Question regarding technical parameters of LPs.

[Wombat]

PS: So I'm at an Aldi food store today with my wife, picking up some vegetables (Pineapples on sale, get 'em while you can) and on one of the aisles they had a box of records for sale. I'm thinking, "Great, some discounted records." I looked at the boxes and they were $18.00 a throw. I remember supermarket records selling for 99 cents. Anyhow, I couldn't resist and started flipping through. They had Elvis' Christmas record, and, of all things, Are You Experienced by Jimi Hendrix. I used to own that one as a kid. The original album artwork and everything. I thought about it, but just left the store with some pineapples and whatever else the Princess threw into the cart. As we were leaving, I was whistling 'the Wind Cries Mary'.

LPs,
Aldi Oz, Saturday Dec. 14: https://www.aldi.com.au/en/special-...saturday-detail-wk50/ps/p/vinyl-record-mix-2/

 

[watchnerd]

LPs,
Aldi Oz, Saturday Dec. 14: https://www.aldi.com.au/en/special-...saturday-detail-wk50/ps/p/vinyl-record-mix-2/

And a $99 TT with speakers!

https://www.aldi.com.au/en/special-...day-detail-wk50/ps/p/turntable-with-speakers/

But UH OH:

"Ceramic cartridge"

 

[restorer-john]

And a $99 TT with speakers!

Mate, you gotta buy the styling stand for it too!

 

[Robin L]

I've never heard a SET power / integrated amp. I suppose I need to do so in order to up my audiophile street cred.

OTOH, when I use an outboard phono stage, it's completely tube-based with passive RIAA. I uses 6DJ88 triodes. I they single-ended? Does the term even apply for small signal tubes?

Don't know all that much about tubes, but what I've read is that SET is in reference to early designs for output tubes, usually low power but not for preamps.

 

[watchnerd]

Mate, you gotta buy the styling stand for it too!

View attachment 41852

For $99, I'm tempted to buy it and send it to @amirm for testing.

I'll lend him some egg crates and cinder blocks for the stand. It would be more hipster cool than that thing.

 

[restorer-john]

For $99, I'm tempted to buy it and send it to @amirm for testing.

That's a cruel joke.

I've picked up a few off the side of the road/opshops of that type of abominations. Often they have useful parts. Belts, an unused AT cartridge, bluetooth modules, small class D amplifiers etc.

I picked up one which had captive nut fully adjustable (height levelling) feet on it. Yes, on a piece of junk, they used rather nice feet- goodness knows why.

 

[restorer-john]

Here is one of the feet. Two layer captive nut large feet which can be screwed to any height and then top/bottom locked against each other. Nice and large soft pads on the bottom and a bracket mouted ~1/4" threaded steel mount inside the cabinet. Someone at the Chinese factory must have had a thing for quality supports on what was otherwise a piece of junk.

Honestly, I've seen worse feet on $5K turntables! And this was on a unit that would record vinyl to an internal CDR or encode MP3s to an SD card.

 

[watchnerd]

Here is one of the feet. Two layer captive nut large feet which can be screwed to any height and then top/bottom locked against each other. Nice and large soft pads on the bottom and a bracket mouted ~1/4" threaded steel mount inside the cabinet. Someone at the Chinese factory must have had a thing for quality supports on what was otherwise a piece of junk.

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Honestly, I've seen worse feet on $5K turntables! And this was on a unit that would record vinyl to an internal CDR or encode MP3s to an SD card.

Awesome feet make up for the ceramic cartridge!

 

[watchnerd]

Here is one of the feet. Two layer captive nut large feet which can be screwed to any height and then top/bottom locked against each other. Nice and large soft pads on the bottom and a bracket mouted ~1/4" threaded steel mount inside the cabinet. Someone at the Chinese factory must have had a thing for quality supports on what was otherwise a piece of junk.

