#phase linear 8000a

[audio-luddite]

Talk about Vinyl

I often mention my system is built around vinyl. But have I really got into my experience with it? What it is like?

Well first lets get technical:

I would like to address the skipping, clicks, pops and noise issue. 95% of the time I do not get any of that. On some of my really old discs yes there is a bit of noise, but I do not mind it. On the rest I keep my LPs clean. By clean I mean I wipe them with special fluid and a discwasher pad usually before every play. Noise is dirt. No dirt no noise. There may be some residual tape noise down 60 dB, but it is overwhelmed by the music.

Actually on my really old records what bugs me is a poor mix or excessive compression.

Lower frequencies are sometimes but not always summed between the stereo tracks. Pick a number and mix the two sides together. At 100 Hz the wavelength is 11 feet (3.35 m). If your speakers are 11 feet apart or less you cannot tell where that sound is coming from. A drum has the higher harmonics and sounds that give you the location information. A single low frequency is unlocatable. So mixing the bass has no serious effect.

The treble of an LP depends on the LP and the way it was recorded and mastered. The equipment can respond to far over normal human hearing ranges. I have at least two Phono cartridges that respond to over 43 kHz. The old quadraphonic systems used that for 4 channel LPs.

Dynamic Range is a real limit, but a high quality LP can have 50, even 60 dB of DR. 60 dB is a factor of a million. That is a lot. CDs have more in 96 dB, streams can have more as well. It is a very rare CD or stream that uses very much of it. Current music is usually very compressed. What that means is most of the DR is not used and the signal is kept loud. Classical and Jazz LPs often have excellent DR. I have a direct to disc album that has DR at the LP limit and it is amazing. I have that nutty KODO CD that uses all the the available CD dynamic range but it actually demonstrates you don't need that much.

Audiophile LPs are usually chosen for good DR as well as the other qualities.

OK so that is out of the way.

When I want to play an Album it is usually because I want to have a quiet listen to music. I mean I want to be quiet, the music may get turned up. It takes an hour for my ARC tube amp to warm up and get happy. I may warm it up with a CD or a stream, but then I pull out an LP.

I may have an old tune in my head. I may want to just have another listen to a symphony or Jazz number. I may want to immerse myself in the full width and depth of audiophile nirvana. What to play? I flip through the musical milk crate and see oh here is something.

I pull out the album. I may be Sting's Soul Cages, or Boz Scaggs "Memphis", or Steely Dan's Aja. I choose. I pull it from the jacket and the slip cover and look at the label for what side is up. Do I want a particular song, or the whole thing front to back? Often I have a particular song in mind, but I will usually play the whole thing. The artist had an intention. Would you read a novel from the middle and skip around?

I put it on the player and cue it to start spinning. Always place the record on and pick it off a not moving platter. I mean, do you want to scratch it? Give the brush a spritz of fluid and wipe the record down. Cue the lead in track, set the volume and go sit in the good spot.

Listen. Somebody is sharing a dream or nightmare, or just a bit of their life. Often there are tiny little details hidden in the music to tease you. Sometimes it is just a whole world around you.

In about 20 minutes you have to get up and flip it. I do not mind. Moving is good for you. Maybe fix a drink, or freshen the one you got. There is a whole other side to go.

More often than not I think of another album while the first plays. I get in the mood for more. This usually goes on for hours. That is what it is for.

Audio Research SP 14 preamp, Russian 6N23Pi tube in the phono section.

ARC Classic 60 amplifier with a full complement of Electro-harmonix tubes.

Phase Linear 8000a II linear tracking turntable with AT 7V cartridge

Whatever album I feel like.

[audio-luddite]

Another Album arrived.

I ordered a Dire Straits "Brothers in Arms" album. It was recorded about 40 years ago. This one is a MOFI repress, used, and seems in good shape.

The album was recorded in a Caribbean island on the side of a volcano. The tape deck was a 24 track Sony digital machine. It was originally released on CD and became Dire Straits' biggest hit.

The album won the Grammy for engineering in 1986. I have two other DS albums, but had never got around to this one. (PS turns out I had, I just lost it in the shelf)

MOFI works to get the best sound out of the best masters and they are pretty good at it. They did this one about 10 years ago for vinyl.

