Intro and newbie plans/concerns
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| Posted on August 31, 2015 at 14:38:49 | ||
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Posts: 2723
Location: Austin,Texas Joined: December 9, 2000 |
Hi folks, Since I see that more quality recordings are being put to vinyl by companies targeting audiophiles, I've decided to take the plunge. I'm especially intrigued with the 45rpm 180 gram vinyl. I've been lurking on the internet for some time, but other than that, I know nothing. I'm a DIY kind of guy, and post occasionally on the Tubes DIY Asylum, as well as the Tubes Asylum. I build my own vacuum tube amplifiers, and line stages, as well as several DIY speaker projects. I've been doing this for about 15 years. So in the spirit of DIY, I've decided to make my own DIY analog front end. My plan is to do this on a budget of about $1200. I've stayed away from vinyl because of the high costs involved, and the fact is that I'm poor. I figure I can invest about $1200 over a 6-12 month period of time and end up with a very decent vinyl set up. I know this is less than a lot of folks have invested in a cartridge, but think it's possible. Here's what I have so far. A Rek-O-Kut L-34 Rondine Jr., minus the tonearm and plinth, a full sheet of 13 ply 3/4" birch plywood, and a pair of Harman Kardon Model XT-3 Mic matching transformers, 500 ohm primary to 50K secondary, with a CT, so can configure as a 10:1 or 20:1 SUT for a moving coil cartridge (I'm told they work well for that application). Here's my tentative plan for going forward. First I'm going to send off my Rek-O-Kut to Applied Fidelity for the "full Monty", and build a plinth out of the Baltic Birch plywood, and probably a little slate for added weight (around 50 lbs) and damping. That's pretty straight forward and seems like a solid path (excuse the pun). Next, I think I'll build a Hagerman Bugle 2 phono stage, only with better resistors and caps. That seems to be a pretty solid choice for bang for the buck, but always open to suggestions. Maybe later, I can invest in the parts to build a good tube fired LCR phonostage. As far as bang for the buck in the world of cartridges, seems as if the Denon 103r is a good choice. I also like the idea that you can modify these things with different bodies, potting, and re-tipping to get even more performance, for a modest increase in cost. Exactly how all this affects the stock cartridge compliance and tonearm compatibility will be the subject of future posts, many questions come to mind. Lastly, the most complicated (at least to me) is the tone arm. To keep this in budget, it will have to be a DIY tonearm, and I like it that way as well. I find it very satisfying to make something with the advice of others, and you own hands and mind, that rivals or even exceeds expensive commercial offerings. After a lot of reading on this forum, the DIY Forum, and the Vinyl Engine Forum, I've narrowed it down to either the Nanook 219, or a WTL tonearm clone. I'm leaning heavily to the WTL clone, as it looks like it might have better performance, and I'm not too intimidated by it's added complexity over the Nanook 219. I'm sure there will be MANY questions about this aspect of the build, so bear with me please. That's the general plan, and at this point, I am totally open to suggestions, as so far, the only thing written in stone, is the Rek-O-Kut. Any suggestions, advice, sources, links, or plans would be greatly appreciated. How am I doing so far? twystd
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| RE: Intro and newbie plans/concerns , posted on August 31, 2015 at 18:22:54 | |
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Posts: 23900
Location: Central Kentucky Joined: December 20, 2000 Contributor Since: January 29, 2004 |
You have a very interesting and challenging project ahead of you. In order to provide more accurate input, I would need to have a breakout of the estimated cost for each part of the project. For example, the DL-103R will cost $214 from 2juki with free shipping if you act fast. Another cartridge option might be the DL-301II for $270, which has a special elliptical stylus and 4-dB higher output voltage. It also has higher compliance for a lower mass tonearm. This might be a consideration since your WTL clone tonearm might be lower in effective mass, depending on how you make it and what you use for the arm-tube. Then the DL-301II might provide better performance than the DL-103R for just a little more money. Do you have any information on the WTL clone tonearm project? Can you provide a URL so we can see pictures? How much money are you allocating for the tonearm project? The Bugle phono stage sounds like a good plan. You say you are looking at upgraded parts. How much money are you allocating for the phono stage? I bought a Yaqin tube phono stage through eBay for $198 total with free shipping and it really sounds good to me. I use it in conjunction with a step-up transformer for moving coil cartridges on my secondary turntable and its sound quality is totally satisfying in my system. My primary turntable is connected to a $4200 Pass Labs XOno phono stage and although it sounds better, I am perfectly happy with the sound of my Yaqin phono stage. Consequently, the Yaqin MS-23B might be another phono stage option to consider. It sounds like you will have a lot of fun with this project. Please keep us updated with all the details. Good luck, John Elison
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| What's the "full monty" entail. . ., posted on August 31, 2015 at 23:39:23 | |
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for $381 you could probably have picked up a clean used technics sl1200, w/ an arm.
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| RE: What's the "full monty" entail. . ., posted on September 1, 2015 at 06:01:53 | |
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Sapphire bearing, platter machined and polished above and below to tight tolerances. He's doing mine now. Dave
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