Recommendations, tweaks, upgrades to improve sound quality?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by resonated, Jul 17, 2017.

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  1. resonated

    resonated Forum Resident Thread Starter

    As a college-aged audiophile, I've focused the past few years on assembling a quality system for as little money as possible. Thanks to goodwill, craigslist and eBay, I've put together an analog chain consisting of a Denon DP-60L direct drive table, an Ortofon 2M bronze, a Mac 1700 vintage receiver (refurbished and brought up to spec), and stock original Klipsch Fortes. I have a fairly extensive LP collection (about 1000 LPs) and an Okki Nokki rcm. I recently bought a Pangea Audio Vulcan shelf, and while I dig its aesthetics, I'm not sure if it provides enough isolation for my needs. My listening room/bedroom has wall-to-wall carpet and is small to medium sized.
    Though I'm largely happy with the sound I'm getting, I'd like to improve my isolation, achieve a much "blacker" background in my phono system, and extract as much detail as possible from my LPs without breaking the bank. Could any esteemed forum members recommend some low-cost or simple DIY solutions that could help me achieve my goals? I'm considering crites upgrades for my Fortes and possibly upgrading my table to the new Rega P6 or Mofi Ultradeck at some indeterminate point in the future. Otherwise I don't really know where to begin to make a meaningful, audible difference. Thanks!
     
  2. riddlemay

    riddlemay Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    Does anybody know what a "blacker background" actually sounds like? I see this phrase in reviews all the time, and sometimes I sense I know what it means, but then I realize I really don't.

    I mean, the obvious thing is it means getting rid of hum and other noise. But I don't have any hum or other audible noise in my system, even if I crank the volume on my integrated amp way beyond any setting I'd ever listen at. Which makes me realize I have no idea how "blacker background" actually translates into sound, other than in my imagination. Does anybody?
     
  3. Mike-48

    Mike-48 A shadow of my former self

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    Thank you for saying that! I'm always hearing the same thing, but really, most systems I've heard are dead quiet when nothing is playing. Either it's a poor choice of words or an illusion.

    To the OP: Maybe you could describe the noises you are hearing, and then forum users could give you better advice. And meaningful advice. I don't like to say this, but since you are a new audiophile: Much money in audio is frittered away on things that don't matter, or if they do, don't matter very much. Cable elevators, fancy cables, 4xDSD reproduction. Every tweak has its champions. But every audiophile has different priorities. Guard your money carefully, and decide what your priorities are. Correct tonal balance and timbre? Or "touch," as Art Dudley would have it? Or space, which seemed to be Harry Pearson's obsession? Or just a good enough system to give you pleasure as you get through college? And please remember, just because some online strangers tell you something is important, that doesn't mean it will be important to you.

    Paternally,
    Mike
     
  4. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    I didn't really know until I knew I heard it when I recently upgraded to a Vpi Prime, from a Technics 1200. The Prime...I hear nothing at all but the music. You don't realize until you actually hear a "blacker blacks" sound how much you aren't hearing from a lower end table. What I have learned is very suble, almost inaudible sounds on my Technics was clearly masking subtle nuances I finally began hearing from the Prime. I was using the same cart and pre so I know it is the table and far superior arm. I think you kinda have to hear it to really know what it is. The quieter, or blacker, the background, the more you are going to hear in the grooves. And, I didn't have any audible issues like hum, etc Coming from the Technics, but clearly small issues were getting in the way of what was in the grooves. So, just because you can't hear noise in your system doesn't mean it isn't there and covering up small details in your records.
     
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  5. F1nut

    F1nut Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Mars Hotel
    A blacker background is the same as a lower noise floor. This noise is not something you hear until it's gone. It's the unmasking of subtle nuances, of veiled sounds and details.

    Cleaning up the power supply chain is the best place to start because it all starts there. A dedicated line or lines, high quality power conditioner and high quality power cords greatly reduce the noise floor. Isolation and damping products continue to help lower the noise floor. Each step builds upon the other....it's cumulative.

    This is not limited to just turntables, it applies to every piece of gear in your rig.
     
    Jrr, Strat-Mangler, timind and 2 others like this.
  6. lance b

    lance b Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Interesting thoughts. What sort of things would you recommend as a high quality power conditioner and high quality power cords.

    I am using AudioQuest's Columbia interconnects which made a huge difference when I put them on my Marantz SA7001 SACD player.
     
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  7. F1nut

    F1nut Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Mars Hotel
    PS Audio or Shunyata are good choices, IMO.
     
    lance b likes this.
  8. wwaldmanfan

    wwaldmanfan Born In The 50's

    Location:
    NJ
    Vacuum-tube components, even Mcintosh, will never be utterly free of noise. If you have audible hum, move your power cords away from your signal cables, or at worst, cross them at right angles. Make sure one component in your system is properly grounded to earth. Turn off flourescent lights, light dimmers, and other sources of RF interference in your home. Even major appliances like your refrigerator can put noise on your home's AC line.
    Spend your money on component upgrades. Cables and isolation products are the last place to spend cash, unless you have more money than you know what to do with.
     
    Helom and Mike-48 like this.
  9. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Better said than I. That's exactly what I experienced with my new table.
     