I streamed the album last week and liked the music. I wondered why I had not bought it before. The next step of course was to see what was available. If I can get gourmet issues I do. A local shop had this one. Apparently Mofi has some for sale on its site as of yesterday.

It cost about the same money, but with the exchange rate and no duty it was better.

I unwrapped the thing. It is a 2 x 180 @ 45 skate board trick LP. At least it is labeled as 45 rpm. So annoying when they don't do that.

Of course I wiped it down and played it. Gotta be sure its OK. It was. There are stories about the sessions which are kinda fun. Like the set up for the Guitar amplifier's speaker being accidental and really good for "money for nothing." People quitting and being brought in and some tracks getting lost. Usual Rock and Roll nonsense.

Occasionally something grabs my attention. I was getting familiar with the songs from the streams. I liked the sound. Sting's vocal on "money.." was kinda floating around. It was a bit less resolved than the stream, but not in a bad way.

But on side 4 (double album) the sound of the guitar on "The man's too strong" was really different than the stream. When the side finished I played it again. Then I fired up the stream of the same song. OK I suppose I may be exaggerating a bit, but the LP was far more complex and rich sounding.

This particular track had a ringer guitar player brought in and he used a "Synth Guitar". The sound is crazy, metallic, rich, and solid. In the stream the notes are there, but they do not hit you as hard. Over the whole album this was the most noticeable difference. I cannot tell if it is distortion from the guitar amp or something snythy. It just has very rich harmonics. Did the lossless people clean it up a bit?

This was a digital recording from the start. It was originally released on CD and followed with LPs and Cassettes (oh the 80s). This was the first album to sell more CDs than LPs.

Even though it sold very well the critics initially were rather negative. They wanted more edge or something. The Fans disagreed. So much for experts. Later reviews were better.

Digital aint bad by itself. It only sucks when abused by ham fisted engineers. This was an early DDD recording when that acronym meant as much as AAA does to vinylphiles today. Maybe Micheal Fremer can tell pure analog from digital. He has his preference. Oh and he produced a recent Jazz album on digital. Funny guy.

I am glad I spent the money. I will have another go tonight.

[audio-luddite]

Saw a turntable video.

This is from a tech in Perth Australia. He fixes up old stuff. Good on Yah Mate! (one of my daughters moved to Oz).

The example is a Pioneer PL L1000 linear tracking turntable. It is a repair and restore video. It is obvious he is a fan of the brand.

This is an earlier version of my Phazer turntable.

Pioneer never sold this model in North America. Some made it here as they did sell it in Military PX stores to US servicemen overseas. There was this model and a version 2 under Pioneer in Asia.

Mine is branded a Phase Linear which was owned by Pioneer back in the day and they did import it to this side of the big water. That is a Phase Linear 8000a Series 2. It is mechanically identical but had some re-engineered electronics to simplify the circuits. The only other difference is the twirly knob on the right is replaced with two half circle buttons to move the arm laterally under command.

Liquid Audio may not have done a full restoration. He got it going again for sure. He does show that the old rubber goes away and needs replacing. He did that for the small arm lift motor, but I did not see if he fixed the foot surrounds. The lower half of the TT that holds the motor and arm is suspended on 4 spring towers that have rubber surrounds. Since you can see the springs exposed in his video I wonder. When I replaced mine with new rubber it hides the springs.

I am an old person. My hand can get a bit shaky with fine motor skills being used. So manual placing of the stylus is a thing of the past. So when I encountered mine for sale I grabbed it sight unseen. It can be fully automatic, but I usually cue it with the lateral command. The automatic return is very handy if I drift off.

This is a great TT. It is Pioneer showing off. The lateral arm movement is by a linear induction motor. No strings, or belts or rotating shafts. The arm mount slides on smooth rails and there is no mechanical drive contact at all. The tonearm is carbon fiber. The height for the cartridge is adjustable. The tone arm accepts a standard headshell so swapping phono cartridges may take a whole minute to do.

I know they pander to DJs now, but if they wanted to they could bring this arm back for Audiophiles. It is brilliant. Arguably the best engineered linear arm out there. For the record (yes a pun) linear tracking is the only uncompromised way to place a cartridge in a record groove.

