Seeking turntable upgrade advice

What gives you impression I have distorted harmonics in my system, Doug? You haven't heard it... I'm confused.

In your own words (unless there's another Ian who has a VPI/XV-1S and just bought and sold an Alaap)...

From your email to me dated 3/27:
"I have not gotten rid of the 'ringing' in my TT, but I did call VPI and ask their opinion, expecting them to tell me I needed to upgrade my arm, but they insisted that my JMW 9 Sig was just fine and that the problem was VTF. They had me increase it to 2.5g (Dynavector XV-1s). It was a significant improvement. The ringing is still there, but much fainter."

As we heard with your TT/arm/cart in my system, your rig actually produces clean harmonics. The "ringing" comes from other components which can't handle those harmonics.

From your email to me dated 3/27:
"If I listen over 80db I get ear fatigue rather quickly; I think the extra harmonics are a little harsh sounding. I get tons of bloom and my impressions are that it's not as clean and imaging is not as good (it's as if the bloom causes images to overlap)."

No other Alaap owner has ever complained of that. Sounds like ringing in the system/room to me.

From your email to me dated 4/1 (regarding your Doshi):
"Distortion. While I absolutely adore the bloom and huge soundstage, I can't listen to this louder than 70 db without ear fatigue. If I play something at 80 db it drives people out of the room (it sounds like it's over 100db). It's lovely with jazz and folk at lower volumes, but it adds so much in the way of harmonics that anything recorded with harmonics gets noisy very fast."

Likewise.

OK, I see where you're coming from now. The only area where you're confused is:

"As we heard with your TT/arm/cart in my system, your rig actually produces clean harmonics. The "ringing" comes from other components which can't handle those harmonics."

The ringing was as clear in your system as it was in mine. Zero difference. Perhaps I'm using the wrong term - maybe I should use 'resonance'. Do you recall listening to Steely Dan and hearing the snare drum produce a resonating sound that sustained during silences on my TT but not yours? I could tap my TT base and the same (pitch) sound would occur. Some suggested adjusting the damping fluid, but others suggested that the tonearm was holding me back. In any case, it was clearly independant of room and other equipment.

In any case, I’m pretty happy with my harmonically challenged system. Having changed every component in the past 3 months (including cabling, power conditioning) it’s resolving to the point that I can finally hear differences in cables and electronics and am enjoying the life sized soundstage and detailed imaging. Recently I’ve had the pleasure of auditioning some of the best preamps available and discovering each has its own set of strengths and weaknesses and how important synergy is. Too fun, not to mention educational.

It will certainly be enlightening to find that when I change to a superior tonearm, instead of my analog source sounding as good or better than my digital, I’ll suddenly want to sell all my LPs. Oh well, live and learn. 

I'd forgotten (or maybe didn't notice) that difference between the Steely Dan playbacks. Proof again that it helps to do these auditions with familiar LP's. If we'd played one of our records it might have jumped out at me.

Given that, I understand your TT/arm upgrade plans. Galibier and Raven are both excellent choices and, as Sonofjim said, probably better value for money than SME. Sonically I don't think there's much difference between Dan's Gavia and my 320. A 265 is a step down however (we owned one before the 320). The bigger tables do provide stronger dynamics and a blacker background. If you have the cash...

Kuzma Reference. I have heard your exact set-up and I own "almost" the same set-up. Very nice combination. Maybe you can ask Tri Mai at Triplanar if he has an opinion.

Hi Ian,

In any case, I’m pretty happy with my harmonically challenged system. Having changed every component in the past 3 months (including cabling, power conditioning)

Wow! I don't know how you can reasonably make sense of what's going on. I surely couldn't assimilate this many system changes in such a short period.

I like your inquisitive approach, but if I were to give you one piece of advice, it would be to SLOW DOWN.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier