Before Christmas I was a happy bunny. Both my digital and analogue systems were performing well.
In November I took my Tron 7 GT phono stage back to Graham Tricker for a service, and upgrades. When it was returned I was helping my wife recover from a hip op, and my father has been going downhill; so my time was rather swallowed up. I tested the Tron to ensure it was working and then put it aside.
Time passed and I found I was not listening much to my main system, and then a couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to break out some vinyl.
Ouch.
Spittier than a spitty thing.
My immediate thought was, ‘What had Graham done!’; but, I suspected the answer was nothing.
So I stopped and thought through what I had done recently. It occurred to me that I hadn’t been listening to my main system too much, and thought about what I had added.
My Oppo BluRay had died a couple of months ago and so I had added a pro-temp Sony X-700 & Nvidia Shield …with their attendent SMPS. I pulled the mains lead from the Sony BluRay & removed the Nvidia. The digital sound-quality improved a lot.
Over the last few weeks I had absent mindedly added various PSUs to my earthing loom, in an effort to tame some sharpness. I removed these cables, a subtler improvement.
Digitally my music was back to par. The LP12 was not.
I consulted various friends, and one popped in to have a listen and agreed with what I was hearing.
When I had tested the Tron 7 on its return I had forgotten to replace the stylus guard, and later found it sat on the platter mat. It appeared to be OK. I had adjusted nothing since it was serviced. I bought a cheapo stylus guage, and ordered a more expensive one.
My ARO/Troika should have been on 1.75g, using the cheaper scale it read 2.09g! I am guessing one of the cats used the LP12 as a trampoline!
Two days ago the better scale arrived, and I did a minor adjustment.
All is back to normality.
Lid stays down at all times!