[audio-luddite]

All this Jazz

I have a lot of LPs so I should go back every so often. So right now there is double Keith Jarrett album playing. It is an MCA pressing called Great Moments with Keith Jarrett. Recordings dating from 1973 to 1978. All analog of course, but I am not a real stickler.

Thing about jazz recordings is they try to get everyone clear and clean. Some of this is "live" and you get some audience reaction. But there is no trying to make phoney space. You do get really great textures, right now the drummer is just banging his sticks, kiln dried wood. The ARC does textures really well. Full marks there.

I am not a jazz scholar who knows all the names and that stuff, I just like the sounds and the music. I know some names of course from the old days like Charlie Hayden, he's on this album. Jazz is less familiar and free form. Its nice to be surprised sometimes. Like that percussion hardware that is banging right now on the third cut of side A. (Great Bird).

Before this one I had the LA4 playing some fusion. There is this bell on the first cut that is so clear. They have a really nice version of Aranjuez. I have a Tim Wiesberg on deck.

You know one great thing about jazz recordings is you get very clear sound. Even the percussion gets front row. Metal sounds like metal, piano sounds like piano. So many different sounds in the drums. Also I think they just care more to get it right and do good pressings. It is not main stream consumer stuff.

Ok what is that? Sounded like a medieval crumhorn, but it is probably a soprano sax being abused. Hey both reed instruments.

Just groovin.

That is what this equipment is for.

[audio-luddite]

Tone Arms.

If you do Vinyl you need at least one. Depending on very many things you may have one that came with your brand name TT or you may have an aftermarket. To a great extent performance depends on compatibility with your phono cartridge / pickup rather than some absolute quality and expense.

So what do you get? It is simple if you buy a TT that has an arm.

All done time to spin it up!

It only gets complicated if there is an aftermarket or custom arm on your new toy.

SME Series III Very nice for a pivoting arm.

Back in the 70s and 80s lightweight arms were what you wanted for high compliance pickups. The most desirable aftermarket units were certain Grace or SME arms. There were many others. One common issue was dealing with warped LPs and lighter was better. But the paramount parameter was the mass as it related to your pickup. The best pickups of the day worked well with light arms.

The infamous Vestigal arm took vertical compliance to an extreme.

For high compliance pickups it worked pretty well. For a time the editor of TAS H.P. used this. Though if you understand resonances and such you may see several issues visible in the photo. I have one in a box with a broken pivot. They are cool in a way.

Over the years as high end audio preferred moving coil pickups heavy arms became desired and even required. The tracking force and compliance of that type need a certain mass to react against. As I do not care for moving coils I extend that to heavy arms. Enough said there.

I think that removable head shells are important.

It makes mounting and changing pickups much easier. If it is fixed in place you better have the steady hands of a Brain Surgeon. The type in the photo is a common and compatible style.

Inevitably I have to bring up pivoting versus tangential tracking. It is my thing. Why it is so is due to several technical issues which I will now describe.

Pivoting arms have two serious problems. Solutions to those range from poor to they can be lived with.

There is a lateral force on the pickup from the offset of the tangent friction vector to the pivot point that creates a moment about the pivot axis. This draws the pickup in towards the center of the LP. The magnitude of the force depends on geometry and the friction between the stylus and the LP. It can be compensated for by an "Anti-Skating" device which is set to approximate this lateral force. It is not a big force, but you have the pickup stylus leaning more on one side of the groove or the other. In pivoting arms it is never truly correct as the friction varies with the music intensity.

You can clearly hear this when it is not correct, as it often is with a pivoting arm.

To be frank many "experts" say the problem does not exist or is trivial. Hmmm cults are better than science.

This problem is non-existent in tangential arms as the offset in question is zero. This one thing justifies the tangential tracking method. But there is more.

The second problem is that the pickup is only at the correct angle with respect to the groove in at best two places in the arc for a perfectly adjusted pivoting arm. It is off everywhere else. The LP master is cut tangentially. It is better to follow the master don't you think?

I encountered a forum where an "expert" said "The number of problems inherent in any linear tracking table are too numerous to discuss here" and then slagged the concept. There are problems, but I am aware of several very effective methods to solve them.

