• Please note that Audiokarma will be offline briefly for updates early on Monday morning, September 28th.

here we are:

Oh, ya the phonostage. I never ended up using it in my own system, it was from the same buddy (told you he went all in on Naim) as part of a trade and MM only since he had been using only MM up to the point we made the trade. I want to say the last cart I heard it with in his system was an Ortophon or a Rega. On an LP12. I have a vague recollection of it having a reasonably balanced presentation, a bit more lively than the Moon LP3 i used to use, but they were two circles of a half overlapping venn diagram in terms of resolution, depending on which record. The guy I sold it to was pretty happy to pick it up. The other reason I never used it was the signal connection was Naim style balanced, and not RCA or even XLR so I never had anything to plug its output into. Its chassis was beefier than the Moon, for whatever that's worth.
 
Well here's a thing: i just swapped out the set of Baldwin 6SN7 GTBs that were in the Cary for some Electro Harmonix spares I had (6SN7EH) and it got noticeably quieter, and particularly less microphonic. I suspect they were tired because I don't remember much difference when i first compared them.
 
New member joined the family yesterday, a McCurdy CH-12 idler drive broadcast table. She’s going to be a long term project. The previous owner assures me he had the idler rebuilt, but it seems the bearing tolerances were neglected, must just have been a re-tire. The motor has a bit of noise but I’m currently optimistic i can tame it.
Let me know if I should start a thread for this project or just put updates in here.

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Cleaned up the spindle a bit. Still working on figuring out the perfect plinth situation for this stage of the project, kinda got sidetracked into motor controllers but I’ll leave that for another time down the road.
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I’m going to need a whole six inches of plinth height to get the motor off the ground. And that’s before feet. It’s really something.
 
I reconnected the motor's oil line and gave it a pretty solid dose. She must have been very dry, as the motor did quiet down considerably after running for a few minutes. I am however going to have to replace the idler's bushing. The spindle is steel but it has a burr on it which has damaged the nylon bushing irreperably. My first thought was to get an oilite bronze bushing, but I was wondering if teflon might also work well. I'll have to clean up the spindle first though. The trick is going to be to maintain good working tolerances.
I'll post up a working drawing of the plinth idea I have soon. I do have a 2'x2'x1" blue slate paver to work with, but I am loath to cut it up too soon. It's also not perfectly smooth like the granite countertop material I have. So i think it'll end up underneath rather than as the plinth as I had initially envisioned when I acquired it.
 
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Gonna have to wait a smidge for an update. The move is requiring a lot more rejiggering of what goes where and the new living room is technically the same width but effectively narrower due to passageways where the front wall corners would be. Currently system is phono only and plugged in in the worst room in the house.
 
Crazy! Were there any windows in that room? There was one on the right hand side just out of frame.
 
New set up as it stands currently. Just watching Ben Ainslie an interview after a historic Louis Vuitton Cup win while listening to Sons of Kemet - Black to the Future. Super sick album!

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As you can see there's zero corner reinforcement for the speakers.
The slate paver that supports the TT sits on vintage cast iron shelf brackets, and the very long interconnect from the Tom Evans runs under the carpet. Would love to not do it that way but currently can't see another way around it. Still looking for just the right tuner.
 
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