Connecting phono preamp - what happened

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by holberg19, May 22, 2020.

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  1. holberg19

    holberg19 Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Denmark
    My lintze wires in my tonearm broke a few months ago.

    I rewired. Soldered directly to the Cardas cable i have. Works fine. I was connecting it just like it was before.

    left + shield and right + shield

    The Cardas cable runs in one of those black fine masked “hoses” with shrinkflex in each end, so you cant see the interconnects. The end does not have a black/white or red terminal for left and right. It just have L and R printed. In the end where I soldered the two interconnects, the cables and their colours are identical and there are no L and R markers.

    I had a new phono amp for test. It had a really bad drawing on the board for connecting in/out and left and right.

    So I switched my Cardas thinking that i might has misread the instruction. So left goes to red and right to black. The opposite of normal.

    WOW. Like going from mono to stereo.

    Normally swapping right and left just switches the sound to the other speaker. Here, the sound opened up and became involving and full bodied. Like night and day.

    Turntable->Phono amp->Integrated

    What happened here? Has the lintze soldering from the cartridge R channel gone to L on the cable? If so, why does that change the Sound so drastically?
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2020
  2. BrentB

    BrentB Urban Angler

    Location:
    Midwestern US
    Are you certain you were not out of phase somewhere before swapping? And unknowingly corrected it?
     
    The FRiNgE likes this.
  3. Davey

    Davey NP: CLARAGUILAR ~ Figura (2024)

    Location:
    SF Bay Area, USA
    Maybe switch back and hear if the sound collapses again. Could just be the music at the time, but more likely there was some leakage resistance between the signals that cleared when moved around. Maybe bad connection.
     
  4. holberg19

    holberg19 Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Denmark
    I
    I can reproduce the collapse in Sound quality by switching right and left to phono in.

    I just dont see why it should be the case.
     
  5. holberg19

    holberg19 Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Denmark
    I unknowingly corrected something to the better, thats for certain. If I switch left and right (phono in) i get back to the flat Sound.

    Will the Sound be out of phase if the right side of the cartridge output goes to the left side of the phono pre?!
     
  6. BrentB

    BrentB Urban Angler

    Location:
    Midwestern US
    No the premap really does not know left from right. The phasing can come into play where to tonearm and headshell leads are connected. Sometimes cartridges can be confusing on the L+ L- R+ R- connections. Make sure both the left and right are correct for both - and +. The + should eventually lead to the center RCA pins and the = should lead to the outer ring. The L and R must be in the same lead. A cheap multimeter comes in handy here.
     
  7. The FRiNgE

    The FRiNgE Forum Resident

    The reversed stereo field can sound different. I do some mastering/ critical listening. It seems the ear-brain becomes accustomed to the Lch to Rch orientation on repeated listening, but then reverse it, and this opens up an entirely "new" experience. The change you are noticing could be entirely psycho-acoustic phenomenon.
     
  8. holberg19

    holberg19 Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Denmark
    Spend 4 hours rewiring.

    now the sound is identical in both sides. Must have been a loose connection or someting from the last rewire.

    Funny thing is that Sound now lacks some “body”. Especially voices. Might be the cartridge that needs some fine tuning.
     
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