Attention Zipperheadbanjo Superline load plugs and Apheta 2

If he doesn't see this Paulie you could always try posting on his 'Wall' as he will get an alert if you do this. Just in case...

Thanks Chris. Wasn't sure how to do that. I'll sort it out. Much appreciated. 

Hi Paulie... well you must truly be lost if you are turning to me for assistance :-)

In resolving this problem myself I ended up asking my dealer, who, equally baffled as I, asked someone with a Superline and RP10, and then provided me with the info, which I followed exactly. So truly, I have no understanding or wisdom regarding of the mysteries of the little plugs... I just did what I was told.

From memory, I remember that I only use one plug (the other is left empty) and I think (key word here being think) that the plug I am using has the lowest value capacitance or resistance or whatever. That all being relatively useless information to you... I will have a peek behind the Superline tonight and check and could probably take a pic for you. Is it possible to exchange emails on this forum?? How should we exchange this info.

Let me know your thoughts and ps... where are located and how are you enjoying the current balmy temps??

I will do you one better guys - I asked Naim support for help (thinking of getting a Superline for my RP10 wtih Aphelion).

It is my understanding that the parameters of Apheta 2 and Aphelion are the same.

Here is what Naim supportt had to say:

' I would recommend trying the 220 ohm plug with no capacitance first then the 100 ohm plug and you can make the judgment on what sounds best. We normally recommend X10 the output impedance'.

So this seems consistent with using just one plug (on the resitance side).

Ok. This is great BUT - here's where I'm lost. The plugs I have don't have "100 ohm" or "220 ohm" written in them. There just seems to be a series of letters and numbers. Do those letters and numbers correspond to a value, or am I missing something? 

I think my plugs had little stickers on them... if not a sticker, they were definitely marked and were easily differentiated. Will check when I am done at the salt mine.

Contact AV Options and get one of their Z-Plugs @100 ohm loading.  That is the one to have for the Apheta 2,  for sure.  Using one on mine and can't recommend it highly enough.

Paulie posted:

Ok. This is great BUT - here's where I'm lost. The plugs I have don't have "100 ohm" or "220 ohm" written in them. There just seems to be a series of letters and numbers. Do those letters and numbers correspond to a value, or am I missing something? 

Paulie - can you post a photo of the plugs that came with your Superline?

100 and 220 ohm are standard supplied plugs.

Will do. Thanks for your help.

I'm away for a few days, but will get to it Sunday when I get back home.

Is it 100R, 220R, 500R, 1K and 1nF, 5.6nF and 10nF?

These are the standard set of plugs that come with the superline. The numbers followed by R are in Ohms, the 1K is 1000 Ohms, the others are capacitance plugs.

If you use too low a resistance the bass goes soft and a little bloated, too high an the treble gets a bit sharp and the bass is fast but too light, this has an impact on timing too. With no Resistance plug the superline had a 10000 Ohm loading, the values written on the plugs are the loading that results when combined with that.

The capacitance plugs will roll off the treble and affect the harmonics a bit in doing so but not always in a bad way. They can also reduc radio breakthrough if its a problem . Experiment, you should be able to hear the difference though not always immediately, I found it took a while to become apparent.

The 2 loading sockets can be both used for resistor plugs if no cap plug is wanted, they will be in parallel and the resultant resistance load is calculated 1/R = 1/R1 + 1/R2. This is a slight simplification as I'm ignoring the internal resistance but it should be close enough to start with.  So a 100r + a 1000r will give 91r, a 100r + a 500r will give 83r. 500 and 1000 gives 333r  all rounded up to integers, and that's as much as I'll do with a crappy phone calculator app without an inverse function.

HAH! That's it. The "R" stands for ohms. Got it. Makes sense now. I'll experiment now.... Although previous posts seem to indicate the the 100R resistance plug  and no capacitance will do the trick for the Apheta 2.

Thanks all.

Great community here.

yeti42 posted:

Is it 100R, 220R, 500R, 1K and 1nF, 5.6nF and 10nF?

These are the standard set of plugs that come with the superline. The numbers followed by R are in Ohms, the 1K is 1000 Ohms, the others are capacitance plugs.

If you use too low a resistance the bass goes soft and a little bloated, too high an the treble gets a bit sharp and the bass is fast but too light, this has an impact on timing too. With no Resistance plug the superline had a 10000 Ohm loading, the values written on the plugs are the loading that results when combined with that.

The capacitance plugs will roll off the treble and affect the harmonics a bit in doing so but not always in a bad way. They can also reduc radio breakthrough if its a problem . Experiment, you should be able to hear the difference though not always immediately, I found it took a while to become apparent.

The 2 loading sockets can be both used for resistor plugs if no cap plug is wanted, they will be in parallel and the resultant resistance load is calculated 1/R = 1/R1 + 1/R2. This is a slight simplification as I'm ignoring the internal resistance but it should be close enough to start with.  So a 100r + a 1000r will give 91r, a 100r + a 500r will give 83r. 500 and 1000 gives 333r  all rounded up to integers, and that's as much as I'll do with a crappy phone calculator app without an inverse function.

 

 

 

YETI42, great reply - this is the first time I have come across any advice on the implications of cartridge loading. Do you have any online sources so I could do more reading. Google results have been a bit light.

