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Running two turntables via Beresford TC-7230 phono selector?

windhoek

windhoek

The Phoolosopher
I've got two turntables just now and each of them has a MM cart so I'm currently not able to have them up and running at the same time; I'm not sure I'll be keeping two turntables in the long term but as it is, I've got two just now and there's no urgent need to move one on. My Rega Aria phono stage has two inputs but one MM and one MC only so that doesn't solve things with two MM carts in play.

I see Beresford Audio makes this very affordable phono selector but I'm concerned that using one of those would affect capacitance. I'll admit. I don't really understand capacitance in the context of MM carts: I've just heard that it's a thing you need to take account of so that's why I'm posting here as I'm really in the dark here.

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Would it be better to use a line level switch and if so, why?
 
Are you trying to literally switch between TTs on the fly?
If you are...then the switch you have shown should do the job
If not...then why not simply swop leads until you decide which one you are keeping?
 
Mynamemynaim said:
Are you trying to literally switch between TTs on the fly?
If you are...then the switch you have shown should do the job
If not...then why not simply swop leads until you decide which one you are keeping?
Click to expand...

Yes, it would be handy to be able to switch between the two turntables on the fly; I've got a pair of AT-VM95E carts so I could literally have one on one deck and put the other cart on the other deck. The thing I'm not sure about is whether capacitance matters and to what extent, and possibly any other negative that I don't know about. If for all intents and purposes it doesn't really matter then the Beresford selector seems like a reasonably affordable way to have my two decks up and running at the same time.

It might well be that I end up keeping both decks forever and the selector would be the long term solution in that scenario. I guess I just don't know whether this sort of thing, adding switching capabilities, should really be done at line level or whether it's fine to do it at pre-phono stage level.
 
@windhoek are you in the UK? I have a simple 2way input selection box you’d be very welcome to have on a long borrow. Pm me your address and I’ll stick it in the post if you fancy it.
 
lordmortlock said:
@windhoek are you in the UK? I have a simple 2way input selection box you’d be very welcome to have on a long borrow. Pm me your address and I’ll stick it in the post if you fancy it.
Click to expand...

Jackpot! That reminds me I bought a 4-way switch box from Maplins about 20 years ago and with a bit of luck, I've still got it somewhere. It was only a tenner - if even that - so it's probably not hi-fi in any meaningful way, but if I can find it and it works, then I'll see if I can get my two turntables up and running at the same time using that. What information I can glean thereafter remains to be seen. But I reckon I've got a good chance of finding out. If it turns out I've thrown it out or given it away then I'd be happy to borrow your 2-way, thanks. I'll be leaving for work shortly so I'll have a good look for my 4-way switch tonight :)

EDIT: I found may cheapo Maplins 4-switch box so I'll be giving it a go tonight :)
 
windhoek said:
I've got two turntables just now and each of them has a MM cart so I'm currently not able to have them up and running at the same time; I'm not sure I'll be keeping two turntables in the long term but as it is, I've got two just now and there's no urgent need to move one on. My Rega Aria phono stage has two inputs but one MM and one MC only so that doesn't solve things with two MM carts in play.

I see Beresford Audio makes this very affordable phono selector but I'm concerned that using one of those would affect capacitance. I'll admit. I don't really understand capacitance in the context of MM carts: I've just heard that it's a thing you need to take account of so that's why I'm posting here as I'm really in the dark here.

P1104658_1000.jpg


P1104669_1000.jpg


Would it be better to use a line level switch and if so, why?
Click to expand...
That could be useful for running 2 TT one with a stereo cartridge and another with a mono cartridge. At the moment my mono TT is connected to an external phono stage. Interesting
 
Mr Pig said:
Why not just sit the phono stage sockets to the front? Swapping leads will take seconds.

Curious to see where you are going to sit two turntables! ;0)
Click to expand...

