CONUNDRUM

Thanks Al. BTW you may have picked up on something about the Maestro that that I d/n focus on when I fiddled with it on my VPI Classic. As I reported in many posts to the point of ad nauseum, I had a bass ringing/resonance that Mike at VPI and I could not fix. At the time, Mike and I focused on optimizing the set up to manage the tone arm/carty resonance from a mechanical perspective.

In retrospect, I question outloud now whether there might have been a mismatch with the PH-7 by reason of capcaitance: Maestro - recommended 100pF vs. PH-7 - 200pF (not even including I/Cs of another 100pF).

I think this point is relevant to the OP because he has the same front end as I did. Any thoughts??

As an aside, I currently use a SS VPI Zephyr, a MI carty. I checked the SS web site. FWIW, nothing mentioned about capacitance that I could find????? Oh, the Zephyr sounds great to my shriveled ears.

Hi Bruce,

I wouldn't expect load capacitance to be relevant to issues at bass or subsonic frequencies.

Yes, the Maestro isn't optimally loaded by the capacitance of the PH-7 + cabling, but I have no way of knowing how significant the resulting sonic effects may be with that particular cartridge. And of course it is an issue that is separate from the overloading problem.

With respect to the Zephyr, Mr. Ledermann does provide a load capacitance recommendation, 100 to 200 pf. See page 2 of this datasheet. Again, I don't know how critical that may be.

Best regards,
-- Al

Al, I got us off topic, but I'll close the "capacitance" loop fast. Thanks for the info on the Zephyr. To my untrained journeyman ears, the Zephyr souns great, cables and all. I thought the Maestro did too. Something to be said for ignorance -- if I feel happy, then I guess I am. :)

I agree that the primary problem is line stage clipping. Al, do you agree with my suggestions above, particularly those relating to calling Tom Tutay and ARC???

Handyman...I don't believe you are correct when assuming that the output can not be reduced without sacrifice. Call Audio Research, and I am quite positive that by substituting a resistor, (an easy procedure...but you need the right kind and value and position in the circuit which Audio Research will provide) your system will sing.

I am confident Stringreen is correct in that if you call ARC, there would be an option to replace two or four fixed resistors that would change the gain by at least 12 db (I don't know if that would be enough but its a fair amount) if not more. Thats a job I would do myself and any tech could do in minnutes. I would hope that there could be 18 to 24 db of reduction with no problem.

Keep the old resistors and it can be easily restored. And it would be cheap to do.
TD