Voltron

I have no knowledge of George Jones, let alone his duets.

@Craig Sawyers Although I blame, er credit, Stretch for pointing out the audiogon ad for the AMG Viella TT a few years ago, the hand me down was the vinyl record, not the deck on which it spun.

Now that I have a working tonearm and a proper setup, the AMG is super solid. The 35lb platter is spinning at 33.3 and 45 RPM very consistently and steadily. The arm tracks precisely and without any wobble even if I walk around on my relatively spongey floor, which was a serious issue with the dead arm. I'm still getting to know the sound of the new cartridge and it is hard to compare anything given that I've barely been able to play this TT previously. The only cartridge I got to work briefly was a much cheaper Soundsmith moving magnet. I am going to try side by side listening to some vinyl and digital versions of the same recordings. I can try to add some thoughts on sound later.

Spinning a Stretch hand-me-down. Thanks tall pal.

Happy birthday! Cheers

You really joined 10 years ago and this is your first post? Opamp reviews on some random dac? What the fuck is that?

I just found out a good friend's dad died of covid tonight. Sad and angry. RIP Dr. Gerald Katzin.

This reminds me of the police blotter entry from the local paper in Michigan that I read this morning. There are always some gems in the blotter but I did love this one.

Depends on the person doing it. Some don't like to just replace the stylus because it is easier to put on a new cantilever with stylus.

I have a Van den Hul modified Koetsu that I stupidly did not bring with the table because I thought one backup was enough. It's not my favorite cartridge and he is in Pleasanton, so two round trips was enough for me. I will probably put the Koetsu back on the VPI eventually.

I think I will look into the Airtight but not the Lyra Skala at the moment. I was planning on asking you about your experience retipping recently. Most companies now just take the old cart as trade in for a new one.

Analog can be very frustrating. This week I finally took my second-hand AMG Viella TT to a dealer who also does setup work. It had never performed perfectly and typically the tonearm won't track and just slides across the entire record. The only way I could get it to play when I bought it three years ago was with a cheap moving magnet cartridge and that wasn't consistent. I gave up on it for a long time but tried to get it going again months ago only to be thwarted even worse. The distributor works with this guy who sets up a lot of tables so they recommended that I have him address the known issues, check out the table in general, and then dial everything in, assuming that is possible. He immediately found a potentially major problem with the tonearm, but then fixed it. After mounting my Airtight cartridge (that I told him I was worried had lost its stylus) and setting up the arm, he discovered an even bigger problem that forces the tonearm to shoot across the record that he cannot fix and doesn't even understand how it could be happening. He then discovered that not only my Airtight cartridge but also my Lyra cartridge were stylus-less. Fuck me. I think the Airtight was killed by my cleaning lady years ago on my VPI table. The Lyra stylus might have been lost when I was trying against the odds to get the table going more recently but I'm not sure it was even there at that time because it would not track the groove at all. Result? Bought a like-new used arm from the distributor and a used cartridge from the dealer. He showed me how jacked up the tonearm was, and I have never abused it and kept the cleaning lady away from this TT better than my last. So never buy anything from Stephane Prunet on audiogon because he had to know about the defects. I also bought cleaning fluid and fired up my Clearaudio Double Matrix cleaner. Now I'm going to listen to the beautiful, beautiful music...

RIP Harold. @skullguise Todd, I think your finger slipped because I don't think you meant to laugh at Dusty's post.

They automatically clamp down on various thicknesses without adjustment or tightening. You can set the tension +/- for thicker or thinner material before clamping but the range is wide. They work in t-tracks but also come with mounts that fit in bench dog holes. They also make them as hand clamps, which are great for one handed clamping.

I like the Kreg Automaxx bench clamps.

The stage production was two nights. Quite intense at the time. Watched the film version too. Hard to wrap my head around seeing it again.

Happy birthday Todd! Hope it's been a great one! Cheers!

RIP Squiggy. https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2020/tv/news/david-lander-dead-dies-squiggy-laverne-shirley-1234847158/amp/

You need to recommend which Festool router Jeff should buy.

That's great Jeff! Nice work cleaning up those angle cuts.