A question of Bass.....

LFE · « **on:** 27 Feb 2006, 02:03 am »

I have a Clear Audio Emotion TT with the Classic Wood cart and a project box SE pre and I A/B compared the sound to my Mac Mini/Squeeze Box and I find that my TT rig is lacking the bass heft of my Digital rig. Any improvements i can make? Upgrades?

djbnh · « **Reply #1 on:** 27 Feb 2006, 02:20 am »

Check your VTA...

andyr · « **Reply #2 on:** 4 Mar 2006, 11:04 am »

Quote from: LFE

I have a Clear Audio Emotion TT with the Classic Wood cart and a project box SE pre and I A/B compared the sound to my Mac Mini/Squeeze Box and I find that my TT rig is lacking the bass heft of my Digital rig. Any improvements i can make? Upgrades?

Hi LFE,

As djbnh suggests, your VTA may be off ... if the arm is too high at the pillar, this causes you to lose bass.

However, you need to be aware of the following three points re. vinyl vs. CD:

* CD does often give better bass than vinyl - bass "heft" is a good term for this. (That was one of the "benefits" touted for CD in the early years ... the fact that it was unlistenable to for long periods of time was conveniently ignored!!

) )

The reason for this is the difficulty of allowing the large "wiggles" in the groove that deep bass requires - typically you need 45rpm and wide groove spacings to deliver CD-comparable bass on vinyl ... and not much vinyl is produced to these standards!

* different phono stages produce good deep bass to a greater or lesser degree, depending on their RIAA equalisation circuit and their PS.

Your phono stage might be able to be "bassed-up" by substituting the PS caps with Black Gates ... or it may simply be inferior.

* different cartridges produce different levels of good, deep bass too.

Regards,

Andy

meby · « **Reply #3 on:** 4 Mar 2006, 08:07 pm »

The emotion is very thin sounding table. You may want to put a cartridge like a shelter, koetsu, benz, or dynavector to counteract the thin nature of the table.

LFE · « **Reply #4 on:** 4 Mar 2006, 11:38 pm »

It turns out the arm was way too high. The VTA fixed it! Much better all around! I am looking to step up to the VPI Scoutmaster in Mid May, any advice for carts? I was looking at the SUMIKO - BLUE POINT SPECIAL EVO-III MC CARTRIDGE any comments about the bass of the VPI table or Sumiko. The VPI table is $2500 with the JMW-9 arm and that is about my limit (minus cart... i may look to the JMW 9 Sig arm only if the difference is clearly audible). I bought the Clear audio as a stop gap, I wanted a table ASAP and was willing to accept that i would be loosing a few hundred bucks when i sell it.

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #5 on:** 6 Mar 2006, 02:54 am »

Quote from: LFE

It turns out the arm was way too high. The VTA fixed it! Much better all around! I am looking to step up to the VPI Scoutmaster in Mid May, any advice for carts? I was looking at the SUMIKO - BLUE POINT SPECIAL EVO-III MC CARTRIDGE any comments about the bass of the VPI table or Sumiko. The VPI table is $2500 with the JMW-9 arm and that is about my limit (minus cart... i may look to the JMW 9 Sig arm only if the difference is clearly audible). I bought the Clear audio as a stop gap, I wanted a table ASAP and was willing to accept that i would be loosing a few hundred bucks when i sell it.

If LFE stands for 'Low Frequency Extension', it's no wonder the change in VTA made you happy

I've not seen any ultra-enthusiastic endorsements of the BPS III out there...the better Blackbird seems to garner the lions share of praise in Sumiko's line. Would seem to be plenty of great choices in that price range, tho.