I have a feeling that this may be a topic that has already been discussed to death, but the only thread I’ve found so far is one at Stereophile.
I will I’ll be moving into my new home with a new semi dedicated semi anechoic listening room, and I am just realizing now that maybe the 25 ft speaker cable runs vs the 3 to 4 ft interconnect runs that I was used to in my old NYC loft for decades is maybe not the optimal ratio.
I presume that that I don’t want a long interconnect between the turntable and the preamp.
I’m looking for various points of views and justifications for them. Remember, one caveat is that I’m the kind of guy who will spend only a moderate amount of dollars for interconnects and speaker cable. Thank you all.
The 80s ushered in a new kind of zeitgeist. All of a sudden the need to belong communally, the need for companionship, the need to give and receive love got fractured and superseded by a need to make money.
Still there are always those who don't totally buy into the bean counting culture. They understand other commodities are even more important.
It's also great to see Mancuso's influence still at large. They even had clubs in London playing music through a pair of Tannoy Westminsters.
@unreceivedogma, thanks for the links. Here in the UK many used to call New York the capital of the world. I don't remember anyone ever arguing against it.
For me, on top of everything else it was the home of Marvel Comics. It was where Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and others created some of the greatest works of fiction the world has ever seen.
I always thought that the Fugs were more punk than the Velvets.
There was also The Last Poets (invented the poetry slam) out of Spanish Harlem, tied to The Young Lords (The Nuyorican version of The Black Panthers). That led to the founding of The Nuyorican Poets Cafe on 6th Street between A and B in The East Village - known to Nuyoricans as Losaida - where poetry slamming took off. I lived in a flat upstairs from them when they got started around 1975. My wife and I got married there two decades later. I’m still friends with some of the founders (I’m part Nuyorican myself) but the Cafe is now a suburban hipster (imo hipsters are faux hippie/punks) shadow of it’s former self.
I was doing a similar loft party from the late 70s onward, and stumbled into a Mancuso party through a friend three years after I had started. A concept I thought was mine, somebody had invented it already! He was using Klipsch and McIntosh, I was using Dyna Stereo 70 and Altec 604C. And booze and weed were allowed at mine.
Amazing, how not only these youthful scenes are gone, but Ginsburg, Reed, Mancuso, Piniero, Kupferburg, all passed away.
My speakers are 16 ohm and 101dB efficiency. My Dyna MK III have 4, 8, and 16 taps but the Futtermans do not. When I had the 604Cs rebuilt by Gabriel Sound, I had the option of keeping them at 16 or switching them to 8. Jon Specter, my engineer, said to absolutely keep them at 16.
It looks like I will be staying with my current configuration: long speaker cables, short interconnects.
Paulrandall,
Putting the table in a different room is an intriguingly OCD idea (let’s face it, to have this hobby, we all have to have a little OCD), but as there is only one room on this floor, not an option unless I put it out the window. It might be a little tricky changing LPs from three stories up. And then what happens on a windy day?
But that brings up something else I was recently considering.
Before, I had the table sitting on top of a record cabinet that I had bolted to the 16 inch thick brick wall in my nyc loft. I was going to bolt it to the 24 inch thick (non functioning) chimney in this space. However, my masonry guy used a five foot L-shaped steel plate to stabilize masonry on another building of ours and I got the idea of having him bolt an L-shaped steel plate to the chimney that was large enough to rest the table on. The steel is very thick. Question is: what would that sound like?
I don’t use VPI’s springs between the chassis and the base btw: I use little rubber balls.
I have my equipment in a different room from my speakers to eliminate some turntable feedback issues. Have used 25 foot lengths of speaker cable with very fine results. Not expensive cables either, MITerminator 2. Excellent bass and slam on my Revel Performa 206's!
According to some literature when I researched this topic, the total resistance of the wire should be less than 5% of the nominal impedance of the speakers. Of course, the speaker impedance can dip well below the "nominal" value at certain frequencies so the safer bet is more like 2-3% depending on the impedance curve. Furthermore, the amplifiers with multiple speaker impedance taps, e.g., 8, 4, 2 ohms, etc., tend to have a different damping factor (output impedance) for each tap. So sometimes it might be worth to experiment with the different taps, especially when running long cables, to decide which sounds better. For example, my MC2200 manual lists the following damping factor values: DF 16 for 1 ohm DF 50 for 2 ohm DF 30 for 4 ohm DF 16 for 8 ohm
In my set up where I need to run very long speaker cables (true bi-wire 12awg), I get an overall better SQ when I use the 4 ohm tab for my 6 ohm speakers but at the expense of a narrower/deeper soundstage when compared to the 8 ohm tap. Interestingly, the 2 ohm tap has a slightly fuller sound but it compresses the soundstage even more considerably. My 2 cents FWIW.
