in the room, live recording or not. And NEVER have I heard live recordings SO live! Of course, these experiences wouldn't be possible without the Mighty Lenco ;-).

Anyway Mike, good luck in your phono experiments, this is enough for now though there;'s so much more to talk about (the reinsertion of the rebuilt Leak Stereo Twenty, the incredible abilities of the Technics' SB/Studio Series of loudspeakers, and so on). I'll be sending in my PV-7 for an overhaul, and getting into the Tube Game, sigh, ANOTHER obsession ;-). Have fun with your obsessions all, as I first wrote nigh-on four years ago now and have continued to write, to some ad nauseum ;-), Vive la Lenco, Vive la Idler Wheel!