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Blond moment??

G

greenhill

New Member
Hi,

I've bought a second hand vinyl set up piece by piece from ebay.

A Yamaha TT-300 turntable
Rotel RA8408X3 amplifier
A pair of Mission 760 monitors

I switched on and I have that common problem of the set-up not seeming to have much volume.
I can turn it up full and it gives me a plesent but low key level, when you would expect it to be blasting out!

So, I thought does the amp have a phono sound stage? Well it's got a dedicated phono input but i know that sometimes this does not mean that is has the internals. The turntable has phono plug outputs and a ground wire which I've connected to the terminal on the amp.

I bought a little phono pre-amp (AV-link) as I thought this might be it, and hooked it up, and all I get now is a pulsing buzzing.

i've tried it with another amplifier which i know works, ive tried the speakers elsewhere so they're both fine. I'm not sure if a cartrage change would make any difference (to moving magnet?) but in turms of pick-up it seems to be fine. I feel sure there is a simple and common explanation but I am in the dark.

What do i need to do to get this set up working as it should?

Any thoughts?

:/
 
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I have a Pioneer Elite AVR with an internal phono stage, but, because I wanted to be able to digitize my LPs, I bought myself a nifty Parasound external phono pre. Now, not only do I have the ability to digitize my records, but, I have a phono system that sounds a lot better. Nothing like putting the phono pre-amp section in an external box....

You sound like you know what you're doing, so I'll apologize in advance if I insult your intelligence, but I have a couple of questions about the set-up when you were using the external phono pre-amp:
  • When you hooked it up, did you plug the outputs from the phone pre into the phono ins on the Rotel? If you did, that could be the source of the buzz. You shouldn't plug the outs from a phono pre into the phono ins. Plug them, instead, into one of the aux inputs on the Rotel.
  • If my first question is irrelevant, have you tracked down possible grounding issues with the phono pre?
    • Have you tried it on another amp or receiver? If it didn't buzz on the other, then the problem isn't with the pre-amp.
    • Are you certain the ground wire is correct and not loose?
That's about all I can come up with right now.
 
meggy said:
Have you tried testing the amp using a different source?
Click to expand...

Excellent point. And it's what I thought when I asked about the phono pre.... But, of course, I missed the first, and most vital question... which you asked.
 
Not familiar with the Yamaha phono but by chance does the phono section have a MM/MC selector or a capacitor loading section in the phono?
 
Well, I acted on your feed back and have worked out what was happening.
The amp was tested fine. I tried the set up through AUX which got rid of the buzz but still had the volume problem.
In the end I found that there were three things going on. The MC/MM setting on the hotel made the difference between crisper or more muffled sound because of the type of cartridge.
The ac supply to the cheep pre-amp was causing the buzz (no suppressor in the cable?). Ridiculous when it's designed to do this job! so shaped to using the battery supply in the pre-amp and this eliminated the pulsing buzz and swapped back to the phono input on the amp and the set up now works a treat with tones of volume! and a really nice rich sound.
Many thanks guys :)
 
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