Sarum T tonearm cable

lyndon posted:

 the Akiva is very good but I would think logic dictates a kandid or above before £2k+ for a tonearm cable 

Lyndon - some things defy logic    

How are you getting on with the cable now Lyndon? I'm very interested.

I'm currently using a tonearm cable made up of £2.00 a metre Van Damme cable with my Gyro SE, SME IV with Ortofon Quintet Bronze, Rega Aria, Chord Solid interconnect into 552dr/300dr. Yes you guessed it, the NDS has shown my vinyl replay to be lacking a bit lol.

When I had it connected to a Superuniti it sounded fine but the more I've upgraded my Naim boxes (and the more the 552 opens up) the less I'm listening to vinyl so I need to bring it into line.

I'm going to do the tonearm cable first and am seriously thinking of trying the Sarum T as a first step.

Do you think I will hear a difference?

Drewy posted:

How are you getting on with the cable now Lyndon? I'm very interested.

I'm currently using a tonearm cable made up of £2.00 a metre Van Damme cable with my Gyro SE, SME IV with Ortofon Quintet Bronze, Rega Aria, Chord Solid interconnect into 552dr/300dr. Yes you guessed it, the NDS has shown my vinyl replay to be lacking a bit lol.

When I had it connected to a Superuniti it sounded fine but the more I've upgraded my Naim boxes (and the more the 552 opens up) the less I'm listening to vinyl so I need to bring it into line.

I'm going to do the tonearm cable first and am seriously thinking of trying the Sarum T as a first step.

Do you think I will hear a difference?

 

 

drewy,

i went recently from van den hull stock sme5 cable to a chord signature tuned array phono cable:  it gave me more fluency, details and open soundstage : about 900GBP.

I would suggest you this cable with a better cartridge, like the lyra delos, for about 1100GBP. 

This cable with this cartridge is the total cost of the sarum t phono cable.  It will boost a lot your vinyl replay, more than a sarum t on your present cartridge i think.  I may be wrong but i am quite sure.  For myself i would do that ....

Thanks for the reply. The thing is I reckon I'll go better than a Delos anyway. I like nice big steps rather than smaller ones losing money along the way which is what I've done with the main system components.The Quintet was bought to get me up and running and the old Chord Solid interconnect was one I found in the loft, it held its own very well when I had the SU. The tonearm cable I have came with the SME IV (it was cheaper to buy the arm that way). The damn thing doesn't even fit right (it's a straight din plug that fouls the turntable).

A fine analogue set up doesn't come cheap when you have a top of the range streamer.

Drewy posted:

Thanks for the reply. The thing is I reckon I'll go better than a Delos anyway. I like nice big steps rather than smaller ones losing money along the way which is what I've done with the main system components.The Quintet was bought to get me up and running and the old Chord Solid interconnect was one I found in the loft, it held its own very well when I had the SU. The tonearm cable I have came with the SME IV (it was cheaper to buy the arm that way). The damn thing doesn't even fit right (it's a straight din plug that fouls the turntable).

A fine analogue set up doesn't come cheap when you have a top of the range streamer.

i understand what you say, you can make bigger jump with more expensive cartridges, phono cable and phono preamp too.  But a good balance in components is also important.   For example i would not put personally a lyra etna on a gyrodeck table, but it is possible for sure.

As for my suggestion, in your system, i would prefer a delos cartridge and signature tuned array phono cable than a chord sarum t for the same money as these two components.

I just wanted to share my point of view,  because you were asking about the sarum t ....But i am not you and you will probably take different options...

I've had people question my upgrade path before, such as when I added a 300dr to my SU but there was method in my madness

Anyway, I'm keen to hear how Lyndon is getting on now he should have some hours on it.

Hi Drewy

im getting on just fine with it

just for the record it's a Super Sarum not a T, my original question was regarding the T as I didn't expect to find a S/H tonearm cable 

i know the T stuff has taken these already spectacular cables to another level but the £1600+ saved would be better spent towards a 552 right now

unfortunately I don't have unlimited resources, it would be chord music full loom if I had and a music on the kettle as well !!

after a lot of effort changing the cables over, ( the Mana reference shelf does a good job of doubling up as an LP12 jig)

the new cable took my sound to another level straight from the off, most notably-: 

the treble had much much more detail without over emphasis on itself so the tonality wasn't brighter just more detail 

the bass was deep down lower than before, it was already pretty damn low, this just opened up some new frequencies - I'm using DBLs here. I'm not sure if all speakers would pick this up DBLs go deep deep deeper down than most.

then we have the micros, the very small bits that we never knew existed before, every record no matter how familiar now has things I've never heard before

lastly. The sense of realism of the instruments, upgrading the supercaps from olive to DRs had a similar affect 

the above 4 together provides a whole that is much greater than the sum of the parts

of all the cable upgrades ( I have an active 6 pack so plenty of cables to upgrade) this is by far the biggest, moreso than all 3 pairs of speaker cables 

think my system is really crying out for a 552 now, wouldn't want to do the 3 500,s til that's in place, there's also the 6 din - xlr cables, may need to think outside the box on this one

lyndon

Hi Lyndon. 

Great response, thanks. Sorry I was confusing the thread title with what you are actually using but that doesn't really matter.

Whatever happens i'm pretty sure this £2.00 a metre tonearm cable is holding things back, if it's not then there's a lot of people wasting a lot of money. Anyway upgrading anything else and keeping this thing would be pointless. I'll be looking at starting here I think in the autumn when I start spending a lot more time indoors.