klm Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 I have an Allen Wright AM tuner I picked up at an auction years ago for $1, I should fire it up and have a listen. I really bought it to listen to the Grandstand football calls when Warren Ryan and David Morrow used to do the ABC coverage. Can’t say I bother with the current program. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surprisetech Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 59 minutes ago, klm said: I have an Allen Wright AM tuner I picked up at an auction years ago for $1, I should fire it up and have a listen. I really bought it to listen to the Grandstand football calls when Warren Ryan and David Morrow used to do the ABC coverage. Can’t say I bother with the current program. Would be interested to hear how it goes. While I still find the technology interesting, I'm also pretty much done with AM these days. Reception where I live (on the wrong side of Mt Dandenong) is largely terrible. An occasional visit to Grandstand football on ABC local (774), which is just listenable, is about it for me. But I do have fond memories of my youth in a small town out on the Wimmera plains with a long wire antenna into a Kriesler valve radio, pulling in 2JJ from Sydney (850km as the crow flies) and loads of other stations after sunset!! There were only 2 local stations, 3WV(ABC) and 3WM(Commercial). For a teenager who already didn't have much time for mainstream pop, the top 30 album countdown on 3WM on Sunday afternoons was one of very few decent shows on either of them. As long as an album was in the chart, a different track was played every week. I can still remember being blown away hearing Jungleland from Born To Run (all 9 1/2 minutes) for the first time. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audiofeline Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 I recall listening at nights to 2JJ from Sydney in semi-rural Vic south of Melbourne. Being able to listen to alternate music on Aust radio was difficult then. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted July 25, 2023 Author Share Posted July 25, 2023 G'day all, thanks everybody. Many years ago I started out using a crystal set to feed an amplifier, and I couldn't believe how good AM could sound! I ended up writing this article for Elliott Sound Products some years ago. https://sound-au.com/articles/am-radio.htm Regards, Felix vk4fuq. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audiofeline Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 Given that AM transmissions had the potential for good-quality sound in the pre-FM days, were there high-quality AM tuners available for the audio enthusiast back then? I'm recalling that Quad had a valve AM tuner matching their first amp's, were these capable of the reproduction you are referring to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLXXX Posted July 25, 2023 Share Posted July 25, 2023 (edited) SDR (Software Defined Radio) USB sticks usually extend down only to the high shortwave frequencies but some go down to the medium wave AM band and lower and will give you the option of upper sideband, lower sideband, or both sidebands (conventional) AM reception with a variable RF bandwidth. A narrow bandwidth such as is typical for ordinary AM tuners suits reception of weak stations or reception at night. A bandwidth setting of 9kHz per side of the carrier frequency will give you the full audio bandwidth broadcast in Australia on the medium wave AM band. This will be feasible for use with strong local stations during the day. As catman has mentioned, it will tend to sound overbright with commercial radio stations, as they will process the sound with typical consumer narrow bandwidth tuners in mind, not the rare audiophile wide-band tuner. (In my experience, these cheap SDR USB tuners can do a fantastic job on the 88-108MHz FM band, giving low distortion, low noise stereo, even with a basic antenna. ) This site provides useful info re SDR: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ @catman, despite a fair amount of experimentation with different AM detectors over the years I've found that local AM stations in Brisbane seem to broadcast with a fair amount of harmonic distortion. I can overlook the restricted bass, and sightly curtailed upper frequencies, and the slight background noise, but I have found it hard to ignore the harmonic distortion! * * * Challenge: this would not be the thread for it but if anyone has a recording of low distortion wideband AM reception, please post it an appropriate section of the forum, perhaps: HOME CINEMA => TV - Free to Air & Streaming => Radio Discussion Edited July 25, 2023 by MLXXX 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted July 25, 2023 Author Share Posted July 25, 2023 G'day mate, yes I think that there were. The 'Miller AM tuner' was one such highly regarded AM tuner with a diode doubler detector and selective tuning, as I seem to recall. Regards, Felix vk4fuq. