As some of you may know, I have been struggling with my analog, especially getting low frequency feedback when playing vinyl to the point that it is scary, and probably electrically dangerous, not to mention not relaxing. I have struggled with this problem for the past three years-gone through four turntables, four cartridges, two phono stages, three sets of interconnects phono to phono stage, two vibraplanes and a 200 pound piece of granite and a massive amount of 6"x6" white pine supports and joists in the critical areas. Each change made some change, not all improvements, for the first time in 3+ years, I may have found at least part of the solution.
I want to thank everyone who has thrown in their thoughts to try to help me. I learned something, both good and bad from each. While it is probably too soon to write this because I have only 4 hours of listening on my latests analog rig, but I am listening and smiling as I write this. even though my ZYX Optimum cartridge has a mere 4 hours on it- nowhere near its 100 hour minimum break-in point. No doubt most of you have not heard of this cartridge because Mehran at Sorasound has been pretty hush about it, since there are only 6 in existence thus far and they are sold with me buying the sixth close to two months ago and not having heard it till Friday, and was still having problems until 90 minutes ago that led to the cartridge getting hung up as it tried to traverse record, connected to my new to me Rockport Sirrius 6000 air-bearing straight-tracking tonearm, mounted on my new to me Triangle Art Reference SE turntable, weighing in at 275 pounds.
I am sure that I do not have the set-up right and just remembered that I do not have the damping paddle attached, nor the Vibraplane turned on, because in an earlier iteration it made things worse. I am also jerry rigging things because the tonearm did not come with all of the pieces like the extra counterweights making my cartridge too lite at 6 grams for the one counter weight I do have. It is amazing what three small washers can do on the end of the arm wand. I also did not get the necessary protractor for the arm so I had to jerry rig using and Geo Disk protractor from my MFSL Beatles box, which for the time being is quite adequate and helped me get rid of the problems with the grooves and the air bearing, because I was off by about a centimeter when eyeballed.
While this may be a bit, or a lot, premature, I went from a ZYX Ultimate Premium, the former big dog to the Optimum, which is likely to replace the Ultimate Premium as the new kahuna, when they are available. All I can say at this point, is if it this much better out of the box, then I cannot wait to hear the sound when it is broken in. It is so quiet, and yet scary dynamic, with incredible, not sterile dynamics. All I can say about the bass at this point is that it is amazing and for some reason no feedback. BTW, the phono stage is Lamm and core electronics are Spectral DMC 30 SV and DMA 300 RS playing through Vivid G3's and JL F 113's in a new and wacky position about 20 inches directly behind the Vivids with the rear spine of the speaker aimed directly at the woof driver center. This has considerably reduced the interactions between the side firing G3 woof and the forward firing JL's
I want to thank everyone who has thrown in their thoughts to try to help me. I learned something, both good and bad from each. While it is probably too soon to write this because I have only 4 hours of listening on my latests analog rig, but I am listening and smiling as I write this. even though my ZYX Optimum cartridge has a mere 4 hours on it- nowhere near its 100 hour minimum break-in point. No doubt most of you have not heard of this cartridge because Mehran at Sorasound has been pretty hush about it, since there are only 6 in existence thus far and they are sold with me buying the sixth close to two months ago and not having heard it till Friday, and was still having problems until 90 minutes ago that led to the cartridge getting hung up as it tried to traverse record, connected to my new to me Rockport Sirrius 6000 air-bearing straight-tracking tonearm, mounted on my new to me Triangle Art Reference SE turntable, weighing in at 275 pounds.
I am sure that I do not have the set-up right and just remembered that I do not have the damping paddle attached, nor the Vibraplane turned on, because in an earlier iteration it made things worse. I am also jerry rigging things because the tonearm did not come with all of the pieces like the extra counterweights making my cartridge too lite at 6 grams for the one counter weight I do have. It is amazing what three small washers can do on the end of the arm wand. I also did not get the necessary protractor for the arm so I had to jerry rig using and Geo Disk protractor from my MFSL Beatles box, which for the time being is quite adequate and helped me get rid of the problems with the grooves and the air bearing, because I was off by about a centimeter when eyeballed.
While this may be a bit, or a lot, premature, I went from a ZYX Ultimate Premium, the former big dog to the Optimum, which is likely to replace the Ultimate Premium as the new kahuna, when they are available. All I can say at this point, is if it this much better out of the box, then I cannot wait to hear the sound when it is broken in. It is so quiet, and yet scary dynamic, with incredible, not sterile dynamics. All I can say about the bass at this point is that it is amazing and for some reason no feedback. BTW, the phono stage is Lamm and core electronics are Spectral DMC 30 SV and DMA 300 RS playing through Vivid G3's and JL F 113's in a new and wacky position about 20 inches directly behind the Vivids with the rear spine of the speaker aimed directly at the woof driver center. This has considerably reduced the interactions between the side firing G3 woof and the forward firing JL's
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