I'll admit, I never thought of having my Aria back to front to make swapping cables a practical solution. It's moot now though as I've got the 4-way selector box connected between both decks and the Aria, with the ground cable from my Technics going straight to the ground terminal of my Aria while the ground from my LP12 is connected to the ground terminal on the back of my AVR; my AVR has a MM phono input, which although is a bit naff, it does at least allow me to ground my LP12 to something as the 4-way switch box doesn't have any ground terminals.

Anyway, as for setup, my LP12 is back on top of the mana wall shelf and I've shifted the blu ray player from the other column and put my Technics on top of that.
 
That's an interesting topic as I'm running into smilar problems soon.
I'm curious to learn if you can make out any audible quality differences.
As far as I understood capacitance adds up on the path from the cart till the phono stage,
& after that it doesn't matter.
I had a few cartridges which where difficult as they asked for very little capacitance
& even with the minimal setting allowed at the Phonostage, it took selection of a very low capacitance outter cable and also to keep that relatively short to get roughly into the correct capacitance region.

Switching between the capacitance settings on the stage prior to all the effort,
I heard a difference to the better significant enough to head into selecting a dedicated low cap cable for this cart.
If you don't hear any difference, I wouldn't go anal about it just to have the number..

So the problem with capacitance is mostly when it should be very low.
If the capacitance is medium to high, you can always ballance it out by cable choice & length.
In that case it wouldn't matter if your switch adds up to capacitance to a certain degree,
the other way round, yes.

My thought of getting around this was to possibly use different s/h non-expensive phonostages.
Would allow to place each stage close to each deck & hence keep the ph-cable very short.

Also my main problem is I'm running out of inputs at the Pre,
so with 3 dual switches I could compare 2 CDP, 2 MM decks and 2 MC decks
with similar disadvantage of whatever sq restriction such a switch means or even not..

The AT95 isn't really that super low capacitance, am I right..?

Cheers..
 
windhoek said:
I've got two turntables just now and each of them has a MM cart so I'm currently not able to have them up and running at the same time; I'm not sure I'll be keeping two turntables in the long term but as it is, I've got two just now and there's no urgent need to move one on. My Rega Aria phono stage has two inputs but one MM and one MC only so that doesn't solve things with two MM carts in play.

I see Beresford Audio makes this very affordable phono selector but I'm concerned that using one of those would affect capacitance. I'll admit. I don't really understand capacitance in the context of MM carts: I've just heard that it's a thing you need to take account of so that's why I'm posting here as I'm really in the dark here.

Would it be better to use a line level switch and if so, why?
Click to expand...
The Beresford is a line level switch, just one that they claim to be suitable for use with turntables in addition to the usual line level sources. Regardless, suggest using a very low capacitance, well shielded interconnect between switch and phono stage, something like Rega's Couple or similar at 80pF, or less.

Your Aria MM side is 47kOhm//100pF so with your (presumed) Linn and Technics tonearm wiring you'll already be close to A-Ts recommended maximum of 200pF (100 to 200pF suggested).

Regardless, ultimate tonal balance is all very system/room/hearing dependent so, as is usual, a 'suck it and see' approach applies here.
 
Craig B said:
The Beresford is a line level switch, just one that they claim to be suitable for use with turntables in addition to the usual line level sources. Regardless, suggest using a very low capacitance, well shielded interconnect between switch and phono stage, something like Rega's Couple or similar at 80pF, or less.

Your Aria MM side is 47kOhm//100pF so with your (presumed) Linn and Technics tonearm wiring you'll already be close to A-Ts recommended maximum of 200pF (100 to 200pF suggested).

Regardless, ultimate tonal balance is all very system/room/hearing dependent so, as is usual, a 'suck it and see' approach applies here.
Click to expand...

Good to know about the switch being line level but that it's also suitable for low level as well; the ground terminals are a handy feature for sure in the context of running two turntables.

I now realise there were two aspects of capacitance I wanted to know about: potential loss of performance and potential damage to equipment. If too high a capacitance means there's a risk of damaging something then I definitely want to stay within parameters and avoid that. But if it's simply a case of potentially losing performance or whatever, well it sounds like the suck it and see approach is the way to go. If it sounds good it is good, and all that.
 
windhoek said:
I now realise there were two aspects of capacitance I wanted to know about: potential loss of performance and potential damage to equipment.
Click to expand...

