Back to analog ..was it a mistake???

I would try a few more carts before you give up.

I recently bought a used 89 non circus LP12 from a dealer with a new Hercules 2 power supply, Rega RB300 arm, and Rega Elys 2 cart. Also bought a Rega Fono as I was starting from scatch.

With this combo I was not very impressed.

About 5 years ago I bought my first turntable. A VPI Scout with a Benz Ace HO. Also bought a $300 Gram Slee phono pre. This combo was not bad sounding but was not much if any better than my digital setup. I figured I would have to spend alot more to get better results. I sold it a year later to upgrade something else.

Back to the LP12. I was not happy with the sound so I decided to upgrade the phono stage first. I picked up a used Plinius M14 for a good price on this site. This was a huge upgade and more like what I was looking for. I returned the Rega Fono to the dealer.

Next upgrade was the cart. My dealer let me use the Elys 2 while I waited for a Rega Exact 2 to show up. Once the Exact was mounted and a few hours put on it I was fairly happy with the sound but still not beating my digital setup in alot of areas like soundstage and bass. It was quite musical though.

Then I rewired the rega arm with the Cardas incognito kit and installed a Michell technoweight. This extended the highs and lows and evened out the frequency responce a bit. A more refined sound.

The output of the Rega Exact is very high about 7 mv. and the the lowest setting on the Plinius M14 is 56 db of gain switchable to 60 db. I had to use the bottom of my preamps volume dail which I did not like. So on to my next cart.

I did not want to spend more than about $1000 but wanted to get the best I could find.

Made an offer on a retipped van den Hul Frog for $950. Next day the seller said I was second in line and would get back to me. I figured it was gone so I made another offer on a van den Hul retipped Colibri for $1300. Ten minutes later both offers were accepted. I guess that will teach me to be more patient. Oh well I get the chance to try them out and sell the one that does not synergize with my system.

I read online that the van den Hul stylus are sensitive to vta so I ordered a vta adjuster from Pete Riggle. This makes adjusting vta a snap. For the price its a no brainer over the Rega shims.

The Frog showed up first. At .65 mv output this solved my volume problem. The bass is now on par with or slightly better than my digital rig. Much more transparent than the Rega carts. Soundstage nice depth and width. Much better focus now on par with digital but the highs are more natural. This is with only about 30 hours on it.

One week later my Colibri arrives from the Netherlands. This is the xgp model with .25 mv output. I only have about 8 hours on it but it sounds fantastic. Even more transparent and lifelike.

I think your denon cart has a spherical stylus. You might want to try one with a eliptical or fine line for lower noise from ticks and pops.

Cheers,

Sean

I agree with undertow, vinyl is hit and miss even with a great set up, so you just have to be patient. Maybe the discs that you were listening to were dogs? I have no doubt that a properly setup analog system can beat a comparably priced digital one in terms of soundstage, imaging, bass etc. So if good sound is worth it to you, I would keep trying... maybe try another cart, look at your setup again, try some LPs that are proven to sound great. I did and I haven't turned on my CDP in years. However, if the inconvenience is not worth it to you, get a great DAC and rip a few thousand tunes onto your HD and don't look back. Oh, btw, you might want to fix the space key on your keyboard.

There's no shame in pulling the plug on the analog experiment if you don't want to fuss with it further (although doing so will ultimately reap benefits).

Be happy with your digital front end and its ease of use.

Dear Fsonicsmith,
I was interested to read your comment above. In my system and to my ears, one respect in which every and any vinyl set-up I've tried beats the crap out of CD is in soundstaging. Depth, width, and height of the image is ALWAYS superior with vinyl compared with CD, even when other aspects of the presentation are wanting and even when the LP itself is in bad shape. In fact, I judge my CDP based on improvements I can make in Its ability to image, using vinyl as a standard. I found that strategies that reduce jitter tend to help a lot in that regard.

"Depth, width, and height of the image is ALWAYS superior with vinyl compared with CD"

Not the case at all with my system. I guess I must be doing something right.

just like some speakers are more efficient and easy to drive than others, not all are equally easy to get to do soundstage and imaging well.

But if you start with speakers that do those things well, and have them set up well to enable them to do it (including decent amplification), the source format pretty much is a non issue.

That is the case in my system with the OHMs and largely the case even my monitors, though perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent than with the omni and highly coherent OHMs. Almost everything I play has huge soundstage and accurate imaging, including FM and even home recorded cassettes. Even mono lps and CDs have a clean and natural sounding multidimensional aspec to them, though the soundstage is then restricted mostly to within the two speakers, though still with execellent depth, at least on decent recordings.

Each format has its limitations even when done to the max, but soundstage and imaging need not be one of them IMHO and experience.