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New PL-L1000

Nice! A few questions -- what's the round thing on the lower left of the plinth?

Which headshell is on it?

Where did you get that level?
 
The round thingie is a RatShak rubber tape reel stop with DR Scholl moleskin on it's face, used with moderate pressure as a light weight record clamp. Made it ca 25 yrs ago. The headshell is an alloy jobber from my long-gone Kenwood KD-550, and the level is a hardware store mobile home level, spans the rails easily with plenty of margin.
 
My secondary experimental system looks somewhat like a crude science fair project but it's arranged to provide the most direct and uncluttered sonic access to the program material regardless of the lack of finish. The passive controller houses a DC coupled ESP PO-6 RIAA phono stage powered by the servo-noise cancelled PS on the strain gauge cart pre perched atop. The controller can access either phono unit as well as 4 other input sources and feed them to a passive stepped attenuator to direct-drive a power amp with these sources. The present power amp is a mod'ed/upgraded 1963 Silvertone P/P 6BQ5+ 12AX7 pre-drive/splitter stage console amp, chosen for it's elegant simplicity and sonic transparency. The alternate amp is an upgraded Eagle 2 which is marginally cleaner sounding with better & more extended freq extremes of course as well as much greater power reserve. Still, it does not embarass the little tube amp that much.
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The speakers are Advent-2 (by far the worst of the original Advent lineup) modified as econowaveguide monitors as per that thread. Their mid-woofer and box are superb, the discarded original dihederal tweeters and xover total crap. Reworked they are literally amazing perched against the wall on 3 ft stands. The total combo provides a reasonably transparent window into the content material.
 

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Okay, I've just waded through this thing with a big shovel and tried to clean it up.

A warning; keep your personal vendettas, thread crapping, advertising and conflicts from other boards out of this thread and off Audiokarma in general or you'll find yourself banned here.

This thread is about Pio1980's turntable - please keep your posts on-topic and within the rules.
 
Congrats Pio1980 :thmbsp:
No doubt your notable skills combined with Pro Bizzt's upgrades will produce some sweet sounds :music:

Regards,
Roger
 
My extended experience with other LTs is that they play 'problem' records with weird warping and other skip-inducing defects with much less intrusive annoyances than pivot-arms. I have a badly warped Brahms 2nd Piano concerto with the debut US recorded performance by Sviatoslav Richter/ Chicago Symphony that is essentially unlistenable/unplayable on other TTs that was a sonic revelation on this set-up with total musical involvement and satisfaction. With this combo of cart and TT I am hearing further 'into' the content and with greater naturalness that ever before, there is a definite seminal quality of hearing old favorites like Pure Prairie League's "Busting Out" for the first time as well as all other discs that were decades-duration companions. This is not a miracle worker for everything, the difference in sonics on 'Little feat's "Last record Album" sides was clearly evident strongly favoring side 2. I've been told that this occurs because the sides may be cut on different rigs and/or at different facilities and nothing will fix the 'dull' sounding side other than perhaps digital editing, if that.
 
I wonder how much of the improvement is from tuning and mods to the table, vs. the strain gauge cart and preamp?
 
Congrats on a nice turntable. I had one but it just was not for me. I liked it but it seemed there were almost too many adjustments for my liking. I finally settled on the PL 570 older one and the PL 560 much easier to use for me and sound just as good. The PL L1000 is built well and a great table but takes some adjustments. There is a lot of mechanics to them.
 
Aerobat said:
I wonder how much of the improvement is from tuning and mods to the table, vs. the strain gauge cart and preamp?
Click to expand...

I think that a very quiet, well-behaved and resonance-free TT/arm set-up like this one as an LT allows what-ever cart to perform at it's best and these SCSG carts have some unique qualities that may put them ahead of most others in performance potential. The only example I have of a lo-mass nude Shibata tip is the OEM on this cart and no doubt it's the cherry on this sundae. Still, a bonded shank conical on these carts is "to die for", I think they are that good. Their problem has always been the mediocre stereo playback performance with the Pana/Technics 4-channel decoder pre-amps. Use the simplest most direct device instead and it's a different thing altogether.
FWIW, I am considering putting a demo package together with one of these carts and a custom preamp to be entrusted and demo'ed by someone with a tricked out SL-1200MkII at the next AK fest.
 
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I think not having to deal with the pivot-arm skating issues also helps with allowing lower tracking forces without compromising performance and equalizes stylus tip wear side-to-side.
 
I hadn't handled or even seen one of these before this one came up on offer from an on-line friend and it went straight to mods for logistically convenient reasons. Therefore no before/after impressions. I have however dealt with mod'ing my own arms including a Souther SLA-3 and know how dealing with tolerance issues and resonances/mass loading critical structures and such can clean up the performance.
I'm using a Matsushita EPC-450-II Semiconductor strain gauge cart with the original nude square-shank Shibata tip in this TT, as well as other stylus options. The Shibata nudie sounds and details best of course, but the others are very good as well. I have some spherical stylii for it for older LPs and 'groove-grinder' service to keep the cart in service without wasting the unobtanium nudie. I'd imagine it sounds something like a Denon DL-103 or older properly functioning DECCA London spherical is described, set up with the spherical. I've had a pref for moving coils in the past but couldn't afford the really good ones, these carts are supposed to be comparable in significant ways to the best MCs, played thru a clean custom pre/power supply and definitely not the Pana-Technics CD-4 quad units.
 
cool

my 1000a arrived today...I set it up (leveled) checked the speed etc...Needless to say as you all ready know ...there is something really special about these tables....I want more! :D

this one sounds really good...I can't wait to give her a through check out cleaning etc...:music:

pio is there any leads on these straingage carts?
 
The Matsushita/Panasonic strain gauge carts have been turning up on the 'bay for ever-escalating sale prices in various states from mounted in the intro-level groove-grinder CD-4 channel changers they shipped to loose with/without stylii to NOS. The last no-stylus groove grinder sold Sunday in a last-seconds snipe fest just north of $150, undoubtedly just for the cart carcass in unknown cdx. The last NOS went for a bit more than $350. apparently the word on these is out. They do not meet anything like their potential in stereo thru the stocker Pana-Tech decoders, one must go custom to get what they can do well.
 
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Pretty much apples and oranges, like comparing a Fidelity Research arm to an Infinity Black Widow. Different rigs in different systems anyway.
 
Pio1980 said:
Pretty much apples and oranges, like comparing a Fidelity Research arm to an Infinity Black Widow. Different rigs in different systems anyway.
Click to expand...

Respectfully disagree regarding apples to oranges comparison. FR made mid & high mass, PL-L1000 moderate mass, and BW low mass. The Souther on the other hand can be low mass through high mass depending on how you load it. Lou Souther came out with a mass loading kit in about 1984 which was very effective.
 
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You are of course correct re the Souther SLA-3.
I had to dig out my Souther box and hope the advert lit and sales slip are still there, it was, with a nice note from Lou about an Audio Technica vacuum platter he had passed on to me and states I bought the arm from Lou on 1/5/1984. He mentioned something he called "Equi-mass" system with 3 counterweights of 2, 4, & 6 gram in the lit. Even so, it is the lightest arm known to me. I've been using Ortofon HOMCs in it since ca 1988 and stayed with them as readjusting the arm for something else is somewhat a PITA. If rails and rollers are clean it never fails to function properly, tracking off-center records in-and-out.
BTW, the Pioneer arm is presently reconfigured as hi-mass for the EPC-450C-II SCSG cart.
 
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PL-L1000 mods question

I also have a '1000 for several years now. It is normally fitted with a Audio technica Microline MM tracking at 1.2g. I have a special headshell which is just a piece of bent aluminum on a standard plug. This makes the arm fairly light. My question is that i see a special counterweight on your machine which looks fairly massive compared to the stock one without the subweight which is what i am using. Can you detail more the advantages of this particular mod? Thank you
 
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