kevinmi

Kevin, you can drop the back ground noise signifigantly by adding 50uf 450v caps to the power supply. There was a mod for it listed on the Decware threads. I tried it, it worked perfectly. Dave Thanks for the info Dave, I'll try it out.

I am interested in selling them-shoot me an offer.

I recently bought an Ortofon 2M Black used for under $400.00, and it sounds every bit as good as my Koetsu Black LOMC that costs way more. There have been great improvements in cartridges in the past few years, so newer MM can sound quite good. I also have a Ortofon 2M Blue on another turntable which is quite good also.

A word of caution about tools in general: Once you own tools, people will expect you to use them. Think about it.

The 5 watt amps I used were a pair of Decware SE84 kits bridged mono. I think the kits sell for about $300.00 each. I still have the amps, but they have a little too much background noise for me to use on a daily basis.

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Your best bet is probably try recording an album at both speeds and see if you can hear a big difference. The higher speed will definately be better sounding, but by how much vs. the amount of tape being used is going to be up to you. Personally, I would record at the higher speed. I'm about to start recording my Beatle lp's onto CD's soon, and maybe onto cassette also. I sold my RTR, so I can't do that anymore.

Put me down for: Steppenwolf $4. All spooky tooth not sold already All Bob Seeger Midnight Oil- Diesel Iron Butterfly Dave Mason

I have the ST-120 tube amp from Bob Latino and have nothing but praise for it! It is dead quiet and sounds better than any other amp I have ever owned. The ST-70 would definately be overkill for just mids. I ran a bi-amp set up using my Latino ST-120 for the lows and a pair of 5 watt tube amps for the mids/highs, and it was more than enough power! I found that the Latino amp used by itself sounded better than any bi-amp or tri-amp set up I used, so I'm sticking with that. I'll bet that if you bought a ST-70 kit from Bob, it would become your favorite amp!

Health seems to be one thing we tend to take for granted until something goes horribly wrong. Being a cancer survivor for two + years now, I also have a deeper appreciation for life in general!

I remember seeing speakers like that back in the 70's. There was a bunch of speakers out there copying the Walsh Ohm speaker design that looked kinda sorta like that.

A little off topic, but hopefully interesting- I have a 2M Blue on one turntable(Oracle Delphi MKII), and a 2M Black on my reference turntable (Oracle Premier), and there isn't a whole big difference in the sound. The Black is obviously more detailed, but the Shibata stylus is not forgiving on it's set-up, and has a tendency to pick up more groove noise, especially on used records. The Blue is a great overall choice for the money in my opinion. The Black is very close in sound to my Koetsu Black MC cart, without the added expense of having to use a step up transformer.

Ordered mine thru Amazon for $319.00. Should be here this coming week. I love playing Santa Claus!

Gave away my entire lp collection in the 80's when the "new" CD came out, making vinyl obsolete. Included in my collection were original Beatles, Rolling Stones,Led Zep, etc. I wonder how much 500 original LP's from the 60's thru 80's would be worth today? (I have an idea since I've been re-collecting!)

Looks similar to the Decware amp kit, with the pc board and all. I couldn't get the link to work, so I am in the dark about the actual specs. Should be a fun build for someone who wants to get their feet wet in the DYI tube amp hobby.

I think Gothover had a build thread on here on a kit he had built if you want to look into it.

There is also more to the story than just a union strike being the reason for the company going belly up. Stiff competition, falling market share, and even the management has been been called "poor" by the Exec's of the company. Unions are usually pretty informed about how much they can bargain for, and it is easy to point the finger at the unions. I also read that there are several different unions representing the employees, and the biggest share agreed to concessions.I'm thinking it was a convienient way to close an unprofitable company and use the unions as a scapegoat.

I've built 2 of their Se84 kits, but they use pc boards instead of point to point wiring.

There are hundreds of 2 channel tapes out there, both pre-recorded and blank. I currently have the reel to reel out of my system, so I'm not listening to any tapes. Concentrating on vinyl instead.

I've never had them stacked, but I did have them in front of the Khorns for a bit. I haven't had much time trying out different locations yet, and they aren't even broken in completely. They sound better every time I listen to them. Be careful if you stack them-they weigh about 120 pounds each!

I've got a pair I purchased a couple of months back-couldn't be happier!

I have a dedicated 2 channel set up downstairs, away from phone, computers, TV's, wifeys, etc. I can go down there and just enjoy the music with no distractions. Oh yeah, there is a fridge full of adult beverages down there also!

I would try to locate the discrepency between channel volume before anything else. Is it only playing vinyl that you notice the volume difference, or is it the same with other sources, such as a cd player. Try reversing the left and right channel phono inputs and see if the opposite channel is louder/softer. Also check (and double-check) to make sure the speakers are hooked up in phase, meaning positive to positive. If one speaker is hooked up opposite the other, it will affect imaging greatly. I would also check the internal wiring of the speakers from the crossovers to the individual drivers. I bought a pair of Khorns once and found one of the woofers was wired backwards! If you have the Hi-Fi News test lp, playing the phase/ out of phase track can help diagnose proper phasing of the speakers. Another easy way to tell is to simply switch your speaker cables at the rear of the amp and see if anything changes. Hopefully you have already done all this trouble shooting, and I'm just wasting time here, but I've found out that I have made some pretty basic wiring mistakes no matter how careful I thought I was. It's always cheaper to find out exactly what is going on with your system before throwing money at a problem that may not exist. Other things to consider-If your amp has a tube phono stage, try swapping the tubes from the left side to the right side. A weak tube on one side can affect the volume, and sometimes just a poor connection on the tube socket can cause problems. Room treatments- usually a room is considered "live" or "dead", or somewhere in between. A live room will have hard surfaces and bounce sound all over the place, while a dead room will absorb sound. Room treatments are used to help with taming a room so there is a fairly balanced sound. No matter what type of room you have, if you play you system at lower levels, the room will not interfere with the sound that much. So if your system sounds off at low levels, it's probably not the room's fault (unless your speakers are really misplaced). I can turn my basement system up only so loud, and then there is so much music bouncing around that it sounds terrible. But at lower levels it sounds fine.

I am a lefty, but I can't actually play guitar. I hope to some day, but for now I'm just collecting them since they are hard to come by some times, and I keep finding great deals....

Makita 18 volt Lithium battery flashlight older style. Taz Actually it's a Ryobi 18v that came in one of those "bundle" packages. I'd like to get another one and run them in stereo!