Yelamanchili manohar
Well-Known Member
Long rant warning 
...
On my return home this time, I completely lost interest in music. So much so, that I was switching on the system for barely an hour a month. And even that might be an exaggeration. Adding to that, I did a silly mistake and blew my tube amps as well as the ps audio power regenator. That was the final nail in the coffin. I couldn't be bothered to run around to get them fixed, when I had the least interest in using them. Besides I've been travelling too much lately, and even decent family time has become a rarity. So that spelled the end of this hobby for me. And the system was kept unplugged ever since.
Then on a whim, I decided to atleast setup the vinyl rig I had lying here in bits and peices for almost a year now. Mr pradeep garu of hyderabad volunteered to set it up for me. Actually he did all the hard work, as I was only handing him the tools like a nurse in a operation theatre. We finally finished late in the night. And when we spun it up for the first time, we got a tiny voice sounding like music somewhere distant, drowning in horrendously loud hiss and hum. Ive had serious grounding and hum issues in the past, due to very poor wiring in my apartment ( The ps audio ironed them out for me in the past.. But it's sadly dead now 
) . Besides, I was using some interconnects with well known hum issues. So we stopped for the night.
Chain was :
TT - acoustic signature challenger mk3
Arm - Acoustic signature TA 1000, 10 inch arm
Cart - EMT TSD 15N MC cart
Step up transformer - EMT STX 21
Phono stage - Big bottle mk3 tubed MM / MC
Then yesterday, I decided to remove the SUT from the chain, and rearranged my cabling. Surprisingly all hiss was gone. Then I got over ambitious, and started tinkering with the cart, and broke the right channel cable. So only left channel is working now 
. But even with only the left channel working, I ushered in my wife and daughter to show how vinyl works. And all 3 of us were stumped with the result. It is sounding bloody lovely, even with the cart and phono stage not run in. And even with my wrong loading of 100 ohms and the icing on the cake is just the left channel working . I guess we will complete soldering the right channel sometime next week.
But initial impressions are very very promising so far. And I can't put a finger on what it is with vinyl, but the music just sounds right and inviting. Like nature always meant music to be analogue. I know iam sounding just as dumb as in my signature.
But the first casualty of my rekindled love for music is my plan to go 4 way active, which was hatched in 2017.I can't send the vinyl through a ADC conversion anymore. So my planned Deqx processor purchase is shelved now. And I might just stop investing in my digital chain with a lumin T3 and tidal and call it a day for now.
The remaining pursuit will definitely be in the analogue domain now. Guess my love for music is rekindled now
...On my return home this time, I completely lost interest in music. So much so, that I was switching on the system for barely an hour a month. And even that might be an exaggeration. Adding to that, I did a silly mistake and blew my tube amps as well as the ps audio power regenator. That was the final nail in the coffin
. I couldn't be bothered to run around to get them fixed, when I had the least interest in using them. Besides I've been travelling too much lately, and even decent family time has become a rarity. So that spelled the end of this hobby for me. And the system was kept unplugged ever since.Then on a whim, I decided to atleast setup the vinyl rig I had lying here in bits and peices for almost a year now. Mr pradeep garu of hyderabad volunteered to set it up for me. Actually he did all the hard work, as I was only handing him the tools like a nurse in a operation theatre
. We finally finished late in the night. And when we spun it up for the first time, we got a tiny voice sounding like music somewhere distant, drowning in horrendously loud hiss and hum. Ive had serious grounding and hum issues in the past, due to very poor wiring in my apartment ( The ps audio ironed them out for me in the past.. But it's sadly dead now ) . Besides, I was using some interconnects with well known hum issues. So we stopped for the night.Chain was :
TT - acoustic signature challenger mk3
Arm - Acoustic signature TA 1000, 10 inch arm
Cart - EMT TSD 15N MC cart
Step up transformer - EMT STX 21
Phono stage - Big bottle mk3 tubed MM / MC
Then yesterday, I decided to remove the SUT from the chain, and rearranged my cabling. Surprisingly all hiss was gone. Then I got over ambitious, and started tinkering with the cart, and broke the right channel cable
. So only left channel is working now . But even with only the left channel working, I ushered in my wife and daughter to show how vinyl works. And all 3 of us were stumped with the result. It is sounding bloody lovely, even with the cart and phono stage not run in. And even with my wrong loading of 100 ohms and the icing on the cake is just the left channel working . I guess we will complete soldering the right channel sometime next week.But initial impressions are very very promising so far. And I can't put a finger on what it is with vinyl, but the music just sounds right and inviting. Like nature always meant music to be analogue. I know iam sounding just as dumb as in my signature
.But the first casualty of my rekindled love for music is my plan to go 4 way active, which was hatched in 2017.I can't send the vinyl through a ADC conversion anymore. So my planned Deqx processor purchase is shelved now. And I might just stop investing in my digital chain with a lumin T3 and tidal and call it a day for now.
The remaining pursuit will definitely be in the analogue domain now. Guess my love for music is rekindled now
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but yes do post your impressions when the right channel is sorted. 
.