Just FYI to PAULI, I had my superline plugs set with 1nF and 500R for ages. I swapped the 500 for the 100R lately based on what I did find about loading that the rule of thumb is it  should normally be 10x the cartridge output impedance. So 100 it is. I've no idea what output impedance means though. I did not really notice much of a change due to this but convinced myself it was better anyway. I have the apheta1 on my RP8. I will experiment further with no plug in the capacitance socket and see what the default setting sounds like as this is an easy switch to do.

I may upgrade to apheta2 shortly as the 2 does seem to be a step forward from the original. Does anyone have any experience here of 1 versus 2. Most "professional" reviews are normally glowing for most new products and don't bother to compare with older or similar products.

Dave

Its gleaned from observation, discussions with my dealer, the old cartridge loading thread here and some random internet browsing on the subject. Extremephono/loading gives a bit of an explaination but the 10 times cartridge resistance is a guide only, the mechanical damping (and resonance) of your arm/TT will interact with the electrical damping from loading the cartridge. (I may have made that last bit up) Solo piano is very good for hearing whats going on.

I had a RB300 on a mk2 Rock when I bought my superline and I could hear difference with a 17D2 on that, not immediately every time but over the course of a day or two's listening. The 300 was replaced by an Aro 6 months later and the Rock's damping trough was dispensed with a sometime after that. The 17D2 had a 32 Ohm internal resistance and worked best with 470R of the plugs I had (470R and 560R in addition to the default values) or combinations thereof. A radio breakthrough problem led to using a 1nF plug but this dulled the treble a little so I ordered a 470pF plug to see if this vas enough and found I prefered it to no cap plug with the 470R, (Most low output Dynavectors need 453R on a superline by reput but I tried this and prefered what I had). The D2 became a D3 having left the former in a leadout groove when I went on holiday, the radio pick up was cured when I put the system on Fraim and then on impluse I bought a Transfiguration Proteus. This has an internal resistance of 1Ohm so should need a 10 Ohm loading by rule of thumb but after trying many combinations over a monyh or so I found I prefered 100R to either 91R or 120R.

When you've settled on the best loading Naim can sell you a Z foil resistor Air plug for a small premium over the standard plug which many find a worthwhile upgrade.

Now the question becomes: RP10/Aplehlion AND Naim Superline + PSU (ultimately a Supercap) OR Rega iOS....

Any one tried the latter?

Yeah. Right you are. I suppose the next upgrade will be either a HiCap or SuperCap for the Superline. That'll be a year or two away (or perhaps a lottery win). 

Paulie.. haven't managed to get the pic for you yet... although perhaps it is moot now. Regardless... I will take it sometime this weekend and post here. Might be useful for someone in future who is trying to figure out how to proceed.

Paulie... if you are located in southern ontario (I'm in the Kitchener / Waterloo area) and you wanted to hear a (third party) supercap-d Superline you would be welcome to come round for a listen.

Thanks again.... I'm in Toronto. The offer is much appreciated. Don't knock yourself out about the picture.... I'm pretty sure you and several others have solved my questions. I can't figure out a way to DM people on this board - otherwise, I'd ping you my email. 

Interesting that you are a Naim aficionado as well. I had never heard of their gear until I moved to the UK for several years. It's not as readily available here, and I've also found that even the authorised dealer doesn't possess much more than a very basic knowledge of the product (unlike the place I dealt with in the UK). 

cheers!

yeti42 posted:

Its gleaned from observation, discussions with my dealer, the old cartridge loading thread here and some random internet browsing on the subject. Extremephono/loading gives a bit of an explaination but the 10 times cartridge resistance is a guide only, the mechanical damping (and resonance) of your arm/TT will interact with the electrical damping from loading the cartridge. (I may have made that last bit up) Solo piano is very good for hearing whats going on.

When you've settled on the best loading Naim can sell you a Z foil resistor Air plug for a small premium over the standard plug which many find a worthwhile upgrade.

I have found some more discussion of loading on another site which is rather technical. However, the simple message seems to be you can get close initially with the rule of thumb, then tune by ear thereafter. As swapping load plugs on the superline is a cinch, this is what I am now doing. Once I find the sweet spot, I will order the Air Plug.  Thanks again.

Dave

To follow up --

Got home, got settled in for some listening and a test drive of the Superline with load plug experimentation. Tried several different configurations, swapping music - some Dylan (Blood On The Tracks), some Miles (Cookin') and some Stan Getz (Jazz Samba). Gotta say, I think it sounds best with no plugs at all. Perhaps I have a tin ear, but I found that the plugs (to varying degrees, 100R being the least) detracted from depth (thump) of the bass and took away from the crisp highs I hear from the Superline. So, fwiw, there ya go. 

Again - a great community here. Loads of passion for something we all enjoy: Good music sounding good. Cheers. 

Take your time, my SL was ex demo and still took several weeks to settle with the optimum loading drifting a bit during that time.

Wm. posted:

Contact AV Options and get one of their Z-Plugs @100 ohm loading.  That is the one to have for the Apheta 2,  for sure.  Using one on mine and can't recommend it highly enough.

 

 

Although I had no inclination to fuss around with my turntable set up, after reading through this thread I inquired about the cost of the famed "Z-plugs"... they aren't all that expensive. So now have one on order and looking forward to seeing what it brings to the Superline.

NICE!  Can't wait to hear how you get on it with it, hard to imagine you will be disappointed, ZHB.