Keep the long speaker cables and short interconnects. Amps have a low, low output impedance and output high level signals which are not affected by interference (well, unless the amp has a design issue).
Here we were in the UK thinking how incredibly exciting it was that Punk was going to change the world, and it was ours - homegrown. Only later we found out about places like Max's and it's connection with the Velvets/Warhol, New York Dolls/Malcolm McLaren all leading to the Sex Pistols.
We later got to see Debbie Harry/ Blondie and the Ramones on TV for ourselves and then hear all about CBGB's. Now all those NY bands have passed into legend.
In the end it did all change the world if only to make it cool to be young, even more than the 60s had done.
The great thing now is that if you have the attitude you're never too old to rock. Or as a certain Mr Young might say, 'Keep On Rockin' in the Free World'.
I did try removing it once to experiment but I still got the feedback. Putting it completely down did the trick. Maybe with the new space this will be a non-issue.
BUT...sometimes I think in at least some of those recordings, the engineer is messin’ with us audiophiles. As an example, when I play the overture to Tommy by The Who, about when the French horn kicks in, my dog goes running to that speaker and starts howling like a wolf. Then she hears something in the other speaker and goes running over there and howls some more. And on it goes, back and forth, left to right, right to left, driving her nuts. It’s the only time she makes that sound. My guess is since we humans can only hear to about 15K - in reality more like 8K - but dogs can hear to about 45K... you get the picture.
The dust cover is always down during parties. Guests can be really obnoxious, and I’ve had to have been very curt and rude with them to not only keep their hands off but to stay back.
As for the scene, I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Only with hindsight did I realize how special those times were. I went to the Max’s 50 year reunion a couple years back. It was held in some tacky classic rock club in midtown Manhattan that felt like what you would imagine a Hard Rock Cafe off the NJ Thruway in Parsippany would be. But a lot of the old crowd turned out for it: members of the Dolls, of Bowie’s bands, Tod Rundgren, The Fugs etc.
There was also CBGB right down the street from me, on The Bowery, the Mudd Club, Area (another Warhol hangout), Sin-e, The Knitting Factory (Jeff Buckley hung out at the latter two). All are now gone.
I’ve had the system up to 95db. Almost no distortion.
@unreceivedogma, having read a few Springsteen biographies before his recent autobiography I was pleasantly surprised at how candid he was. He didn't gloss over his problems with perfectionism or forget those who gave him a helping hand.
It's must be kind of strange for you to have been involved in a scene which has since gone down in history and been catalogued hundreds of times. The closest I got to Max's was via the Pistols LP.
Regarding the turntable feedback I wonder whether the lid is picking up the airborne feedback when its up and transmitting it to the headshell. It might be worth removing the lid completely to see if it disappears entirely.
In any case 85db or thereabouts is pretty good. Many a deck would start dangerously howling by then.
Actually, the dust cover is usually up. But with about 10% to 15% of my records, beyond a certain volume, say 85 decibels or so, the cartridge picks up feedback hum from the speakers. When the dust cover is down, the problem disappears completely. The cover does not “chatter” at all. I presume Westfield must have dampened it somehow. And, I presumed from that experience that it must actually be better to have the cover down all the time, but I get lazy and I otherwise don’t hear a difference. With the new room, that may change.
As for the cost of equipment generally, never mind cable, I’m from the David Halfer school of audio. You shouldn’t have to mortgage the house for good sound. I see someone has brought an updated version of the old Dyna70 back, still regarded as one of the great designs of all time. I still have my Dyna MK III monoblocks for the day that I finally get around to bi-amping my speakers.
i did not pay for that Koetsu. It was a gift from a very well known rock musician / environmentalist via his engineer. No way do I spend $10K on a cartridge. That said, it is way better than my Benz Micro.
