I’m about to move into my new listening room and thinking through options for LP12 positioning. I have a TigerPaw wall shelf, but that wouldn’t really suit the sitting room in either my or my wife’s view. I’m also not convinced about the sound on that shelf and prefer the sound with TT on top of a Fraim.
552 likes top shelf of Brain stack, so I’m wondering if the TT could go top shelf of Brawn stack above the 4 PS’s (500, 552, 2x 555). The LP12 has a Urika 1 and my concern is that the fields from the large transformers below could affect the delicate, low level signals involved in the arm wiring/Urika.
I can try it of course, but wondering if anyone has tried the brawn stack and if it worked or not…
Hi Kevin,
I have done it until a wall shelf could be installed to move the TT further up and away from the brawn stack.
Is it okay though? Intuitively, I would say not. To use the adjective of the moment, it seems like an awful idea, though I can’t claim back-to-back blindfold comparisons.
The logic is simply this. We separate sensitive electronic components from the brawn’s toroidal transformers, yet the most sensitive transducer of all is a moving coil cartridge, whose very job is to pick up microscopically small changes in magnetic flux. If there is one component to keep away from power supply transformers, surely it has to be a moving coil cartridge. Next would be its phono stage, which takes these tiny, tiny voltages and multiplies them by about 2,000 times.
If you have to do it, then I’d try to keep the cartridge (and phono stage) more than 30cm above any power supply.
Yeah I have done that between LP12 l have ND555,552 and 500 between that and nearest torroid of 555ps…… it’s about as good as I can get it…. also all my shelves are 40mm thick solid bamboo….so that might help….
Regrettably, the bamboo will not.
It takes something like a mu-metal shield to block the magnetic field.
Feels like we are about to call up Scotty from Star Trek at this point!
I hear you BF. That’s exactly why I’m hesitant, but just wondering how folk have found it in practice. Best I can do is use my medium spacer shelf between the last PS and the TT. That would still leave a whacking great toroidal about 6 or 7 inches directly below the crucial parts of the TT…
Worst case, the 552 will just have to lump it and live below the TT on the brain stack I guess.
Cheers,
Kevin
That thought occurred, but my suspicion is that the natural field of the Toroidal would thereby be distorted and affect the PS’s performance. Tough to win with ‘managing’ the magnetic field I suspect.
I certainly wouldn’t want a turntable with MC cartridge located immediately above four large transformers. While the 552 benefits from space above, an LP12 won’t be as bad as another black box I suspect, so that’s the least worse option.
The Tiger Paw Vulkan is probably one of the most elegant of the LP12 wall shelves and two big stacks of Fraim are hardly discreet, so maybe putting it on that really would be ok. I initially thought of the tiny and rather fine Audiotech, but looking at the Vulkan it looks as though it’s modelled on the Audiotech anyway.
We have our Rega on a shelf and it’s hardly great looking, but at least it gets the deck at a good height for cueing records, and it does wring the best performance out of the Rega. It’s probably time to get your drill out.
I run my turntable, with brushed DC motor, above my 552 and I don’t think it minds too much. Moving the TT ps to the empty shelf below the 500 head unit did cause some degradation so that sits on the second shelf down of the brawn stack, directly above the 500ps, a shelf it shares with the ps of my second turntable which sits directly above. This one carries a Decca and can pick up some hum but that’s Deccas for you.