I've never heard of a risk of damaging something with the wrong capacitance choice with MM carts,
so I don't think there is any.
The only risk I know of is that you don't get to hear the full potential of what your cart is capable of, and in worst case it just sounds flat, liveless and uninspired or the contrary too sharp and shrill,
while with optimal set-up it sounds just naturally fine and vivid w/o any hint of artificial enthusiasm or flatness.

If I remember it right, correct me if I'm wrong pls..if it sounds overenthusiastic as if it wants to laugh all the time despite no one having made a joke anywhere then it's underdamped,
so probably needs a bit more capacitance.

And if it sounds depressed, flat and liveless, it probably is already overdamped, so less capacitance could probably change that for the better.

I'm looking for the best choice in a commercially available very low capacitance cable since quite a while,
but will do that in another thread.

200pF is very low capacitance already..I didn't know AT95 asked that little.
I think I remember the average inner arm cable is about 80-120 pF already,
and some phonestages have a minimum setting of 50pF,
So in my case the issue I had was that I was above the recommended pF setting already,
but had no outter arm cable in the equation still..

I found a green phonocable from Sommer that had only 50pF / meter and took only 50cm of that,
so ended up a little above the recommended maximum.

Later found a very thin cable with a light copper coloured shielding around it that was an astonishing 30pF per meter only..I think it was a Belden ? Wasn't expensive, too..
But didn't get around to making up a new outter phonocable up to now.

So using a very low capacitance high quality cable could help your effort a lot into the right direction, regardless how much capacitance your switch adds or sq it takes.
In best case it may even be no much restriction at all, perhaps ?
 
windhoek said:
Good to know about the switch being line level but that it's also suitable for low level as well; the ground terminals are a handy feature for sure in the context of running two turntables.

I now realise there were two aspects of capacitance I wanted to know about: potential loss of performance and potential damage to equipment. If too high a capacitance means there's a risk of damaging something then I definitely want to stay within parameters and avoid that. But if it's simply a case of potentially losing performance or whatever, well it sounds like the suck it and see approach is the way to go. If it sounds good it is good, and all that.
Click to expand...
As @torstoi mentioned above, there are no worries wrt damage to equipment, strictly the potential for none optimal performance. Performance can be both an objective and a subjective thing so, no matter the outcome, it is going to be down to what you like. I only mentioned attempting to keep the capacitance of the extra interconnect down as a means of keeping any change in sq to a minimum cf. what you are used to.
 
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Fergus said:
That could be useful for running 2 TT one with a stereo cartridge and another with a mono cartridge. At the moment my mono TT is connected to an external phono stage. Interesting
Click to expand...

I’ve just spent a pleasant hour surfing the web in search of such a switch box.

I started with Amazon. Then I went to eBay. Cheap, cheaper, pricier (on par with beresford TC-7230) but ??? build/function quality.

Then I went to Duckduckgo.

This took me on a ride through several online forums to this one, this article, this switch.

Going back to eBay it looks like, for the price, size, function, it will work just fine for:

1 - Reloop 400 TT running an Ortofon Super OM40 I’ve plugged a mono needle into for playing very old Jazz LPs and
2 - Thorens 125 Mk II TT, SME V TA, Benz Micro Glider SL, Quadratic SUT.

Yeah, I COULD just crawl around on my hands/knees and change the input at the Preamp (ADCOM 565 I’ve upgraded) when I want to change TT from
stereo to mono BUT…

I had the same questions - I think - as the OP about price/quality/form/fit/function and effect on SQ.

Think I’ll order one shortly.
 
@windhoek as an aside, have you tried the phono stage in the Crayon? I thought it was excellent, better than many standalone phono stages I tried.
 
Look for an SP19 professional source selector. Great piece of kit, very solidly built and available for bobbins on e bay.
 
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