Right now I am one happy camper
I've been grappling with a problem for three and a bit years
42 months ago I invited my father to spend Christmas with me.
The entertainment would be provided by my new turntable, first in over a decade, a VPI Tnt 5.5hr. And as keeper of the best bits of my father's record collection, the remainder long lost to time and changing needs, i knew i had the goods to make my old man happy, and share an experience together
But the turntable arrived and was junk. It sits now in packaging in my box room. The list of faults was so extensive it was uneconomical to fix. The dealer tried to stiff me. Things got heated and i was forced to take action, extracting the cost of repairs. Repairs never made because it made me too angry every time i thought of it, and i was not going to have that at the heart of my system
So time passed and i had another stab.
I bought an Avid Acutus, with an SME V. Which never sounded right either
It was generally lacklustre, with high energy stuff sounding distorted. 45's were especially prone.
I tried three different cartridges. Van den Hul the Crimson, Kiseki Purple Heart ns and finally Sumiko Palos Santos.
All exhibited the same problem.
I considered the rack, turntable shelf and even room acoustics.
I considered my karma and my relationship to the universe. I questioned my actions and existence. And i sent my phono stage to checked by the dealer.
Well the universe didn't answer me in any way that i could comprehend and the phonostage turned out fine.
What's more there was now a thriving trade in my cast offs. Dealers were acquiring new product lines on the basis of how well my failed candidates performed back at their own premises, having undoubtedly not solved the problem chez gav
So every component was now working perfectly. Just not together
The breakthrough began when i bought a used pair of Technics decks and a mixer, along with a cheap crappy stand to put them on.
These performed adequately when going through the mixer into my Wavac pre amp.
But when i tried running one through my Boulder phonostage, adjusted for mm cartridge, it sounded **** again
So, bit of a Eureka moment there. There was nothing inherent in my room, or at fault with my rack or pre amp. It now seemed less likely that i had been cursed by a witch. And if my phonostage is working correctly, it must be the interaction between Boulder phonostage and Wavac pre amp.
My English being better than my Japanese, and having an open line of comms with Rich Maez at Boulder, i emailed him my question.
And after a top bit of sleuthing on Wavac's web page he suggested that there might indeed by an issue.
I'm going to quote Rich verbatem here, i hope he doesn't mind.
Your email seemed like it described a strange problem and it almost seemed like something that wasn’t possible until I checked the Wavac webpage and looked at the specifications that were presented there. *Wavac has done some unique things with their circuitry in the past and it looks like this is another instance. *Here’s what I think is going on:
A source (such as the 1008) likes to present as low an output impedance as possible in order to make it “non-reactive” or immune to any type of load as possible. *Driving a low output impednace to a high input impedance also makes the connection resitant to hum and other noise artifacts. *This is done in the 1008, but there are limits to what’s possible. *Likewise, most preamplifiers with a line-level input like to have that input’s impedance set as high as possible so that driving long cable runs doesn’t require huge amounts of current and frequency response isn’t affected by impedance mismatches. *Quite a long time ago, primarily in the 1970s an 1980s, some people thought that “transmission line” matched impedances (usually 600 ohms for both output and input) would be beneficial becuase it would eliminate resonance or “ringing” or ultra-high frequencies bouncing back and forth via an interconnect cable. *This was disproved very shortly after it became fashionable because audio doesn’t present those ultra-high frequencies: they’re only present in video signal transmission where this type of impednace matching is still used and necessary. *For the most part, the audio industry abandoned this kind of thing quite a long time ago in exchange for the universal connectivity of low/high impedance connections or instrumentation-style input circuits.