View attachment 41857

View attachment 41858

View attachment 41859

View attachment 41860

Honestly, I've seen worse feet on $5K turntables! And this was on a unit that would record vinyl to an internal CDR or encode MP3s to an SD card.

I bet you anything they were originally parts / feet for something totally different.

They probably had a bin of leftovers.

 

[scott wurcer]

Did some playing today. Same cartridge (not the one from ^ ) with three different test records:

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The XG7002 record follows closest to the factory measurement:

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The STR120 has obvious problems and I am beginning to seriously doubt the value of measurements from the original CBS Labs LP's.

BTW I'm working on a Python script to do the azimuth adjustment routine, it seems fairly trivial but it's important to calibrate all the pre-amp channels in the signal chain.

 

[Sal1950]

Have to say I've found the sound of SETs enticing, call me a sick puppy if you will.

 

[JP]

The STR120 has obvious problems and I am beginning to seriously doubt the value of measurements from the original CBS Labs LP's.

BTW I'm working on a Python script to do the azimuth adjustment routine, it seems fairly trivial but it's important to calibrate all the pre-amp channels in the signal chain.

Ooh I want to play with that one. My preamp channels happen to be rather well calibrated.

Here's the square wave response for the XL-88D from the CBS CTC-310 record:

 

[watchnerd]

XL-88D: http://fidelisanalog.com/2018/10/20/sony-xl-88d/

It's a bit special - the cantilever and stylus are one-piece diamond.

Circa 1980, it looks like?

What arm are you using?

 

[JP]

Circa 1980, it looks like?

What arm are you using?

Yep.

Technics EPA-500 (501H wand for this cart) 'Table is an SP-10MK3.

 

[Hiten]

Stereo Review reviewed a Sony DD with some kind of damping fluid filled mat. Hirsch said he couldn't tell any difference using that mat, or another regular mat. Measurements were the same.
.

This is the measurements I had mentioned earlier.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Audio/80s/Audio-1988-04.pdf
The article starts from printed page no. 45. pdf page 49.
Regards

 

[Sal1950]

^
It's always a hoot to read one of those old Audio mags. I think I read every issue from the very early 70s till they folded.
The good ole days, detailed measurements on turntable mats. When people really cared about knowing the truth

 

[Wombat]

LPs,
Aldi Oz, Saturday Dec. 14: https://www.aldi.com.au/en/special-...saturday-detail-wk50/ps/p/vinyl-record-mix-2/

The Bob Marley one?

 

[restorer-john]

It's always a hoot to read one of those old Audio mags.

Read the Sony CDP-707esD review starting on page 56...

 

[Ceburaska]

^
It's always a hoot to read one of those old Audio mags. I think I read every issue from the very early 70s till they folded.
The good ole days, detailed measurements on turntable mats. When people really cared about knowing the truth

Frankly it almost makes me cry to see the state to which we (the Hifi world) have descended. It’s like if The Lancet had folded and we were left with Health and Homeopathy.

 

[anmpr1]

This is the measurements I had mentioned earlier.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Audio/80s/Audio-1988-04.pdf

Thanks for that. Summary: different mats emphasize/de-emphasize different parts of the audible spectrum. Vacuum hold down with a clamp provided the best damping effect.

However, I wonder about the experimental design, as to its actual validity to audible effects when playing records. Here's how it was done:

For this report. the test signal was applied as a mechanical impulse to the edge of the record. It was then picked up by a phono cartridge with its stylus resting in a stationary groove.

So they essentially hammered the side of a stationary record, stylus in groove, and measured the resulting impulse on a 'scope. OK. But whether that sort of test has any relation to an actual record spinning at 33.33 on a turntable positioned on a relatively isolated platform, away from gross acoustic feedback, is a question I cannot answer. My guess is that the relationship is possibly tenuous.

That said, one can easily observe the effects of vacuum hold down on tonarm/stylus motion, so I don't at all doubt that such a system is helpful.