Best way to listen to my Sondek again?

Glass of wine? Now we've got an engineer advocating use of mood altering drugs as a means to best appreciate replay.

Coloration inescapable

joerand posted:

Glass of wine? Now we've got an engineer advocating use of mood altering drugs as a means to best appreciate replay.

Coloration inescapable

Particularly after excessive consumption of RED wine, colouration of self / chair / carpet may become inevitable!  

Huge,

Not a wine drinker but sufficient IPA's will make any system fathomable provided the volume goes loud and the music's got PRaT.

After enough IPA I get loud, and can act like a bit of a PRaT ......does that count??

I find IPA gives a harsh loudness & much prefer ESB which gives a soft mellow effect.   It does have a slight a slight loss of PRaT as volume increases & zzzzzzz levels rise.  

But the ones you really need to avoid while listening to a Naim system are 'Summer Lightning' and 'Winter Lightning'.  

HH sugested a 172 feeding your NAP100... I'd strongly urge you to look at the NAC-N272 if at all possible, it knocks the 172 into a cocked hat (whatever one of those is).  The 272 also has plenty of digital and three analogue inputs, so your DAC V1 could go to help fund it of course.  You still need the Stageline and a power supply for it (Flatcap as Richard suggests), but the added beauty of the 272, beside the sonic prowess, is that you can upgrade with a power supply (usually XPS) at some point down the line.  The inbuilt DAC is very good too, I find.   I run a DUAL721 / Stageline / Flatcap into my 272... the vinyl sounds great.

With regard to the LP12, a new belt is the minimum and of course a look at the oil level would be a good starting point.  All the other suggstions above are valid too, bearing in mind that the stylus mounting medium is likely to have stiffened up after this amount of time, so yes, a new cart and if at all possibe a full service will get you back into business.  Enjoy 

Roger

But the OP only has £400! My idea was that the sale of the V1 for say £800, when added to the £400 would give enough for a used 172 and hopefully a modest phono stage. The 272 is in a different price band altogether. 

All this is getting fabulously expensive! And, no matter how good the LP12 sounds, it will hardly get used since no one in my household listens to albums in their entirety. I'd say 95% of LPs would drive me nuts if I had to listen to an entire side. And what's with all that getting up off a comfy seat, spending ages searching for a misplaced LP, putting it on, walking back and sitting down? 

I'd love to be able to sell the LP12 and use the money to upgrade but I can't bring myself to do it! It's such a beautiful thing and when we do want to listen to some vinyl it sounds incredible.

But I'm struggling justify spending a £1000 or more just to have a few hours pleasure a year from it when that spend may or may not benefit the whole system. 

It's like torture! 

In which case, sell it. It's only a wooden box and if it's been in storage for 20 years you won't miss it. I used to have an LP12 with Aro, Armageddon and so on, and over a thousand LPs and sold the lot. 

mat posted:

 I'd say 95% of LPs would drive me nuts if I had to listen to an entire side

Sell the damned thing and move on!!! OK, an LP12 is quite a nice thing, but if you're hardly going to use it......? They fetch decent money these days - sell that and your LPs and you could make big improvements to your digital setup with the proceeds. 

Hi Mat,

You have 2000 or so LPs -- suggesting the very real possibility that you'll get into listening to them again. So please don't sell! Get a Nait 5 or XS (or similar), a Stageline N, and a service for your LP12. Should be doable for 900 pounds. If after a few months you're still not listening to your vinyl, then think about going "all in" with digital. But you should at least give the old fruit box another shot.

Good luck!

Joe

ChrisSU posted:

mat posted:

 I'd say 95% of LPs would drive me nuts if I had to listen to an entire side

Sell the damned thing and move on!!! OK, an LP12 is quite a nice thing, but if you're hardly going to use it......? They fetch decent money these days - sell that and your LPs and you could make big improvements to your digital setup with the proceeds. 

Where's the 'Dislike' button?!!

I have a UQ2/NAP100/FC2X/StageLine running my LP12 - and it sounds marvelous..!:-) Would like a N272/NAP250/HC though...