When I initially looked at the Wavac input impedance I thought, “47k ohms. *High enough to prevent problems.” *Then I looked again: 47k ohms is only used for the unbalanced or RCA input connections. *The XLR input impedance is (you guessed it) 600 ohms. *This is where things get strange. *A normal balanced signal would have a symmetrical impedance for both the hot and inverted signal, so if the unbalanced input impedance for RCA was 47k ohms, the balanced should be 94k ohms (47k for the + and 47k for the -, each referenced to ground, making a spread of 94k ohms). *A 600 ohm input impednace means that each leg is actually 300 ohms referenced to ground if the circuit is actually balanced, though I suspect it isn't. *As an example, our 1110 input impedance is 100k ohms (50,000 for each leg). *We don’t know why they’d do that. *The RCA connector already has a high input impedance and dropping that to 600 ohms for the XLR is a lot of unnecessary work and limits the source components that can optimally be used to a tiny number of units out there in the world…especially since there’s no benefit to using transmission line matched impedances in the audio domain.
My guess is that the weird response you’re hearing is due to the weird input impednace of the preamp’s balanced connections. *Since the unbalanced RCA connections don’t have this strangeness, here’s how to test this: find a pair of interconnect cables you neither like nor care about (even the free ones that come with cheap components…your dealer probably has quite a supply that they never use) that are terminated with RCA connectors. *Find someone who can solder and have them put an XLR connector on one end of each, soldering the center pin of the RCA to Pin2 of the XLR, and the outer shell of the RCA and shield of the cable (if it has one) to Pin 1 of the XLR. *Leave Pin 3 of the XLR unconnected. *Now use these cheapo cables to connect the 1008 (XLR) to the preamp (RCA) and see what it sounds like. *My guess is it’ll be much closer to what you expected to hear from your system.
I have no idea why the preamplifier may be configured this way other than Wavac never expected anyone to use the XLR input connections or they had a specific piece of equipment that it was designed for or designed with. *In any event, the issue can likely be solved by properly loading the outputs of the 1008 with the cable described above. *
End quote
So my dealer/ broker made me a cable, which arrived yesterday
I replaced my Entreq Atlantis balanced ic from phonostage to pre amp with the cheapo mock up
And by jove, we cracked it
My system sounds absolutely xxxxing amazing. And three years of stress have been resolved.
The relief is only beginning to sink in. My partner is relieved, having observed the emotional rollercoaster of each failed attempt with increasing concern. I really do care far too much about tnis stuff
And all the while my system sounds sublime
I'm sure i could be happier, but nothing springs to mind
I've been grappling with a problem for three and a bit years
42 months ago I invited my father to spend Christmas with me.
The entertainment would be provided by my new turntable, first in over a decade, a VPI Tnt 5.5hr. And as keeper of the best bits of my father's record collection, the remainder long lost to time and changing needs, i knew i had the goods to make my old man happy, and share an experience together
But the turntable arrived and was junk. It sits now in packaging in my box room. The list of faults was so extensive it was uneconomical to fix. The dealer tried to stiff me. Things got heated and i was forced to take action, extracting the cost of repairs. Repairs never made because it made me too angry every time i thought of it, and i was not going to have that at the heart of my system
So time passed and i had another stab.
I bought an Avid Acutus, with an SME V. Which never sounded right either
It was generally lacklustre, with high energy stuff sounding distorted. 45's were especially prone.
I tried three different cartridges. Van den Hul the Crimson, Kiseki Purple Heart ns and finally Sumiko Palos Santos.
All exhibited the same problem.
I considered the rack, turntable shelf and even room acoustics.
I considered my karma and my relationship to the universe. I questioned my actions and existence. And i sent my phono stage to checked by the dealer.
Well the universe didn't answer me in any way that i could comprehend and the phonostage turned out fine.
What's more there was now a thriving trade in my cast offs. Dealers were acquiring new product lines on the basis of how well my failed candidates performed back at their own premises, having undoubtedly not solved the problem chez gav
So every component was now working perfectly. Just not together
The breakthrough began when i bought a used pair of Technics decks and a mixer, along with a cheap crappy stand to put them on.
These performed adequately when going through the mixer into my Wavac pre amp.
But when i tried running one through my Boulder phonostage, adjusted for mm cartridge, it sounded **** again
So, bit of a Eureka moment there. There was nothing inherent in my room, or at fault with my rack or pre amp. It now seemed less likely that i had been cursed by a witch. And if my phonostage is working correctly, it must be the interaction between Boulder phonostage and Wavac pre amp.
