Vinyl Asylum: REVIEW: Music Hall MMF2.1 Turntables by Time_Stands

Model:	MMF2.1
Category:	Turntables
Suggested Retail Price:	$299
Description:	True audiophile turntable at a budget price
Manufacturer URL:	Music Hall
Manufacturer URL:	Music Hall

Review by Time_Stands_Still ( A ) on April 15, 2004 at 00:50:29
IP Address: 24.69.255.242

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for the MMF2.1

First off this is a review of a Music Hall mmf2.1, but one in which I added personal modifications. I'll include photos to show the modifications I made. These modifications are not required to make the mmf2.1 perform as designed by Music Hall, but are added in my opinion to make an improved performance of the an entry-level audiophile type turntable. The modifications I made are also not out of the reach of other enthusiasts with a modicum of skills and endeavour. So without delay, let me move onto my review.
I purchased the Music Hall mmf2.1 a little over a year ago. I was looking at getting back into playing vinyl again ( after many years of buying into the cd story ) and I wanted something above the standard fare of low priced and/or old used tables that were not always best performers. I also was not willing to spend grand sums of cash either. Not for my first re-entry into the audiophile world of vinyl playback. The Music Hall mmf2.1 fell into my price range and range of higher expectations.
Upon receiving it and assembling it I was happy with what I had purchased. It went together well and the stock Goldring Elan cartridge once burned in performed quite nicely. My appetite for vinyl playback was wetted. I began learning about tweaks and improvements and many on a budget. Over the last year of gained knowledge I began to make changes to an already decent sounding and working turntable. I purchased an LP Gear Rx9 replacement stylus for the Elan cartridge. The improvement was noticable. This stylus improved bass quality and reduced siblance. It also helped to lower groove noise. I have liked the overall sound of the Elan but wanted to squeeze it a bit more without having to upgrade the whole cartridge. The Rx9 gave me this.
I also changed the stock felt matt to one I made from a similar fabric, but thicker and more springly. I used "suit liner" material. I found it reduces background noise quite a bit and handles the records well enough.
So onto the major modifications:

In the general photo above you see the mmf2.1 firstly on top of a custom built sand filled isolation box. This first major step was of my own design. I utilised MDF as a material for the base and top plate ( which will float on the sand ) The sides were 3.25" basic wall moulding. The box is 12.5" deep x 18.0" wide x 3.25" high. The MDF is 1/2" The top plate is undersized from the above measurments by 2/3rds of an inch all around.
I pre-drilled four holes to fit 1.25 inch screws through the base plate. On such I attached 4 common round concave dresser drawer handles. These will thread onto the screws coming from the bottom plate. They will allow for leveling adjustment and themselves will have a rubber disc attached to the concave centres and then a thicker felt pad attached to the rubber pads. This dissimilar materials will help tame vibrations as the sandbox sits on my equipment rack. The felt will also protect the equipmnet rack. The four extended feet will elevate the sandbox above the equipment shelf.
I then filled the sandbox with about 3 inches of sand. The top plate after being painted was set on top the sand. I then glued a thin 12" X 17" foam pad to this plate as another dissimilar material and pad to set the turntable on once I was ready to do so. The sandbox was painted black then I airbrushed on many dusting coats of varathane plasticoat. This built up a pebbly durable finish that looks quite nice. The box looks very professioanl and I even made a custiom computer printout lable and affixed it to the front left of the box... My little signateur you can say.

Ok, onto the mods to the mmf2.1. First these are reversable as they DO NOT damage or forever alter the basics of the mmf2.1.
I wanted to seperate the motor from its elastomer mounting to the main plinth. I did this by making careful measurments and then bulding a sub-plinth. The sub-plinth was again made out of 1/2" MDF. It is about the same size as the mmf2.1. I painted it black and also airbrushed a pebbly varathane plasticoat on it. This makes it look nice and add durabilty to the finish. This was done after I made a cut out on the sub-plinth to where the motor will drop out after I remove the elastomers from their set screws on the main plinth. I made sure the cut out was over-sized and kept the piece that was cut out. The size of opening was about 4 inches square. The MDF piece left over was reduced by about a 1/2" all around so that it will sit in this opening and not touch the sub-plinth.
Next I cut out a round MDF disc about 2& 1/8th in dia. and it will have drilled out about a 1/2" centre hole so that once the motor (which itself is 2" in dia. and has a spindle extention ) is ready to be seated it will drop onto this round disc. I was worried about cooling the motor so I glued onto this disc two small dia. rods (actually round toothpics ) so that the motor will sit with a bottom air ventilation. I then attached 2 sided sticky tape to these so that in addition to gravity the motor will stick to this tape above the toothpics.
The round disc was glued to the MDF square cut out from the sub-plinth. I then drilled three holes in a tripod format so that I could attach 3 1.25" screws and then again 3 round dresser drawer concave handles. These will have rubber pads attached to them and they will be adjustable to level the motor housing to the mmf2.1 plinth once all attached. I then glued three round flat-like lead fishing weights to the MDF square, why? to add weight to the motor housing so that the start up inertia of the motor and belt will not force the sub-housing to move. I'd say the weights are atleast a pound in weight and the motor is not strong enough to move the housing with such weight as I start the mmf2.1 up.