  10. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Yes, I absolutely know exactly what this means and how it sounds with respect to turntable. It means dramatically reducing the inherently loud mechanical noise floor of vinyl playback such that not only is there basically no audible sound between tracks or in the silence of musical rests but there's a kind of realistic suddenness and surprise to dynamic swings in performance and music starting and stopping, the musical space you're listening into seems like a whole continuous one (on records made to deliver that) not like an instrument over here and another one over there; etc

    How do you get blacker blacks? Reduce spurious vibrations that may be reaching the stylus. Remember microscopic movements of the cantilever/generator assembly in response to microns thick modulation of the groove walls are what generate the voltages that are the musical signal coming off the record. It takes extremely little added movement to generate spurious signal -- vinyl whoosh, rumble, etc. The biggest source of spurious vibration in vinyl playback -- outside of acoustic breakthrough if your table isn't isolated from structure borne movements -- and the hardest one to deal with is the motor. You have a vibrating motor driving a spinning load at the heart of the whole playback system and it's cogging and torque ripple is bouncing around the mechanical structure of anything it's coupled to. Better turntables that can deliver blacker blacks are going to have reduce levels of ripple and cogging, better isolation of the motor itself from whatever the tonearm and platter are mounted on; plus they're going to have some means of terminating microscopic movement of the record itself at the platter interface; have lower levels of bearing chatter at the platter and tonearm bearings; have lower amplitudes of things like arm tube resonances, and move the resonances to frequencies where there's less to mask and were RIAA equalization helps to lower the level of them, etc.

    Sure, you can lower electronic noise too in the signal chain and that will give you blacker blacks, but the level of noise in most electronics is already enormously lower than the level of mechanical noise in even the best turntable/tonearms.

    Most of the things that can be done to minimize the background mechanical noise of vinyl playback aren't so much aftermarket tweaks -- yeah if you have a belt driven AC synch motor table maybe you can lower the voltage to the motor with a controller or Variac to reduce torque ripple or get some kind of mat that better terminates vinyl vibration; but a lot of it is going to require design compromises -- motor torque and motor platter positioning vs. vibration, material rigidity vs. vibration transmission, so it's not always just a matter of slapping some latex on a tonearm tube or something and having it work (though CLD material like Second Skin, can be useful in damping some surfaces sometimes, for example).

    With respect to blacker backgrounds from non mechanical playback and from electronics, it's a matter of reducing induced noise, thermal noise, power supply spikiness, etc. So, clean power; good practices like dressing cables away from transformers and SMPS and the like; with single-ended RCAs using really low resistance shielded cables (the biggest source of noise in your single ended home hifi systems is probably AC leakage and you can lower the level of the noise signal of that when you connect devices by using cables with very low resistance return paths), etc. But we're often making compromises. You're never going to get lower noise amplification out of tubes vs. modern op-amps, but many of us would prefer the sound of the tube amplification in other ways.
     
  11. Daily Nightly

    Daily Nightly Well-Known Member

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    If your receiver has the stock power cord, replace it with a 14awg one (which can be an easy DIY project from even Home Depot;)).
    40/50 year-old power cords were crummy 18-gauge wire to begin with...and if you've ever cut into one by this time: the copper strands are often so BRITTLE that they break when trying to pull the insulation off.
    I, personally, don't like using three-pronged upgrades because they seem to be more sensitive to picking up spurious buzzing and noises from the air conditioner/furnace, particularly, kicking on --- so: I just take a heavy-duty, two-prong plug made by Leviton (intended to replace the one for a vacuum cleaner cord)...highly polish the prongs of it...get 14awg, 600-volt twin-conductor "zip" cord (but in heavy/UV-resistant jacketing and AMERICAN made...avoid the China wire: it *is* THINNER and will oxidize into a greenish black very quickly)...solder the two receptacle ends onto spade lugs before fastening them inside the plug assembly...then, ON THE AMP SIDE: pull out the cord clamp with lock pliers and replace it with a 1/4" rubber grommet...feed the new cable into it as long as required...solder (to, usually, the unswitched outlet terminal and the fuse's "hot" leads)...take an oversized cable tie around the cord and pull it up all the way against the interior side of the chassis; then put a drop of LocTite glue around it and let the cord sit in place until the glue seals it to the grommet and the cable tie.
    The WORST thing regarding power distribution inside an electronic component is for the power to be "dirty" or "strained". When one considers: voltage today, nominally, should be at 120 (even though many times it's NOT)...the old cord was meant for when voltage was 110 and 117VAC. So, the increase of modern voltage is being even MORE STRAINED by the old cord.
     
    resonated likes this.
  12. Mike-48

    Mike-48 A shadow of my former self

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    I overlooked that the OP was talking vinyl. Of course that's likely to have audible noise that can be reduced.

    In general, I rather like distinguishing "transparency" from "lower noise floor." It would be nice to use "noise floor" for noise that is audible. But I guess audiophile language is in constant flux. No one talks about transparency any more, and many talk about reducing noise that doesn't seem to be audible.

    The most audible noises in most systems are, IME, humming power transformers, tube and vinyl noise, and the refrigerator in the next room.

    Priorities are key in audio. I'd suggest that components, speakers, and room acoustics are the cake, and cables are the cake decoration. No point in decorating a cake if it's not good to begin with.
     
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