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To those with multiple tables/arms/cartridges

How do you 'play' your system?
For 30 years I had only one turntable, one arm and one cartridge......and it never entered my mind that there was an alternative?
After upgrading my turntable nearly 5 years ago to a Raven AC-3 which allowed easy mounting of up to four tonearms......I decided to add two arms.
RAVEN
A few years later I became interested in Direct Drive turntables and purchased a vintage 30 year old Victor/JVC TT-81 followed shortly after by the top-of-the-line TT-101 and I designed and had cast 3 solid bronze armpods which I had lacquered in gloss black.
TT-101
By this time I had over 30 cartridges (both LOMCs and MMs) all mounted in their own headshells for easy interchange.
STORAGE

Every day I listen to vinyl for 3-4 hours and might play with one cartridge on one arm on one table for this whole day or even two or three days.
I then might decide to change to a different arm and cartridge on a the same table or perhaps the other.....and listen to the last side I had just heard on the previous play.
I am invariably thrilled and excited by the small differences in presentation I am able to hear....and I perhaps listen to this combination for the next few days before again lusting after a particular arm or cartridge change?

Is this the way most of you with multiple cartridges/arms listen?......or are there other intentions involved?
128x128halcro
lewm
13,113 posts
 
Dear Henry, Perhaps I was thinking of the lyric from "I've grown accustomed to her face", Henry Higgins' lament from My Fair Lady:

"Her joys, her woes
Her highs, her lows
Are second nature to me now
Like breathing out and breathing in
I was serenely independent
And content (with one turntable) before we met
Surely I can always be that way again
And yet
I've grown accustomed to her look
Accustomed to her voice(s)
Accustomed to her face(s)."

Which is why I don't think I can go back to one turntable, even though I was satisfied with one turntable all my life until 4-5 years ago. You may as well ask Casanova why he needed so many women.
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
Dear Manitunc, This may be the easy way to compare two carts but I have no problem at all to compare two carts after each other on the same tonearm. I have no idea how
'long' our musical memory is but 5 -6 minutes needed to change the carts will not 'disturbe' our memory. That is exactly what I deed today. Comparing Miyabi Standard with the Kiseki Goldspot in my FR-64s. I have a pritty good idea what the differences are.
lewm
13,113 posts
 
Henry, OT, but it's your thread and you own a TT101: I have had no problem finding oodles of correct NOS ICs to replace the clock IC in the TT101. I am going to buy several from a vendor in China, in case my TT101 is in need. Bill Thalmann says this is the Achilles heel of the TT101, and he has never been able to find the chip for sale, but I think he limits his search to the USA.
manitunc
795 posts
 
Nandric,
Maybe you can change a cartridge and be ready to listen in 5 or 6 minutes, but I can't. Just taking off and putting on a cartridge takes me more time than that, without setting VTF and alignment. I mean, without your settings being perfect, there isnt much point in comparing. And then you have to actually listen for a while. For me, unless there is a great difference in the sound between the two, it takes me a while to hear the differences, especially when you are dealing with cartridges in the over $1000 range. It is the subtleties that I am listening for, not huge disparities between cartridges.
halcro's avatar
halcro OP
2,664 posts
 
Dear Thuchan,
In the age of modern computing loading images should be a user friendly one step approach directly from the computer, everything else is somehow like working at stone age.
I couldn't agree with you more.
Instead of all the young Turks spending their time developing mobile Apps for the chance of striking it rich?........if some of them could work out a 1 or 2 button way to upload photos from your computer directly to a site like this Forum......we'd all be better off?
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