First of all my rig is in no way in your rigs league. Let’s get that straight right now. I notice you play your albums with the dust cover on. Well, my first so called ’audiophile’ turntable was a Pro-Ject RPM 5.1 SE and I couldn’t believe it when the owners manual said specifically not to play albums with the dust cover on as the dust cover tends to vibrate from the speakers and the turntable when the turntable is playing! Is it is just a dust cover only? For when the turntable is not playing? And not for sound reproduction? I'd enjoy some feedback on the above comments here.
I thought this was nuts, but tried it anyway, and you know what, I have been playing albums that way ever since. No matter what tuntable I am using at the time. I found through listening tests that the sound is better when no dust cover is used!
There’s a long standing debate of what the stylus can and and cannot hear or read. Is the stylus similar to a mic? Or does it only read what is transcribed when in the grooves of vinyl?
Maybe the closed turntable dust cover/lid thing is a holdover from the 70’s when our parents would buy us those cheap-o all inclusive thingys so us kids could have our ’blue lights in the basement’ parties. Ahhh...Those were the days weren't they? Never realising that the old RCA or Magnavox that mom and pops had upstairs was actually a way better rig!
As to interconnects and speaker wire I think you said you had something similar to the old Monster cable back in the day? I know you didn’t want to spend a lot of money but with a $17,000 rig, I think you can afford more for interconnects and speaker wire than you give yourself credit for.
I would suggest you take a look at Morrow Audio speaker wire and interconnects especially since they have a 60% off sale going on too right now. When you have good speaker wire and interconnects you can almost run them as long as you want.
I’m using Blue Jean Cable speaker wire and interconnects and have 25’ each for my dual subs with no problems in sound degradation whatsoever. Cheers mate.
Yes. Between his 1st and 2nd LP. He was a scrawny, skinny kid then. And Parsons, that was between his two LPs of course, he was dead a mere 5 months or so later. I sat in the front row at that and most of the other shows, which as you would know if you were ever there was almost literally sitting in the lap of the artists. A friend was a waitress downstairs and she would get me in early and for free through the back. I met Debbie Harry through her, as Ms Harry was a waitress there before Blondie, but of course back then she was just Debbie and I didn't get to know her well. I eventually saw her again though with Blondie, also saw Bowie, Talking Heads, Dave van Ronk, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper (with a "C"). I missed Phil Ochs :-(
I miss those days. Micky Ruskin was a special guy, Max's was a special place, upstairs and downstairs. I think Micky died of lung cancer at a very young age, maybe 50. Mickey helped artists in need. I think I paid for only half of what I ever ate and drank there, as I myself was a struggling artist at the time and he would just wave the tab. It was no wonder he was broke all the time, but he did built up quite a collection of 60s artwork by chamberlain, Marden, Warhol, Poons, Andre, Weiner etc because they would run up these huge tabs and then just pay him with an artwork. They would be worth a fortune these days. The walls were like an art gallery.
The Bottom Line had superb acoustics, maybe the best of any club that I have heard. Miles set itself was great, but as you can imagine he was horrible. It was the Agartha period: great music but in hindsight it was also a glimpse of the beginning of the end.
Almarg 6-18-2018
Looks like David Kalb is Danny’s brother, as indicated on Danny’s
website. He looks to be a good deal younger than what I’d expect Danny
to look like in recent years, though. In any event, it appears that
Steph Curry has nothing on him :-)
Steakster, after doing a bit of additional research I'm thinking that the Danny Kalb whose site links to David Kalb's basketball video may be a different Danny Kalb than the Blues Project person. Here is the Wikipedia writeup on the Blues Project's Danny Kalb, which doesn't appear to mention any of the lengthy discography shown at the first link.
Well, speaking of Bruce Springsteen, I saw him Upstairs at Max’s Kansas City, right after his first lp was released. I was sitting in the front row. Clarence was dripping sweat all over me.
I saw Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris there, van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Loudon Wainright, The Dolls, Tim Buckley and others.
then there was that night at The Bottom Line. A friend was the sound engineer there. We were waiting two hours for Miles Davis to start his set. I asked my friend after, wtf? He said Miles was flying high as a kite on coke, it’s hard to get your rocks off in that state but he would not go onstage until he did. It took six women servicing him.
