As some might have already seen, i have switched over my tonearm, but before that a little update on my vinyl rig.
The cartridge went back to thales in Switzerland and was rebuilt, they suspected that some glue inside it had been effected whilst in was on the plane over, whatever its better, but its still a very detailed cart, that will expose everything, but it sounds so dam good, i feel i can live with it and live with some albums having parts that i just hate.
Phono stage, well i sold the seven, because it just didn’t work with this cartridge due to loading, so in its place is now a superline and supercap, both now just about run in, i have tried a few different loading and at the moment i have a 456 zfoil plug and normal 1000 cap on the other.
Having gone back to this set up, i have found it to be most efficient and producing the quality, but its biggest quality for me is actually the one thing i once said was not great about it, its loading plugs and how annoying it can be to change them on the back, etc. That hasn’t changed obviously, but being able to make your own loading plugs up to suit your cartridge and you is a massive bonus and is partly why i have gone back to it, also its probably still one off the best solid state phono amps.
Now the tonearm, well i had a Simplicity 11 arm before and its fantastic, but had the opportunity to swap over to a statement are, this works on the same principle, but is made even more precisely, has much better fine adjustment and is slightly different in design.
This arm has a 5 pin din mounted in its bass, unlike my Simplicity are, so i am waiting on a tonearm cable right now, which is torture.
Obviously will update as things progress, but away for a while and for now some pics of it
Me trying to get the cartridge in the right place with the jig.