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Analog Playback
Topic: Do be do be do be do be do (Theme from The Third Man)

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-21-2011
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I have a mystery – my Second stereo arm stopped to sound right. My Second stereo arm is Micro MAX 282. I have been using it for years and I know it very well. It is not the “phenomenal arm”, it loose to my best arm and I know how, but it is an OK arm, not to mention the comfort of the interchangeable balanced wands. It is a good second arm but for the last week I have problems to set it up.

My Second stereo arm juts stopped to sound properly – it stopped to produce any bass. I have set up up multiple times, change the geometry and anything else imaginable, use different cartridges – still not bass. This is kind of funny and I have no idea what happens. The cable the arm uses is well known and I use the same phonostage for everything. Still the bass is evaporated. Interesting…

I wonder if it possible that the cable juts died.  It was not used for a while; perhaps it needs to be burned-in? I do not think so, the cable is 40 years old itself, but I still do not know what happened. In my old room the same arm with the very same setup and cable were fine.

The Cat

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-22-2011
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If a car engine does not stat then among zillion reasons why it does not start there are only two main reasons - there is nothing to burn or there is nothing to light up. The very same I think is about my Second Tonearm. Since all cartridges on this arm behave identically and the phonostage demonstrates fine results with other arms then I guess the reason why the arm lost it’s bass is ether the problem with arms or the problems with arm cable.

I wonder how to debug it.  I did check the arm configuration many times and I think it is properly installed. It might be damaged somehow during the move but there are no apparent sights. The same on the cable side but it hard to debug it as I have no other DIN phono cables.  I had my second DIN-RCA cable but I am not able to find if after the move.

Dose anybody know what I can buy that chip plastic molded female DIN to RCA cable for $9.95 as they use to be? The phono cables out there all expensive, mostly very bad in quality and I would like do not waste a few hundred backs just to try if it is a problem with my phono cable. This DIN connection is such a pain in ass!

The Cat

Posted by Markus on 02-22-2011
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 Romy the Cat wrote:
I guess the reason why the arm lost it’s bass is ether the problem with arms or the problems with arm cable.


The phono stage has been ruled out?

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-22-2011
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I today was abusing my damn Second arm, trying to get my bass back from it. It was not that it had no bass but it was very shallow and very different bass. It had a feeling that it was not from there, it was almost as some kind of time delay in bass. The bass lived by it’s own live vs. the rest of the music lived by its own. It was also very shallow and too springy. I am accustomed to slow, wide bass, here it was fast, shallow and with subjectively with good chunk of second harmonic eaten.

I was taking with a few people today about getting new phono cable but I did not find anything inspiring. Still I remember that the cable worked before and I accented myself on the arm. I reassembled it, cleaned, lubricated, played and sacrificed a Chicken. Nothing worked and I was so pissed that I took the dam Micro arm out of my TT. I felt that I will live with 3 arm and will get rid of my Micro arm, thankfully to the Morons like Romy The Cat the prices for Max 282 arm are shooting very high. Still, that interest what was wrong did ate me and was looking, looking, looking at it and without any sensible reasons I decided to mount the same arm on the Micro double-poll armboard AX-7G. I have a few and this one was made specifically for MAX 282 arm. There is no need to do any adjustment with AX-7G – it was made for MAX 282 – there is whole in the middle and I juts damped the arm in there with Denon 103M wand.

As I played in a very first bar on the very first record I instantly knew that the problem was gone – I had my bass and I had all the music coming alone with it. OK, what was wrong, I asked. Before I used the double-poll AX-7G armboard I use the original Micro AX-6G that was also heavy bronze armboard and made for the same 282 arm. I know all those armboard and I have set them up many times – I have on my plinth making how the need to be used. 

So, then I did something that a normal person shall not do – I took the AX-7G armboard out, put back my Micro AX-6G, took the Micro original mounting template and mount the single-poll AX-6G armboard again. I have no bass again. I said “Fuck it!” I eat the sacrificed chicken; I put back my double-poll armboard and said to myself that this armboard it will die in here. So, effectively I converted my TT to 3-arm TT as the AX-7G armboard take two mounting polls. Well, let it be so. 3-arms is what I use anyhow: mono, stereo and dally stereo.

NewRoom_NewLPSetup.JPG

I still have no explanation what my other armboard does not work. It shall not be such a huge different between the armboards, in fact it much not be any difference at all. The way how Micro mount the armboard they all the same – even the material of the armboards: bronze, gun metal of aluminum - shall not have any difference, at least I did not see it before. Still, it was a lot on difference in this my specific case. I have no explanation.

The puzzled Cat

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