There is at least one elegant and completely mechanical method to have an arm support accurately track tangentially. This was used in the HK Rabco TTs of the 70s and 80s. You can criticize the materials they used as some did not age well, but the tracking concept worked very well. I have one so I know this is true.

There are mechanical servo systems that move the arm based on a sensor. The drive can be a belt or a small cord, or in the case of my Phase Linear a linear magnetic motor drive. Bang & Olufsen used a drive belt. It works very well.

One method I do not care for, but it is in the marketplace are air bearing arms.

This is one of several where the arm rests on an air cushion and slides "frictionlessly" across the record. My problem is that it has to be perfectly level and the lateral driving force is from the pickup cantilever in the groove. Is not the whole point to get lateral force out of the equation?

There are also a few articulated arms that twist the head shell as it moves in the arc to maintain tangency. The old Garrards 100s for example and the newer Thales arms. Three issues there. One is there are extra pivots that reduce resistance to rattle. Two they are heavy and need the stylus to drive them. Three they still require anti-skating compensation. I call that a fail on all three counts.

For all this they all still work. Spin an LP and hear music.

It only gets tricky as you climb the way up that audiophile hill Mr Sisyphus.

[audio-luddite]

Near Miss there.

Well I could say I saved $50. There was an ad for a Pioneer PL L800 a linear tracking TT, which is a less expensive version of my Phazer (PL L1000 rebranded). It was $50! It almost worked and only had an issue with the linear arm tracking. I thought about it and checked again today and it was gone.

I have fixed up mine with new rubber dampers and a few tweaks. It is good. Is it perfect? No, but the only thing I could say is off is perhaps the deck could be a bit quieter. Maybe. I have heard rumble but It may actually have been on the LP and not my table. I have turned up the volume (too much) more than once wondering if the music had started yet. The rated SNR is 78 db which is not at all bad.

Funny thing is back in the day when vacuum tubes ruled the preamp world they came with "rumble filters" to cut the Bass and maybe a bit of the wall current noise. Not even the old golden ears thought that was a strange thing.

I do not need another TT. This one came with a box and packing material and a headshell I could use on the phazer. The box should fit mine if I ever need to move it. See I thought about it.

I toyed with the idea of trying to fix it as the problem is not unknown. The repair manual is on-line. That is another advantage of old stuff, there are real manuals you can look up and work out problems. Turns out the vendor is one of the people who fixes up old electronics including TTs and sells them on. He should have been able to fix it. That gave me just enough pause to miss out. Someone grabbed it.

If they can fix it I will likely see it on the classifieds in the near future. Or they may join the Linear TT cult.

As LPs are now outselling CDs and are "fashionable" I hope the mainstream manufacturers fire up the linear product lines again. High end needs that. The boutique guys suck up too much money. Please no more depleted uranium platters spun by rubberized dental floss!

[audio-luddite]

Tangential Tracking TTs

I am totally sold on the concept. I had a number of high end TTs with conventional pivoting arms. I chanced upon a Harman Kardon Rabco on Craigslist for $200.00. I knew what it was and was intrigued. I got it and really liked how it worked. It did things better than my Sony 2251, it also did some things worse. Vibration isolation was poor. Then I found a very nice Pioneer built Phase linear 8000 ( Pioneer PL1000) which was much better and did OK in the isolation department. Both of those will mount any standard phono cartridge with the PL1000 family using a standard head shell to boot.

It was pure luck I found and was able to get these. I have seen no more of either type locally for several years. Across North America there may be only a few come up in a year. Today I found none listed on the Audio Mart for the whole continent. A more general Google Search gives you ads for units that sold already.

The simple reasoning behind the linear concept is the records are cut on a lathe that tracks straight across the lacquer. Playback should mimic this. More subtle is I find a better and more stable image in the sound and better tracking in the inner grooves. I also like there is far less fussing getting the setup. There is no anti-skating force to always get wrong.

There are very generally several levels of this type of turntable.

There is the ultra high end where the tonearm is a special piece of engineering built for an ultra high end turntable deck.

This is a Clearaudio from Germany. Currently produced. If you have to ask......