Looks like David Kalb is Danny’s brother, as indicated on Danny’s website. He looks to be a good deal younger than what I’d expect Danny to look like in recent years, though. In any event, it appears that Steph Curry has nothing on him :-)
Great quotes re The Remainders. I hadn’t heard of them previously.
The majority of my listening is to classical music, but the Blues Project’s "Projections" album is one of my all-time favorite rock albums. Although I like just about all of the songs on it, my favorite is "Steve’s Song," sung by Steve Katz, who as you are no doubt aware was also an original member of both the Blues Project and BS&T. I also like "Sometimes in Winter" very much, sung by Steve on the self-titled BS&T album.
@almarg Way back when, I saw The Blues Project many times at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. Every year on a long Thanksgiving weekend, the Cafe hosted a blues festival called The Blues Bag - 24/7 for 4 straight days. It was some kind of wonderful - from what I can remember of it. ;-0
Al Kooper has been busy all these decades as a musician & music producer. As a goof, he produced for The Rock Bottom Remainders. Barbara Kingsolver wrote a hilarious short story about their endeavor in ’High Tide in Tucson.’ I love these quotes from their Wiki page.
"Roy actually coined the term for our genre of music; ’hard-listening music.’ " – Dave Barry
"Your band’s not too bad. It’s not too good either. Don’t let it get any better, otherwise you’ll just be another lousy band." - Bruce Springsteen
The Blues Project was started by Danny Kalb. I never expected to see this amazing basketball trick shot on a musician’s website. Fast forward to 30 secs in. Watch it in full screen.
stock 604B, C, and D were 16 ohms. They can be modified to 8. When I had
them re-coned, I kept them at 16. Jon said the Futterman much prefer
the 16.
Even better!
I had seen the 8 ohm number in the listing for the 604C near the middle of this page, but a further search confirms that 16 ohms is correct. Thanks for pointing that out.
stock 604B, C, and D were 16 ohms. They can be modified to 8. When I had them re-coned, I kept them at 16. Jon said the Futterman much prefer the 16.
E and up are at 8.
I will ask Jon about the output impedance of both taps. I’m sure he must have thought of it and never explained to me, figuring it’s tmi, but you never know.
Thanks for the advice. Looks like I have had it more or less right all along.
OK. Given that, and pending any further info you might be able to provide after the equipment is unboxed, and given also that the 604c is specified as an 8 ohm driver, I suspect that with this particular equipment what would be best is:
-- Connect Output 1 to the amps via the shortest possible cable length. And preferably with cables having low capacitance, for example Blue Jeans LC-1 (12 pf/foot).
-- Connect Output 2 to the sub’s crossover/amplifier via whatever cable length is necessary. If the output impedance of Output 1 with the cap upgrade is anything remotely close to the original 100K spec it would not work well with the sub.
-- Connect the speakers to the amps via whatever cable length is necessary.
Generally speaking, low speaker impedance (which is not the case here) tends to increase the importance of minimizing speaker cable length. High output impedance of a component providing a line-level signal (which is certainly the case here) tends to increase the importance of minimizing interconnect length (although much less so in the case of a sub, for which cable effects on the treble region are unimportant). The use of unbalanced as opposed to balanced interconnections also tends to increase the importance of minimizing interconnect length.
Again generally speaking, my reading of the many previous threads in which the long speaker cable/short interconnect vs. short speaker cable/long interconnect subject has been discussed has been the same as yours, that "the preponderance of opinion is to put the amps near the speakers" (quoting from one of your earlier posts). However the specifics of your particular equipment appear to greatly overshadow any such generalities. Bill (Grannyring) had it right!
I went to The Cooper Union, I’m always making that mistake. Oops.
As for for the rest of your questions, they will have to wait until everything comes back out of their boxes.
That said, I have been running the Beard with the Futterman from either output with no discernible difference for 28 years. Specter returned the Beard to stock (except for the caps) two years ago, he did everything on the OTLs also and then tuned it all to the room.
The sub is a new addition to the system. I’ve used it only for a month or so before packing it up and haven’t really had a chance to fine tune things, but it sounded good though not great and made the Altec sound noticeably clearer. It went to output two.
Unreceivedogma, it appears that your preamp provides two RCA outputs. "Output 1," at least in stock form, has an EXTREMELY high output impedance of 100K, that was apparently suitable for use with a matching Beard power amp, but very definitely would not be suitable for driving long cables or a majority of other amps. "Output 2" has a specified output impedance of 600 ohms, although I wouldn't be surprised if that number rose to considerably higher values at deep bass frequencies.
