Equipment Recommendations - The Home For New System and Upgrade Advice

MikeH said:
Ah man I’ve been looking to buy the insight and would have hopped on this in an instant if I wasn’t dealing with a newborn and our furnace not working tonight haha. If anybody sees the insight for sale again for a good price please let me know!
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Hope you got the furnace sorted, Mike! Not the kind of equipment upgrade we necessarily like to see in this thread
 
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Wife must have read a few pages in this thread and picked up the Audiolab CDT for me this Xmas (she is great).

The family however just didn't get it. At dinner they asked why I would ever listen to CDs in 2022....and also asked why I still had CDs stored in the basement for the last 30 years....juuuuuust in case I needed them. Plebs.
 
Joe Mac said:
It’s kinda normal on the debut carbon, I remember mine riding very low on that table with the VTF set at the factory approved 1.8g
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Yep I’m toying with lowering the tracking a bit (seems to be the thing to do in the internet forums) so down to 1.7 and will play again
Sounds great though so that’s good as it’s only had an hour or so of playing so needs bedding in still - low riding on the blu with acrylic platters seems the normal
 
Gavaxeman said:
Yep I’m toying with lowering the tracking a bit (seems to be the thing to do in the internet forums) so down to 1.7 and will play again
Sounds great though so that’s good as it’s only had an hour or so of playing so needs bedding in still - low riding on the blu with acrylic platters seems the normal
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Honestly you’re fine, I wouldn’t change it, never caused me a problem and I always preferred the sound of cartridges near the top of their tracking force range.
 
Joe Mac said:
Honestly you’re fine, I wouldn’t change it, never caused me a problem and I always preferred the sound of cartridges near the top of their tracking force range.
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Thanks for that reassurance! I hate messing with systems - have to say - well impressed with the sound so far as long time yet til run in (bearing in mind this turntable has a built in preamp that I can’t do anything with) - I’ll treat the downstairs rig to a blue next Christmas- won’t go beyond that cartridge range as it will out-price the record decks then
 
Gavaxeman said:
Thanks for that reassurance! I hate messing with systems - have to say - well impressed with the sound so far as long time yet til run in (bearing in mind this turntable has a built in preamp that I can’t do anything with) - I’ll treat the downstairs rig to a blue next Christmas- won’t go beyond that cartridge range as it will out-price the record decks then
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Erm don’t look at the cartridges I’m using on my one then 😂
 
Gavaxeman said:
Yep !!!

That ain’t cheap - but my main rig is 20+ years old and one day I will get a new system (probably when I retire) that will be the last one I do - and I’ll hopefully be in the final home too (probably move one more time)

So it gives me something to aim at

Your set up is a beauty
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And honestly it shows how good a table it is that it doesn’t sound out of place in it at all. One day I might upgrade it but I really don’t feel it’s essential or something I have to do right away. I’m quite happy with where everything is at right now, famous last words, but no more upgrades for the forseeable…
 
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Joe Mac said:
To play it to other sonos speakers in other rooms it’d have to be to pass it over your Wi-Fi. Within the amp I’m not sure tbh and I’m not even sure that it’s be possible to figure out. It is an alaogue line in port that you’d be connecting the tt to. (edit: what @kvetcha says above makes a lot of sense).

If you get that it might also be an idea to use it as your tv speaker. That amp gets great reviews as a television speaker and has a HDMI arc input/output to connect to the HDMI arc input/output on your tele. In line with the rest of sonos it has so so music reviews but again they aren’t bad and you do get the form factor and convenience.

That said I’d put money on a reconditioned NAD 316, and you could add a sonos port to it for similar money to the sonos amp, absolutely smoking it.
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So I could run all analogue via the NAD316 and connect the port to it to deliver signal to Sonos devices? Hence having the best of both worlds? If that’s the case… this is how I win.

In that case, I’ll probably run an Orbit UTurn with a Grado Gold3, a decent pre-amp (I believe I have one on hand), direct to the NAD316 and output sound to a pair of Warfendale Denton 80’s (bookshelf config). And then top off with the Port if I want to stream to the Arc (whenever we have guests).

Eventually I’ll upgrade the table to a Pioneer PLX-100 direct drive or a Technics 1200 since I really do hate flutter and wow and replacing table belts. I assume those tables don’t have the same motor sound issues as, say, the At-120.

If anyone could advise me if there’s a smaller form amp/preamp that could fit my purposes (full analogue for personal listening while allowing for play back via Sonos for events at home) that’d be great.

I suppose I could skip bookshelf speakers and go after a pair of headphones instead… At that rate, I would get Grados.
 
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