My English being better than my Japanese, and having an open line of comms with Rich Maez at Boulder, i emailed him my question.
And after a top bit of sleuthing on Wavac's web page he suggested that there might indeed by an issue.
I'm going to quote Rich verbatem here, i hope he doesn't mind.
Your email seemed like it described a strange problem and it almost seemed like something that wasn’t possible until I checked the Wavac webpage and looked at the specifications that were presented there. *Wavac has done some unique things with their circuitry in the past and it looks like this is another instance. *Here’s what I think is going on:
A source (such as the 1008) likes to present as low an output impedance as possible in order to make it “non-reactive” or immune to any type of load as possible. *Driving a low output impednace to a high input impedance also makes the connection resitant to hum and other noise artifacts. *This is done in the 1008, but there are limits to what’s possible. *Likewise, most preamplifiers with a line-level input like to have that input’s impedance set as high as possible so that driving long cable runs doesn’t require huge amounts of current and frequency response isn’t affected by impedance mismatches. *Quite a long time ago, primarily in the 1970s an 1980s, some people thought that “transmission line” matched impedances (usually 600 ohms for both output and input) would be beneficial becuase it would eliminate resonance or “ringing” or ultra-high frequencies bouncing back and forth via an interconnect cable. *This was disproved very shortly after it became fashionable because audio doesn’t present those ultra-high frequencies: they’re only present in video signal transmission where this type of impednace matching is still used and necessary. *For the most part, the audio industry abandoned this kind of thing quite a long time ago in exchange for the universal connectivity of low/high impedance connections or instrumentation-style input circuits.
When I initially looked at the Wavac input impedance I thought, “47k ohms. *High enough to prevent problems.” *Then I looked again: 47k ohms is only used for the unbalanced or RCA input connections. *The XLR input impedance is (you guessed it) 600 ohms. *This is where things get strange. *A normal balanced signal would have a symmetrical impedance for both the hot and inverted signal, so if the unbalanced input impedance for RCA was 47k ohms, the balanced should be 94k ohms (47k for the + and 47k for the -, each referenced to ground, making a spread of 94k ohms). *A 600 ohm input impednace means that each leg is actually 300 ohms referenced to ground if the circuit is actually balanced, though I suspect it isn't. *As an example, our 1110 input impedance is 100k ohms (50,000 for each leg). *We don’t know why they’d do that. *The RCA connector already has a high input impedance and dropping that to 600 ohms for the XLR is a lot of unnecessary work and limits the source components that can optimally be used to a tiny number of units out there in the world…especially since there’s no benefit to using transmission line matched impedances in the audio domain.
My guess is that the weird response you’re hearing is due to the weird input impednace of the preamp’s balanced connections. *Since the unbalanced RCA connections don’t have this strangeness, here’s how to test this: find a pair of interconnect cables you neither like nor care about (even the free ones that come with cheap components…your dealer probably has quite a supply that they never use) that are terminated with RCA connectors. *Find someone who can solder and have them put an XLR connector on one end of each, soldering the center pin of the RCA to Pin2 of the XLR, and the outer shell of the RCA and shield of the cable (if it has one) to Pin 1 of the XLR. *Leave Pin 3 of the XLR unconnected. *Now use these cheapo cables to connect the 1008 (XLR) to the preamp (RCA) and see what it sounds like. *My guess is it’ll be much closer to what you expected to hear from your system.
I have no idea why the preamplifier may be configured this way other than Wavac never expected anyone to use the XLR input connections or they had a specific piece of equipment that it was designed for or designed with. *In any event, the issue can likely be solved by properly loading the outputs of the 1008 with the cable described above. *
End quote
So my dealer/ broker made me a cable, which arrived yesterday
I replaced my Entreq Atlantis balanced ic from phonostage to pre amp with the cheapo mock up
And by jove, we cracked it
My system sounds absolutely xxxxing amazing. And three years of stress have been resolved.
The relief is only beginning to sink in. My partner is relieved, having observed the emotional rollercoaster of each failed attempt with increasing concern. I really do care far too much about tnis stuff
And all the while my system sounds sublime
I'm sure i could be happier, but nothing springs to mind
