Jackson929

Oh man, I wish I were closer to Vermont

Hi Everyone, I'm hoping to find a pair of Fortes or KG4s. I'm in Northern Ohio but will drive a few hours for something in good condition. Thanks for any help that you can provide!

I played The Black Keys, Elvis Costello and Johnny Cash. The Johnny sounded the nicest, as it’s mono and the bass isn’t as prominent.

I just played the same song I was trying on vinyl, this time through my laptop. It was somewhat crisper but just as bass heavy. Perhaps i am just looking for a different sound, or I need to play with the speaker position.

Ok just tried out the Orbit with built-in preamp on directly into Sixes. RCA in set to “phono” sounded the same as previously experienced. To compare I set it to “line” and got a mess of distortion. Then I went through the Vali, Orbit preamp bypassed. Sixes set to “line”, there is no sound, set to “phono” similar sound as before. So,...I’m back at square one.

Thank you all for the help! I really appreciate it!

The other reason for getting an external preamp was for headphone listening, the Orbit nor Sixes have a headphone jack. Once I have the overall Sixes sound solved, I’ll still have find that solution.

Thanks for the clarification! The sixes input has a button for line/phono, I’ll try switching it to line and testing it shortly. The Orbit was gift, otherwise I would have gone with an external preamp that offers gain control.

Yes it is an MM cartridge. When I use the Vali, I bypass the built-in preamp. I’ll try it with the sixes line level input. Now, will the sixes deliver better sound out of a different preamp that utilizes the phono input?

Thanks for the welcome, billybob! Yes these are the powered Sixes. The sound when using the Orbit built-in preamp was, for lack of a better term, soft and muddy. It lacked clarity and sounded fuzzy.

Thanks for the suggestion, ILI. Im not set in tube preamp, just whatever might be the best for for my setup.

Thanks for the quick response, Badchile. I did get an Orbit with a built-in preamp. I tried it bypasses. the cartridge is the stock Audio-Technica cartridge with conical stylus. I'm using the phono input. Based on your first statement, perhaps I should have the speakers set to line as opposed to phono? Sorry for the newb questions.

Hi All, I’m hoping I can get some advice from the community. I’ve begun collecting vinyl, so for starter setup I bought a pair of Sixes for use with a U-turn Orbit turntable. As others have mentioned, the results were less than ideal with the speaker preamp. So, I was given a Schitt Vali to try, there is an improvement...but the sound is still a little muddy. Does anyone have an ideal preamp under $300? Or am I just expecting too much?