The unofficial Vitavox website- Owners 1 update 1

My System (Peter Empson)
System Update (April 2005)

It’s been an awfully long time (20 months) since the last write up about my system and I’ve made many changes which have progressed the sound on quite a long way. Firstly after several failed attempts I finally managed to get a pair of JBL 2405 tweeters through Ebay for a reasonable price. They needed some work to tidy them up but a quick respray soon had them looking rather more presentable and a cleanout had them sounding pretty good.
I’m currently running about 5dB of attenuation on them using a first order at 10kHz which blends very nicely with the S5’s.

Above left: tatty 2405. Above right: in primer.

Above: resprayed tweeter

I also finally got around to building a plinth for my Garrard 401. As I had lots of thick MDF lying around from previous projects it seemed wise to use this and laminate several layers to get the right thickness, with each layer cut to ensure that it fits the motor unit accurately, except at the bottom where its left open for cooling and in the hope that it wouldn’t box in the vibrations of the motor.

The deck was given a quick service and found to be in very good condition, in fact apart from cleaning and re-oiling it there weren’t any parts that required replacement. A removable armboard was included as I needed the ability to run different tonearms and the shape of the plinth was made to be an exact fit for a Clearcover acrylic dust cover.

Before completion the internal surfaces and armboard were coated in Dammar varnish which I feel goes some way to reducing the negative aspects of the MDF sound in this type of application. Finally it was coated in several layers of a blue automotive paint and lacquer that I rather liked the colour of.

With finances being limited (as always!) I purchased a Michell Tecnoarm A which sounds very good, particularly at its price point and left me enough cash to purchase an Audio Note Io1 which is one of the most musical cartridges I’ve heard.

The sound of this combination is exceptional in several respects, like all Garrards the bass dynamics, speed and power are quite stunning and the mid band is tonally very good. The only minor area that keeps it from being amongst the best decks is a little veiling in the high frequencies. I believe this is caused by vibration from the massive motor, but ongoing experimentation suggests that between changing the power supply and using additional decoupling between the plinth and the surface that it sits upon can reduce this effect substantially.
I also intend to build a much lighter plywood plinth at a later date to see how this changes things too.

The support racks are now the superb Something Solid XR suspended supports and the next upgrade will be an all silver wired TVC pre amplifier which is currently on order. A more suitable phono stage will be added at the same time and the next DIY project is an interstage coupled 2A3 amplifier.

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