I've made all the changes I planned now.
Starting with the Tannoys, I made grille frames and cloths, which work well. Then I opened them up and replaced the big HF cap with a Mundorf unit and re adjusted the driver bolting and tightness, still tuning for a smoother response .*
Next, out went my loved and favourite ever amp, the Luxman 505 and in came a Leben CS600. I knew the Tannoys were sensitive enough for the bottom end to stay true in loud bits, and the Leben has proven exactly as I guessed it might. Lovely, with the right valves.
After that it was the turn of wires. In the hope of getting some that worked well and were well made, I changed everything for Mark Grant (barring speaker cables, which remain as were). Perfect.
And then it was cartridge and (since the Leben has none) Phono stage. I wanted to try something smoother* than the Dynavector 20 which I enjoyed but never loved so in came a Hana ML. A bit of searching partnered this up with Avid's Pellar PS. The Avid is a fairly easy fit, once you have told it what settings your cartridge wants. The Hana was surprisingly less simple. It sits in the SME headshell quite far forward. I'd say the stylus is 8mm or so further forward than the Dynavector, so the arm needed realigning. As it turned out, I was right to do it all, stripping the mounting block down and using the template to reposition the base showed I had mis-positioned the mounting block at last years clean up, and tracking had been out by a notable amount since. 3 protractors and an hour of cursing later and it's perfect now. It shows too, with perfect tracking from track 1 to the inner groove. Phew.
As I write the cart only has 15 hours on it, but is singing like a lark already. I love it and the Pellar combo. Apart from Ortofon's Cadenza black, it's the best cartridge I've owned, and in some ways, being a little less delicate than the Ortofon and a tad more 'organic' I prefer it.
This is just before the Hana and Avid arrived.
HiFi now by
John Dutfield, on Flickr
So I'm happy huh?
*Well it turns out that the unpleasant resonance I am hearing around 1Khz and up a way....a bit like guitar feeddack through the speakers, and making some female voices edgy, sharp and horrible, is not the kit, nor the room but, my left ear!
So upgrade for autumn 2022 is a visit to the hosp ear dept to see what they say
At least that'll be free.
Mrs Rock will be delighted.
PS. No, not Ivory. Part of the project was a promise to mrs R to restore this Elly, which got cleaned, fitted to a new base and waxed. The tusks were black but I painted them and waxed the finish. He only cost £15 at auction, but makes a cracking stand now i think.
