Incoming! The New Equipment Thread

kvetcha said:
Back to the SAE until I have time to rearrange the setup and try to eliminate the hum. But man, that little taste of the Soundsmith reminded me that as much as I love the SAE, the Zephyr is a class above. Crisp imaging and channel separation for days.
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Which Zephyr is that?
Glad you got your SUT up and running.
Playing around with the grounding helps.
I put ground from TT to the SUT.
 
Jbraswell said:
Which Zephyr is that?
Glad you got your SUT up and running.
Playing around with the grounding helps.
I put ground from TT to the SUT.
Click to expand...
Zephyr MIMC Star ES.

I tried running ground from TT to SUT to Phono, as well as just from TT to Phono, no difference. I think it probably comes down to power cable routing or proximity to power supplies/motors/other transformers.

I don’t mind messing around with all that but it will be much easier with the cabinet pulled out from its nook. Planning on painting that area this summer, so it’ll happen eventually.
 
kvetcha said:
Zephyr MIMC Star ES.

I tried running ground from TT to SUT to Phono, as well as just from TT to Phono, no difference. I think it probably comes down to power cable routing or proximity to power supplies/motors/other transformers.

I don’t mind messing around with all that but it will be much easier with the cabinet pulled out from its nook. Planning on painting that area this summer, so it’ll happen eventually.
Click to expand...
When I moved my audio stand, I got hum with my SUT. For weeks I’d chase it intermittently to no avail. The thing that finally solved it was making sure all of my powered components were on the same outlet/power strip. That solved the hum/ground loop for me. YMMV
 
Angsty said:
When I moved my audio stand, I got hum with my SUT. For weeks I’d chase it intermittently to no avail. The thing that finally solved it was making sure all of my powered components were on the same outlet/power strip. That solved the hum/ground loop for me. YMMV
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I’ve got everything running through the same Panamax power conditioner. Could just be the interior of the SUT needs to be cleaned out, or there’s a loose ground.
 
kvetcha said:
Zephyr MIMC Star ES.

I tried running ground from TT to SUT to Phono, as well as just from TT to Phono, no difference. I think it probably comes down to power cable routing or proximity to power supplies/motors/other transformers.

I don’t mind messing around with all that but it will be much easier with the cabinet pulled out from its nook. Planning on painting that area this summer, so it’ll happen eventually.
Click to expand...
I just do turntable to SUT. No ground to my phono. But I never got any hum from mine, so idk.
 
I've never had to run down a ground hum and my shelving space is pretty cluttered with wires. That being said, I've always run a "star" ground off of the phono amp. Turntable, preamp and head amp all run to grounding nut on the phono amp.
 
budley007 said:
I've never had to run down a ground hum and my shelving space is pretty cluttered with wires. That being said, I've always run a "star" ground off of the phono amp. Turntable, preamp and head amp all run to grounding nut on the phono amp.
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Yeah, I have it wired up that way but was still getting the hum until today’s cable swap. Which is surprising, because I’d never had issues with these interconnects before (Wireworld Terras, their budget option).
 
kvetcha said:
Yeah, I have it wired up that way but was still getting the hum until today’s cable swap. Which is surprising, because I’d never had issues with these interconnects before (Wireworld Terras, their budget option).
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None of the descriptions I saw of the Wireworld Terra made any mention of it having shielding. What did you replace it with?

Edit: Nevermind - I saw the answer on another thread
 
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Angsty said:
None of the descriptions I saw of the Wireworld Terra made any mention of it having shielding. What did you replace it with?

Edit: Nevermind - I saw the answer on another thread
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Weirdly, when I got my new preamp I had to do some re-cabling, and attempted to replace the Terras at that point with a longer directional shielded cable - THOSE cables introduced a hum, and I ended up going back to the Terras!

The lesson being: EM interference works in mysterious ways.
 
Circling back to my recent JBL 4309 get: about 75h on them. They definitely need EQ/tone controls otherwise they can come off a bit dull with anything but the best recordings/mastering. Starting to understand where they succeed and where they fall short. At worst, they'll migrate into my HT setup, but for now they're doing the job. They aren't forever speakers, and I preferred the L82 over them, but the L82 was too much low end for my room. I wish I had a tube amp as a lot of reports suggest the JBLs come alive a bit with tubes, but I'm not dropping $3k on a Primaluna or something.
 
kvetcha said:
Yeah, I have it wired up that way but was still getting the hum until today’s cable swap. Which is surprising, because I’d never had issues with these interconnects before (Wireworld Terras, their budget option).
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Ironically, I've cured weird sq issues with HDMI, digital and analog by switching out expensive interconnects with generic Monoprice offerings. You're absolutely right about EM interference.
 
kvetcha said:
@Angsty it, uh…it worked.

there is a bit of hum at higher volumes, but apparently SUTs are quite sensitive to that so I might need to do some rearranging of electronics to minimize.
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Is the 320 officially in your chain? If so, how are you liking it compared to the MC option of your normal phono stage? I have always had a couple 320s and 340s on the ebay watch list, but never pulled the trigger. Most people say the 340 is a significant upgrade but it's also significantly more $$.

I am considering trying a 320 just to get my feet wet with a SUT to see if I like them before I were to go all-in. I have a few MCs (Denon 103 and 103r which would work well with the 320) and a couple 1000LTs, so it would be used with the Denon carts.
 
The 320 is officially in the chain! At the moment I'm running it in passthrough mode with my 1000LT. I don't recall what gain my 20/20 is currently set to, but I'm guessing 46db since the SAE's only got 2.5mV output.

My brief trial running the Soundsmith was a delight, though in all honesty it's been over 18 months since I last had the thing mounted, so I couldn't give you a direct comparison between the Denon and just running the Sutherland at 58 or 64dB. But I certainly didn't feel like I was missing anything, and all the things I remembered loving about the Soundsmith were right there. The fact that I can now swap from the SAE to the Zephyr with a toggle and a couple of minutes of tinkering is just icing on the cake.
 
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