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted July 26, 2023 Author Share Posted July 26, 2023 Reviews revisited. G'day all, throughout my time in audio and high fidelity, I have always found reviews interesting, if nothing else. Customer reviews in particular often show an almost complete lack of audio understanding and knowledge, something which is rather apparent when you know the subject well! Occasionally magazine reviews are sometimes nearly as bad, yet sometimes one reads things that are true and correct (if rare). An example of this was a review that I've read before of one of my favourite phono preamps, the remarkable ANT Kora 3T SE. This review mentioned as a positive, the 'flowing nature' of the Kora, something that I completely agree with. A nice change! Regards, Felix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkeyboi Posted July 26, 2023 Share Posted July 26, 2023 6 hours ago, catman said: Reviews revisited. G'day all, throughout my time in audio and high fidelity, I have always found reviews interesting, if nothing else. Customer reviews in particular often show an almost complete lack of audio understanding and knowledge, something which is rather apparent when you know the subject well! Occasionally magazine reviews are sometimes nearly as bad, yet sometimes one reads things that are true and correct (if rare). An example of this was a review that I've read before of one of my favourite phono preamps, the remarkable ANT Kora 3T SE. This review mentioned as a positive, the 'flowing nature' of the Kora, something that I completely agree with. A nice change! Regards, Felix. I put some of it down to confirmation bias and participation bias. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted July 31, 2023 Author Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) Do (should) all good phono stages really sound that different? G'day all, I often wonder about this, as the technical standards for phono stages have been well established for many years, and in all honesty all good phono stages 'should' sound very similar, at least tonally! I have many excellent phono stages both commercially made and DIY, and all my 'good' ones are almost indistinguishable from each other, so why do we apparently never cease searching for the ultimate? I've recently gone back to my old DIY ESP P06 for main use, a phono stage that has maintained its top performance over many years. Are we just wasting our time? Regards, Felix. Edited July 31, 2023 by catman Spelling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted August 8, 2023 Author Share Posted August 8, 2023 Hearing little things in the backgrounds of records. G'day all, maybe 'revealing' might be the word. Tonight I was listening to BTO's 'Non Fragile' album, a particularly well recorded and pressed album, and on the song 'Rock is My Life', using my Rothwell Simplex I was aware of lots of quite audible 'way in the background' musical detail. The Rothwell Simplex is an amazing phono stage, but for whatever reason, this musical detail was very obvious. Rather wonderful to hear actually. Regards, Felix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyr Posted August 8, 2023 Share Posted August 8, 2023 8 minutes ago, catman said: The Rothwell Simplex is an amazing phono stage, but for whatever reason, this musical detail was very obvious. Rather wonderful to hear actually. Regards, Felix. C'mon Felix - your previous post was this: On 31/07/2023 at 11:39 AM, catman said: I've recently gone back to my old DIY ESP P06 for main use, a phono stage that has maintained its top performance over many years. Are we just wasting our time? Regards, Felix. So which is it ... the Rothwell or the P06? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted August 8, 2023 Author Share Posted August 8, 2023 (edited) G'day mate, actually both! The P06 is amazing for an op amp design, and the Rothwell Simplex being solely based on discrete transistor circuitry is different in sound quality, but similarly amazing! Regards, Felix. Edited August 8, 2023 by catman Spelling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted August 18, 2023 Author Share Posted August 18, 2023 Contact issues revisited. G'day all, a chance incident this morning led me to rediscover the importance of 'clean' RCA plugs especially with phono connections. On this occasion I used a little deoxit to help things along, and it did help audibly too. Regards, Felix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted August 29, 2023 Author Share Posted August 29, 2023 I wish that the Shure M97xE was still being made! G'day all, feeling somewhat nostalgic this morning it occurred to me that much of my early listening and opinions was done/made with the old Shure M97xE. It wasn't a perfect cartridge, but it was a very good cartridge with excellent general tracking, and could