Goldring 1042

I have had a few weeks with the Orbe now and I have to say it is delighting me, no post purchase depression at all (despite still not having the heart to put the LP12 on ebay as that feels like betraying an old friend).

After a couple of changes (which I’ll mention shortly) I now have the most realistic sounding vinyl replay I have ever had, sometimes it’s eerily ‘present’.  I won’t go on with the usual rose tinted views of how wonderful everything is but there are a couple of things that are worth a mention e.g. The Orbe is much quieter surface noise and scratch wise than the LP12, despite using the same arm and cartridge.  I can play music at lower levels and still get a full sonic/acoustic ‘picture’.  It presents very different soundstages from record to record and even track to track.  It doesn’t’ ‘paint’ everything with its own colour and isn’t as forgiving of poor recordings as the LP12.  This can be a shock at first, almost every record/track that I play on the Orbe comes with added detail, drama and scale but occasionally it seems to say: “I’m sorry that’s just plain bad, nothing I can do and here’s why” and makes a point of showing the shortcomings.  The worst example of this is what I can only describe as reduced bandwidth recordings.  The best analogy for this is that it’s the audio equivalent of watching a 19” picture on a 50” screen; you can almost hear the unused frequency/dynamic space around the music.  I suspect the high bandwidth of Reflex has a hand in this, the fact that it’s doing a brilliant job of letting me hear the benefits of the new deck also means it’s going to let me hear what’s missing.  Again this tends to be the odd track rather than whole records but a couple of 70’s live albums have been found wanting.  This is a shame, because until most of them stop being dead, there’s little chance of a Ramones come back tour or a new live album.  It’s still a small price to pay though for a very big overall improvement.  In contrast, this is the first time I have played classical albums and really felt as though I have “got it”, presentation wise.  An odd point is that the G1042’s sensitivity to VTA (which started this thread) seems much reduced, though small changes in down force and bias can be very easily heard.

The two changes I have made have both been on the advice of the helpful people at Michell.  The first was to replace my MDF shelf with a 1” thick piece of slate.  Initially this made everyone sound like Kate Bush but then I noticed it was actually touching one of the uprights on the rack (I’d had it cut a tad bigger to give me more room - clumsy).  After repositioning it the slate brought noticeable gains in bass pace and generally sharpened things up.  The second change was new decoupled fixings for the arm board which came from Michell, at their recommendation, for £19.  I didn’t like the look of these as to me it looked like they would soften things up, perhaps at the cost of some detail:  wrong.  Noticeable gains in detail and soundstage depth.   Also and I don’t like to use indefinable terms but hey ho – this mod added what I can best describe as a good dose of ‘boogie factor’.  Whatever that is, the LP12 when ‘right’, was good at it and although I hadn’t missed it; I had noted that the ultra-stable sound of the Orbe, was sometimes a little robotic.  Despite not being able to say what this is, it it something I definitely hear and like and in the past, have gained and lost by degrees, when setting up the LP12.  Psychoacoustics? “Psychobollox - more like”, I hear you say!  I’m not sure either but I noticed it straight away; it was as if the musicians had just nodded at each other, grinned and gone: “good one”.  Well worth £19, choose what……….

Edited by IvanM - 18 Apr 2008 at 4:41pm

Ivan,
you do realise of course that it is exactly this sort of nebulous flim-flam extolling the praises of your latest acquisition that will inflame the passions of the terminally gullible (such as myself) and lead to a case of "I have to have this thing NOW" 
Well, perhaps.
On a more Sirius note, sounds good, glad it is working for you, interesting your observation on the arm damping fixings, I have read elsewhere of similar mods for the Gyro from a Danish engineer that reportedly have similar effects.
One wonders if the apparent reduction in surface noise might be attributable to the acrylic platter - this is pure speculation on my part.
Interesting also your observations WRT classical pieces and to the variations between recordings becoming more apparent.
As I have upgraded my system I seem to find that each significant improvement in resolution and reproduction results in the discovery of yet more less than perfect recordings (whether big black disc or small silver one).
Yes, it has also become very easy to tell the compilation albums from the recorded all at one time ones.

Dave,
over 18 months ago I had two turntables, one a Sansui SR-525 (reasonable quality direct drive) and a fairly normal P2 - the differences between them were as you describe - not marked. I decided to embark on a program of upgrades to the P2, of all those, only a couple made obvious improvements, immediately and undeniably better, most of the rest were of the barely discernible variety.
The first was a change of arm and cartridge, the second was a combination of 3 different things, a different phase splitter tube in my preamp, replacement of the main volume control with a stepped attenuator and yet another cartridge upgrade.
I recently revisited the Sansui and placed it in the system for a day and spent quite a time optimising it for best performance using B's 7th symphony, a good tuning piece with plenty of crescendos, lots of dynamic range and a variety of instumental timbres for reference.
I listened to the entire piece when I was happy with the setup and then replaced the hotrod P2 in the system and replayed the piece.
It was immediately apparent that none of the upgrades had been wasted, the cumulative effect was significant, and note that the Sansui had the benefit of the improved preamp also.
Interesting, to me at least, was that that preamp upgrade also allowed me to distinguish differences between CD players that I had not been able to definitively separate before, I think that in this the stepped attenuator was the major contributor.
In fact, first up after fitting it and spinning a favourite CD, it sounded like a major CDP upgrade.
Has it been worthwhile? - for me yes, I have had a lot of fun and surprised myself with what I can hear the difference in and increased my pleasure in listening.
Not having great expectations to start with, unsure of my own listening abilities and ability to reliably discriminate, unsure if I would make any improvement at all that I would notice, aware only of what I did not like and that I was sensitive to distortions of certain types.
With some understanding of mechanical engineering I have been able to correlate what I hear with what one theoretically should be able to observe from various tweaks and hence to formulate and test theories as to where the next improvement might be found or where might be the cause of any observed problem.
The stepped attenuator was rather serendipitous, in that I would not have troubled had not the original volco been being naughty, but its immediate contribution was undeniable, it seemed to lift the entire system to another level and independent confirmation came from a visiting friend with many years of audio phoolery who immediately asked what I had changed and then sat enraptured as we spun some big black things.
disclaimer - I have never owned a Goldring 1042, a Ramones LP or anything yellow other than a flotation vest and a spray jacket.

Hello tg

No yellow Ramones albums eh?  Mmmm.... perhaps now is the time to get one!   Not a lot of call for flotation vests of any colour here and the only use I'd have for a spray jacket would be keeping the bloody rain off me.