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Advice on next step for vinyl chain

Hi everyone. I have been listening to digital and working on my digital setup for a few years now. Recently I inherited an old Kenwood turntable and I have a pretty large record collection from earlier years. I have been trying to set up a vinyl chain. It has been a real joy - even liked the pops and scratches at first. Can I ask some advice about cartridge choice, or even whether a new cartridge is the way to go? The current chain is: Kenwood KD-5070, Ortofon Blue MM cartridge, Parasound JC3+ phono pre, ARC LS25 II preamp, McIntosh MC 462 power amp, either B and W 803 matrix II or Celestion 700 speakers. The B annd W are a bit sharp and fatiguing, so I will be looking to switch to other speakers before long, something with the upper end of the Celestions but with bass (Harbeth?). I listen to big classical, chamber, classic rock, jazz, opera…

The gain on the vinyl chain is high. Have to keep the pre almost all the way down. The ARC is marginally better than using a passive pre. Thinking a moving coil would be a real improvement. Is that the way to go? Which cartridge would be a match? Thanks a lot for your help. 

arhgef
glennewdick's avatar
glennewdick
1,508 posts
 

The Kenwood is a good starter table, not the end all but for what they cost on the used market for what you get a descent set up. the Ortofon Blue is probably your first step in upgrade, ok cart on many basic tables but the Kenwood is good enough to to be worthy of a better cart.

You may want to check if you have adjustable gain on the phono preamp as you look to have too much gain from what you have written. if there is a lower gain setting try that. \\MC, MM, MI all can be had in various  outputs you will have to match the output of the cart to the gain of the phono stage and other loading settings. 

arhgef OP
52 posts
 

The phono pre has a fixed gain for MM but variable for MC. Don't really know where to begin trying to understand and compare cartridges. I will do some searching on YouTube and Google etc. Thanks.

elliottbnewcombjr
5,185 posts
 

the cartridge output is high, 5.5mv.

the pre has 48db gain for MM

are you using XLR or RCA? Some XLR outputs are stronger than the RCA output, perhaps the RCA output would tame it some.

 

Connections and Cartridge Loading

The JC 3+ is a dual mono design with unbalanced inputs and outputs using Vampire RCA jacks, plus balanced outputs using Neutrik XLR jacks. A custom-made three-position input impedance switch provides for 47 k ohm MM cartridges, 100 ohm MC cartridges, and 47 k ohm MC. The latter is an ideal load for some MC cartridges and high-end moving iron cartridges."

 

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