So my journey into the New Frontier is taking all kinds of interesting turns. Won't go into all the big changes in my system until later, but one thing I nailed today was trouble shooting a low grade hum that's been in my Denon spinner for years. The move away from the phono input on my Sony processor didn't help and it had me scratching my head. It also had me on the verge of returning a new component because it's so transparent, the hum was really sticking out at higher volume levels.
Low & behold, I found out that the AT150MLX cart has a grounded, right channel pin - tied to a gold plated layer in the construction of the cart body. Why? Not sure. But I performed the surgery under a magnifying glass with a wing & a prayer, removing that gold plated ground strap from the -R pin and Bam! ... the hum is gone. Completely and utterly fantastic. A successful ground-loop mystery finally solved. And as it is my newly adopted AB procedure, I'm spinning Shpongle's 'Divine Moments of Truth' as my go-to reference track and everything I've amassed in the last few weeks has brought the noise floor of my entire system down to mere shadows and attack & sound stage busted open to mind blowing levels. People talk about dynamic range & imaging that drops to 'black' on the right material and although the new 77ES amp was super quiet before ... now it's something totally different. I finally know what all the fuss was about...
I've also learned just how important capacitance is with relation to turntables and the fidelity tweak you get when it's loaded to spec.
Dreary with rain today ... and pretty much expected to be that way for the entire weekend. Dug out this box set. Now that the system is tuned, I went to open the set and realized that I had totally forgotten there is a half-speed master of the original album on vinyl inside.. cut at 45 RPM. I'm a dumb ass for never getting around to spinning it with the new amp & the Logans. In any event, I'm not impressed with 12" 45 RPM playback based off of this pressing. Seems no better to my ears and I'd actually stick my neck out and say that the CD's sounds a bit better.
Anyone have a suggest as to something more recently produced/recorded - perhaps some jazz or classical - that sounds mind blowing @ 45 RPM?