Also, it appears that your sub has an external crossover/amplifier, with a fairly low input impedance of 20K. I don't know what the input impedance of your amps may be, but I suspect it is relatively high.
Before providing any suggestions, my questions at this point are:
1)How are you connecting the OTL amps and the sub's crossover/amplifier to the preamp? If one is connected to "Output 1" of the preamp and the other to "Output 2," which is connected to which?
2)By any chance do you know if the capacitor upgrade that was performed on the preamp included the output coupling capacitors?
3)And if so, do you know what the values of the new output coupling capacitors are, i.e., the number of uF (microFarads)?
4)If you know the input impedance of the amps, that would also be relevant information.
Also, a minor correction for the record, if I may: The musician you referred to is Al Kooper, not "Cooper." As you may be aware, also, prior to his BS&T days he was a member of the Blues Project, a great group IMO!
Seriously, if a cable can carry a signal for over a thousand miles without harm, what's a meter or two here and there?
Imagine the mileage of cabling they use to use in recording studios during the so- called golden age.
If Nat King Cole, Sinatra, Peggy Lee can sound that good 70 years ago under those conditions then its absolutely pointless to worry.
The OP is right to spend his money carefully on cables because no system ever built can yet improve on the original recordings. At any price.
Sometimes remastering from original sources can remove the smear imposed by too much mixing down / or by mastering from worn tapes.
Regarding the isolation of your turntable you should try to enhance the decks ability to prevent outside resonance from interfering with the tracking. Hopefully, if its not a budget deck, the designer has already done most of the work for you.
No one has been on the other side of a black hole, unless maybe you are metaphorically referring to some members of this community: who knows how fast whatever can travel there, including and especially bs.
That aside, yes, Einstein, among others, would be surprised.
if the wood stand is on a wood floor, even if on feet, I don’t know if that is simply delaying the inevitable.
Maybe the amps get bolted to the brick wall also.
My old home was on a busy manhattan intersection. I could feel vibration through the building almost constantly. Mortar was always flaking off the wall, and as it was a party wall, I took that as being caused not by moisture, but by vibration. My new home is much much quieter.
Asking a single ended vintage tube preamp to drive very long ICs will not be the most ideal choice in this specific system. What is the gauge of your speaker cable?
The speaker cable was close to the best that Monster - a new company at the time - had to offer in 1985. I’m not sure of the gauge, actually, but it is quite thick. The system is still in boxes.
I don't think you need to use the amp stands I posted, but as @dill recommends you should use some sort of amp stand. A maple platform with feet or something less expensive would be a plus.
I have always had the best results using short speaker cable and longer interconnects, balanced or single-ended, especially with tube amps. I would put the amps on a thick wood platform next to the speakers/crossovers and run the interconnects to the preamp.
I assume your amp is not balanced and you will be using RCA ICs. If so you are certainly better off with the longer speaker cable runs. No issue at all for you. Again, gauge matter with these long runs however. What gauge are your current speakers cables? This is the more important question.
cd318 It’s not an issue. Even cables running thousands of miles exhibit minimum loss or signal or time distortion as long as there are no breaks.
>>>>>>Strawman argument. The AC power is not the audio signal. The AC signal doesn’t travel all the way from the power company when you turn the ON switch. It’s available instantaneously. The voice signal degrades over distance due to a number of things, repreaters, vibration, etc. The standard for analog signals over transmission lines is lower than the audiophile standard. Bandwidth for voice is very limited, for example. Besides if the voice goes overseas it probably goes over satellite, which would be a 50,000 mile round trip in itself.
cd318 The speed of a signal through a cable is not far off the speed of light.
>>>>>You think you can sneak one by the goalie? 🏒 Vibration is continuous. The only way the audio signal can escape the influence of vibration is to travel instantaneously. Faster than the speed of light. Which photons have not learned to do yet. The audio signal travels very fast yet the song lasts several minutes. It’s a sitting duck. 🦆
It’s not an issue. Even cables running thousands of miles exhibit minimum loss or signal or time distortion as long as there are no breaks and freedom from interference.
The speed of a signal through a cable is not far off the speed of light.
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