You see a close up of how the motor rests on its sub-housing and a bit of the feet used to adjust and hold it in place. The motor is totally isolated from the main plinth other than the drive belt driving the polymer sub-platter.
The rest of of the sub-plinth was designed to sit the mmf2.1 on securely using the mmf21. feet as a semi-decoupled suspension. The MDF was equally measured out and predrilled to fit in a tripod format three screws and three more round concave dresser drawer handles. These will have rubber pads attached to them and will be adjustable for leveling.
The sub-plinth isolates the mmf2.1 plinth from my sandbox floating plate, other than the three feet with rubber discs attached to them. The motor housing is seperate from this sub-plinth and it too sits on the floating sandbox plate with three feet helping to affix and isolate it from the other components in my design.
All this sounds complex, but it is really not, one can create such a design in an afternoon to a day including painting and set up. It is a fairly cheap tweak,(cost me about $30.00 Cdn. for materials) It looks cools and makes the diminuitive mmf2.1 look higher tech and more imposing, BUT! the question is, HOW DOES IT ALL SOUND?
Well the mmf2.1 is a very decent out of the box starter audiophile qualty turntable. 9/10 of its owners will probably be happy with it as is, but my modifications from a solid sand box, spiked/ padded adjustable feet and custom designed sub-plinth and seperate motor housing improves things GREATLY.
Background noise and rumble is very low, the blackness of noise from playing records in good condtion is astounding. It is almost as quiet as many cd's I own. Clicks and pops are suspended above the more black noise floor. They are also quite a bit muted. BASS!, well it is much more solid, faster and hits harder. The sounbstage is deeper, wider and more intact with much less smear and grunge. Imaging is more pinpoint in clarity of vocals and is heightend and the highs seem to reach a texture that was lost on the stock Elan/mmf21. level of quality. The reduction in resonances and vibrations getting to the tonearm is much a result of this improved performance. The LP Gear Rx9 stylus sings ontop this custom set up. I would easily put my setup against tables costing twice as much if not more. The tweaks including the upgraded stylus cost me maybe $80 Cdn. in total. In my opinian I have a setup that would impress even those more fussy audiophiles of vinyl and owners of much more expensive set ups.
It was a fun project, it was affordable and makes my set up unique. I spent one solid day of effort on building this task and it looks pretty good but sounds great. I hope my commentry here is clear enough for you all to get a taste of what I did and I hope it comes across as not intimidating but rather straight forward to do. Yes, it required and requires attention to details and checking from time to time, to make sure it remains set up so that it performs well. It does change the mmf 2.1 from a quick out of the box set up to a more tweaky setup, but it's not hard to keep set up like this and spinning some of my favourite LP's on it tells me it was worth it all.

Product Weakness: Not much when one factors in price. Maybe a little more quality to overall fit and finish.
Product Strengths: Affordable beginning to audiophile performance, ease of use, clean styling, good starter cartridge. Easy to tweak.

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	Denon AVR-3802 receiver
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	n/a
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Cambridge Audio D-300SE
Speakers:	Paradigm Export Bi-Polar monitors
Cables/Interconnects:	variety from Ultralink to Monster
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	classic rock
Room Size (LxWxH):	24 x 14 x 10
Room Comments/Treatments:	Typical room for music/home theatre
Time Period/Length of Audition:	n/a
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	n/a
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

Product Weakness:	Not much when one factors in price. Maybe a little more quality to overall fit and finish.
Product Strengths:	Affordable beginning to audiophile performance, ease of use, clean styling, good starter cartridge. Easy to tweak.