There is a merely high end level which are the old halo products from Japan like the Yamaha PX3s, Pioneers, and Mitsubishi LT-20 & 30 decks with factory arms. Here also you find the B&O Beograms like the 4004 in several iterations. All of these use active lateral drives to move the arm along. All are no longer manufactured, but there are survivors. The Beogram has a single source for cartridges but they are quite good.

Beogram 4004. There is one for sale across town for $2000.00. Very pretty.

A bit below that and maybe not that far below are the popular but I consider deeply flawed air bearing arms you can get for more common decks. My criticism is that the tiny cantilever must provide the force to overcome the inertia of the arm assembly. There is a lot of inertia. Dead level with good perfectly centered disks they perform very well.

Next I place the several Harman Kardon STx Rabco turntables. They have an active lateral drive that is a brilliant mechanical concept, but is executed from OK to poorly. The decks are not great as they are framed with sheet metal, but they respond well to modification and tweaking. Mine is an ST5 which is the mechanically simplest and has a metal drive roller that does not dissolve into goo like the rubber ones. The more complex units are far too mechanically complex so they earned a bad reputation for reliability. They are not bad looking.

There are several strange designs made because they could. Mitsubishi and Sony made vertical playing units. I do not like the idea, but they are collectable.

Aside from being compact on a table top, just why????

Then there is the base level of the type. If you look in ads this is most of them. Technics and Sony and many brands are there with a simple and compact design. All these use P mount cartridges. You are not stuck with a single source but selection is far more limited than standard cartridges. Grado makes some, and so does AT.

It is likely that most on the market are these cheaper ones. I have no personal experience, but I have read comments where users were quite happy with them. Typical price is $200.00.

Overall Tangential tracking TTs are uncommon. Good ones surface from time to time at reasonable prices. Then there are the unreasonable prices. If you have lots of $$ you can have a new one off a dealer's stock. Or just keep an eye out for deals that is fun.

This is all to have fun you know.

[audio-luddite]

180 grams of nice music.

Loreena McKennitt is a nice person one of those ethereal voices who spends time in the new age folk easy listening world. I was surprised to find she was born in Manitoba (like me!). Her interest is Celtic music and culture. Specifically Irish, but the Celts got around. My mum was of Scottish decent (Celtic) and from an era that if you wanted music you made it yourself. She player guitar, fiddle, banjo and piano if not well, enthusiastically. I heard a lot of reels and aires as a kid. It may be some deep genetic thing that makes me like bagpipes. So I am programmed to like this stuff.

I had heard of Ms Mckennitt, but nothing specific, and had none of her music. I recall a song about mummers was popular a few years ago.

I was at a real brick and mortar record shop. To be honest they also sell DVD, Bluray, CDs Tee shirts and such. But there is a decent rack of LPs in the front. The selection is interesting. Lots of stuff even I consider old like Frank Sinatra. A good amount of Jazz and even pop music all on new LPs.

I flipped through several yards of LP stacks. Just doing that made me feel nostalgic. I pulled some to the front in case I would buy it. Decide at the end. One was an album called "Lost souls." Issued in 2018 and this was 180 grams. That is good. People who bother with heavy vinyl are careful doing it. I for some mysterious reason bought it.

I played it last night. The jacket was standard, but the disk was in a proper sleeve not just cheap paper. There was a booklet of several pages with the lyrics and personnel just like the old days. The surface was quiet in fact I was not sure it had started and turned up the volume a bit too far.

The sound is excellent. Broad and clear with several musical guests arrayed across my living room wall and fireplace. Clear soprano voice. Not perfect there were a couple of off bits, but just more human. The instruments were crystal clear. You have to hear a Spanish guitar on a good system to appreciate it's dynamic. I like folk style percussion. It has a timbre and intimacy, not just thumping. Lots of nice detail.

So this may be one of those rare "test" quality albums with music I like. It was my first pass over it. My wife was away, so I did not have to be quiet. My next pass may be with headphones.

Some songs were very Irish or Scottish, one was Spanish / Arab. Galicia Spain was a Celtic enclave, also Arab and a few other contributors to the culture. The album was of songs written at other times, but never included on previous albums. She just gathered them up and put them here. Two were songs written to poems by Keats and W.B. Yeats. It was a lovely blending of cultures on many levels.

So an enjoyable session, which is why we have all this gear.