BEST listening session ever last night. I'm thinking maybe these cords have their greatest effect on amplifiers (more than from wall to Niagara). Bass is definitely punching harder and fuller. I listened to both my tightly SMART-aligned Shelter and Graham-aligned Koetsu last night, and heard the same improvement on both -- so this particular sonic increase is due to the cords, not alignment.
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Originally Posted by robd2
I LOVE the setup Mike. Can I ask you an unrelated question? Your alignment with the Smartractor, why Loefgren-B DIN vs Loefgren-B IEC or whatever the second Loefgren-B option is? I've been trying to decide this for myself.
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Thanks Rob! Looking at the distortion curves, Loefgren B has significantly lower distortion than Baerwald, Stevenson, and UNI-IN over the majority of the record surface. That's why I chose it; I'm OK with the tradeoff on the outer and inner grooves. As for DIN vs. IEC, the difference is that DIN assumes a smaller inner radius, so it keeps the distortion a bit lower for the inner grooves at the slight expense of distortion in the other grooves - but Loefgren B still keeps the distortion very low there. And with a 12" ClearAudio Universal, the overall distortion is even lower yet.
My plan going forward is to dump the Graham (my Koetsu arm); it can't be properly aligned with the SMARTractor anyways because its pivot center is not accurately measurable from outside. You really need a MINT LP to precisely align a Graham. I have a beautiful Fidelity Research FR64S I'll be mounting in its stead for running the Koetsu collection (the SMARTractor manual even uses a FR64S in its picture illustrations, lol). The plan there is to go for Loefgren B IEC, because as a 10" arm, here I will be totally sacrificing the inner grooves on the FR64S setup to keep the distortion across the middle of the record as low as possible. If I have content that needs better inner groove response, I will play it on the 12" CA Universal Loefgren B DIN. So there is some method to this madness
Given my listening last night, it is amazingly clean from outermost to innermost groove on the Loefgren-B DIN'd 12" Universal.