No reason your deck cannot outperform a CD (in my book....) if you fettle
it
up a bit. Also, although the more money you *wisely* spend on vinyl gear,
the better the sound you will likely get, but no-one has to spend
megabucks
to beat some CDs. I heard Yello - 'Claro Qui Si' earlier tonight on a
Technics deck with a Shure M97 on B&W 601s through an Audio Innovations*
15wpc valve amp with built in valve Phono stage* (all as per
http://www.apah20.dsl.pipex.com/setup/setup.htm ) for the first time.

It BLEW THE LIVING **** out of any playing of the same CD to date - which
I
have done for years on 8 million different CDPs on loads of different
setups. I am talking about this album just did not sound the same - more
detail, depth, soundstage than I have ever heard before. None of this kit
is
expensive stuff by normal standards!

I have this LP (acquired only today) with me now and my 'tubes' are
warming
up as we speak, if it don't sound as good on my own kit, the gerbil's
gonna
get it!!!

I see Mike has started the ball rolling with some excellent advice about
external phono stages and sorting your cart out.



First off, your deck gets this mention in Vinyl Asylum (which I have
'lifted')
"WRONG: SME series III is an ultra low mass tonearm. From my limited
experience of Technics turntables, I would guess that the S-shaped arm on
the Technics SL1500 is a medium mass arm - ie between 9g and 12g. I used
a
Technics SLQ33, and used it with a Shure V15VxMR for a while (high
compliance cartridge); there was no problem."

Right, that's a £300 cart (I have one) and these VA boys don't fart about
when it comes to their gear. Add to that the fact that Technics do *not*
have an intergalactic rep for producing ****e decks and I would say your
deck is almost certainly perfectly capable of decent vinyl replay. In
fact,
the pic on http://www.geocities.co.jp/HeartLand...677/audio.html shows
it
to be an attractive little number - no frickin' idea what the text says
tho!

Yeah, its a nice deck. I was lucky to buy just before this the little vinyl
resurgence that seems to be happening. I didn't look much like the picture
tho - the platter had a lot of strange looking growths around its edges and
the whole deck looked as if it hadn't been used in decades. Bit o' white
spirit and brasso sorted that.

So, if you've fettled it into good working order we can proceed:

Initially, I would say your AT cart is quite likely to be a bit decent.
At
any rate I would certainly recommend the AT110E (£28) as a good enough
cart
for anyone on a budget (or linear tracking, as it happens) deck. They get
5
stars in any comic you care to name, they are used by both the Queen and
Stavros on decks all over Buck House, Madonna has got two of them and
Bill
Clinton is apparently making enquires about one.....

I'll look into it. I've put off looking for a cart for a long time because
there are no good HiFi shops around here, certainly nowhere you could
listen. With the Technics cart records seemed to have a 'lisp', that went
away with the AT.

I've found out my cart is an AT70. Google turns up near nothing on it, not
one mention of a celebrity owners.

Question is - is it set up right? If you don't have a protractor, you can
download one from www.enjoythemusic.com and print it out for yourself
(make
sure you print it 'full-scale') - it is of the '2 null point' type and is
all you need. It will get alignment and overhang sorted.

Downloaded. Will try tinkering later, when the building site across the
road shuts up.

Next is azimuth - if the cart is squint (and you have no tonearm
adjustment)
you may have to pack one side of the cart with a sliver of paper (between
cart and headshell) to get the needle perfectly upright. Fiddly but
important.

I have always thought of azimuth to mean horizantal rotation, bit from your
contect I'm not so sure, I think you mean rotation about an axis along the
tonearm?

VTA - if you have no adjustment for this, then just don't worry about it
for
the moment.

Tracking Force - if this is not easy to set on your tonearm then get hold
of
a little 'seesaw balance' from a friendly 'hifi' store - they should give
you one for nowt, if you are lucky. Otherwise it's pence. Set the weight
of
your cart to the manufacturer's spec. (ie 1.7-1.8 gm - works every bloody
time!)

There's a weight on the end of the tone arm that can be turned to set the
balance. When I got the decks I set intuitively adjusted it so that the
tonearm is hanging in equilibrium at zero and normally have it at about
1.9, though trial and error.

Now the needle should be about right. I'm assuming it's in good
condition,
otherwise replace it (naturally).

Seems ok on a visual inspection.

Next comes the records. Get 'em feckin' clean - ****e vinyl sounds ****e.
If
nothing else, use a barely damp cloth to scrub 'em up and a bone dry one
(yellow dusters are good) to dry them off. Do this perfectly flat on a
table, forget any daft ideas about sinks and running water. If you can
get a
1:4 IPA to Distilled Water mix, this will be perfect. Use NO OTHER
concoction whatsoever.

To me IPA was always India Pale Ale, and none of these seem correct
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-
query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=ipa&Find=Find I'm guessing the A is alcohol.
Some of these records look like they could use a clean, I was playing some
early björk stuff the other night and could clearly hear the dirty parts on
the surface.

Some of my newer, clean, records sound very good, although I'd guess they
are likely digitally mixed. The last track of Radiohead live recordings
"true love waits" leaves me too scared to touch the cueing. So far it's the
only track that's sounded notably beter than the cd. Maybe the vinyl is
just causing pleasant distortion, but the even sounds more as if it were
here.

I suppose, in theory at least, a digtally mixed master could sound good on
vinyl, because either it is of a higher sample rate or a better dac, but I
seriously doubt it. Is there a place I can find out how a record was
produced?

Routine, dry wiping can be done with Swiffers ('antistatic dusters) which
cost about a quid a box and will last months, if not years. Tip - do not
mention they are for cleaning records or the shop will be forced to
charge
you £39.99 a box (BADA regulation?).

Right, your cartridge is set up right, the decks working fine and your
records are CLEAN. Now's the time to look at your kit.

You don't say what amp you are using and whether or not you are using an
integral Phono stage. As Mike has already stated - an external PS (pre-
amp)
is very likely to sound better (They usually got their own dinky little
outboard power supplies for a kick-off - it helps no end). If you can run
to
one (£40 for a ProJect Phono Box or better) it probably would be a 'leg
up'
The trick is to see if you can borrow one and try it out. At the end of
the
day I don't think you can beat valves, but they don't come cheap,
infortunately.....

Try this course of action and let us know how you get on.

I'm using an anonomous little black-box preamp, it has the code BT26 on the
front. I think Richer sounds used to sell these for about £20. I suppose it
isn't up to most audiophile standards, but I opened it up once and the
amplifier chips were, IIRC, from a good source.

Thanks for all the advice!

--
Jim