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Clearaudio Concept TT subpar sound quality

Hi all,

happy to have joined this great community and I hope you guys can help me.

I have a Concept turntable with concept arm and MM Clearaudio standard cartridge. The basic setup. It is connected to a Pro-Ject Phono Box E BT preamp that goes into a streaming hub (via a 3.5mm aux) and from there to my Buchardt A500 speakers. Lots of things the purists will not like but I am not a hardcore purist, so that’s ok.

My problem: the music coming out from the turntable is way worse than the same music being streamed from Spotify. So much that I am currently listening music only via Spotify. The sound from the turntable lacks in clarity and it seems to “saturate” the speakers.

I have verified the track force of the cartridge which is between 2 and 2.2 (depending where on the platter).

I am thinking the problem could be resolved with a better cartridge and phono preamp but would like to know what you guys think.

Thanks!!

agforte

Showing 6 responses by agforte

agforte OP
10 posts
 

Hi Solypsa,

thank you for your answer. The hub is part of the Buchardt A500 active speakers package:

 

agforte OP
10 posts
 

@sandstone thank you for your reply. You make a good point about the A/D conversion that should be done at the Buchardt’s hub instead of the low-end Pro-ject preamp. However, the only way I can test this is to buy a new preamp …

agforte OP
10 posts
 

It is a good suggestion. I can test with a single central active speaker I have but the quality of the speaker is not great so the problem may get “hidden” by the low quality of it. Not sure if I am explaining myself well. In any case I will test it. 

agforte OP
10 posts
 

Hi Russ, thank you for your comment. I am looking at the Hegel V10 phono preamp. I do hope that upgrading the preamp will make a substantial difference. What do you think of the standard Clearaudio MM cartridge?

agforte OP
10 posts
 

Thank you for your kind words Sandstone, I do hope I will be able to solve this issue. BTW I did level the platter. The only thing I have not done is play with the anti-skate as it is rather tricky on this TT. I do hope that's not the culprit of the problem because modifying that would be out of my comfort zone.

Talking about the Concept TT, I would not buy it again... mostly because of all the settings being so hard to reach (except for the VTF, everything is at the bottom of the TT). Just my opinion.

agforte OP
10 posts
 

Reading again the comment by Sandstone: does any of you get different VTF readings at different locations on the platter? I do and the platter is perfectly leveled in every direction.

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