I wonder if anyone else is using (or has used) a Goldring 1042 and if they are, I wonder if they have found it to be as fussy about VTA and bias as I have?  The bias isn’t a problem but the VTA is doing my crust in.  When I get it bang right the sparkle and presence are captivating but it seems that the difference between a thick record and a thin one is enough to take the shine off.  I don’t know if it’s the nature of the cart or just that I am being allowed to hear the difference that small adjustments make due to the extra info I get from the Reflex.  The fact that I have one of those tonearms that leaves for the centre of the earth immediately the grub screw on the centre pillar is released is not helping much iether.  I am happy that the alignment is correct so I’m beginning to wonder if I’m getting over fussy but the sweet spot seems remarkably small and the difference surprisingly noticeable.

Hello tg

Thanks for the steer on Acoustic Signature TT's, never heard of them to be honest.  I'll check them out though.  Final Tool is a bit of a worrying name though, can't decide if it makes me think of a murder weapon or an insult!

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……….

Hello Dave

Ramones - yellow vinyl - glory days mate!

To be honest subtle upgrades elude me, I try to take the view that if it’s not obvious I am probably kidding myself on.  Another test is if my wife can hear the difference. 

The thing that strikes me about your post is that I have listened to bog standard PT’s and I thought the sound was very good.  Admittedly its a few years ago but the first thing I would want to establish is what the real problem is before doing any more tweaking.  IE Is the system already sounding so good that tweaks just make it different rather than better?  Or is the deck not performing to the very best of its abilities (are you sure everything is tight/level/aligned/earthed correctly)? Or If it is working well, is something downstream stopping the sound getting to your ears e.g. wrong support, interference, bad room acoustic, other kit? 

I have never had a PT and I don’t know if they ‘go off’ but the LP12 definitely did and I'd get that ‘just not happy with it’ feeling.  I found that sometimes the only cure was a complete strip down and rebuild, a tedious way to spend a day - but always a rewarding one.  Once I found that one of the suspension legs was slightly bent, god only knows how it had got bent or how long it had been bent but it worked better with a straight one.

Hope you soon get things sorted.

IvanM

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.

Re the reduction in surface noise, like you I think the mass of the platter and also probably being clamped is something to do with this.  How does it know what's rubish and what's music though?  I also think the more rigid arm board helps the arm hold the cartridge more rigidly, allowing the cartridge to track better (and it does acording the HFN test record).  Some of the reduction may also be relative as in the wider bandwidth/greater dynamic it becomes a much less obtrusive feature.  I have just read this before hitting Post and it's tripe: really I haven't got a bloody clue why!  Posting anyway as I don't want to waste the typing. 

ABPest wrote: My hi-fi stand is glass shelved and Michell advised against standing the GyroDec on glass, advising slate/marble/MDF I have chosen a lovely contoured 1" thick piece of MDF as my brother in law has a woodworking factory  I have however, aquired some marble which I shall have cut to shape!   Michell are most helpful, especially when you can talk to them by phone !

I have a Gyrodec SE/OL1 Modded on a glass shelf never thought to ask Michell... what did they say?

Armboard mod -  talked to Michell at a show in Manchester last year and they told me it was well worth it. Got it myself now one thing to watch out for though is that there are two versions for the Rb250 arms depending on whether you have a VTA adjuster or not.

I have just bought a Ortofon 2m Black after spending many a happy year with a Reson Reca which is a 1042 in another guise.

Will have to look around about testing this on the cheap, hate to splashout and then get rejected by 'she who should be obeyed' for aesthetic reasons