be endearing/frustrating in many ways, and its so- called Audiophile Response did indeed sound nice and musical, at least with optimised loading (which was very important). I wish that it was still around! Regards, Felix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyr Posted August 29, 2023 Share Posted August 29, 2023 2 hours ago, catman said: I wish that the Shure M97xE was still being made! G'day all, feeling somewhat nostalgic this morning it occurred to me that much of my early listening and opinions was done/made with the old Shure M97xE. It wasn't a perfect cartridge, but it was a very good cartridge with excellent general tracking, and could be endearing/frustrating in many ways, and its so- called Audiophile Response did indeed sound nice and musical, at least with optimised loading (which was very important). I wish that it was still around! Regards, Felix. But shirley ... your 97xE will live on forever - you just need a retip every few years? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted August 29, 2023 Author Share Posted August 29, 2023 G'day mate, sadly all my M97xE's are dead (mostly due to poor build quality! Regards, Felix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyr Posted August 29, 2023 Share Posted August 29, 2023 14 minutes ago, catman said: G'day mate, sadly all my M97xE's are dead (mostly due to poor build quality! Regards, Felix. Aah, OK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audiofeline Posted August 30, 2023 Share Posted August 30, 2023 It is sad that the better cart's (and styli) in the Shure catalogue are no longer being offered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted September 22, 2023 Author Share Posted September 22, 2023 Phono preamp bass comparisons. G'day all, this is an interesting one and has actually slightly changed my mind about a phono stage that I actually like the sound of quite a bit! I was playing a record with my NAD PP2e then switched to my DIY ESP P06, and was rather shocked at how light the bass of the NAD PP2e sounded compared to my P06. I know that the P06 does have a somewhat 'strong' and documented lower bass end, but overall the subjective difference was striking. Up until this comparison I never thought the NAD PP2e was lacking in bass at all, and yes I rather liked its sound quality, and whilst I have never been a fan of overly strong bass, I have to admit that the weighty and beefy sound of the P06 is appealing! Curious. Regards, Felix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted October 23, 2023 Author Share Posted October 23, 2023 Phono stages that 'rock'! G'day all, I'm giving Jimi Hendrix's, 'Valleys of Neptune' a play this morning and although very much a 'reconstructed' album, it rocks pretty hard! Listening to it it is apparent that for the best listening effect a really dynamic phono stage is called for. Some of my phono stages qualify very well in this respect, but others somewhat less so. I was using my Rothwell Simplex with this album, and the dynamism of this album really shone through and Jimi's guitar sounded just so exciting! Yep. Regards, Felix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyr Posted October 23, 2023 Share Posted October 23, 2023 14 minutes ago, catman said: I was using my Rothwell Simplex with this album, and the dynamism of this album really shone through and Jimi's guitar sounded just so exciting! Yep. Regards, Felix. So how does the Rothwell compare to your Rod Elliott P06, Felix? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted October 23, 2023 Author Share Posted October 23, 2023 G'day mate, pretty well actually! Regards, Felix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catman Posted November 1, 2023 Author Share Posted November 1, 2023 (edited) Phono preamps: clean, clear but not 'bright'. G'day all, my phono preamp comparisons sometimes bring to light interesting things, and this is another one. When I started out in record playback many years ago I had the belief that all records sound 'muffled', until I realized the effect of excessive interconnect capacitance on moving magnet cartridge frequency response! However there seems to be a present trend to various degrees, that many modern day phono stages often have some degree of treble boost, albeit often only slight, but leading to an admittedly agreeable brightness, at least in the short term anyway. I noticed this very recently with two of my own phono stages, and with extended listening I realized that the more treble accurate one was much less fatiguing in the long term. That one is my DIY ESP P06! It's clean, clear but not 'bright'. Regards, Felix. Edited November 1, 2023 by catman Addition. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batty Posted November 2, 2023 Share Posted November 2, 2023 I must finish my P06. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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