Grado

There are certain audio companies for which I have a soft spot. For the most part, it's companies that have stood the test of time and build their products right here in the United States. Grado certainly meets both. They've been making excellent phono cartridges for over 50 years, never giving up on vinyl even in it's darkest years. Grado is still in the hands of the family that founded the company and they still hand make their products in Brooklyn. I have one of their Gold cartridges that has served me well for a number of years. Many years ago I gave a pair of SR60 headphones to my then girlfriend who loved and treasured them even after she stopped loving and treasuring me. They also make a nice phono stage and a couple of headphone amps. The guys over at audiojunkies have a nice factory tour.

The Art of Science

Since the initial blush of enthusiasm after the arrival of my Project 1.2 turntable I’ve been strangely silent about the subject. That mostly has to do with the fact that while I have been enjoying it, it’s been a bit of a love/hate relationship. Allow me to elaborate. When listening to CDs the volume on my preamp is usually set to about 9 O’clock. On records this had to be substantially increased. I’m well aware that the output of a phono stage isn’t going to be as powerful as that of the average CD player or DAC but this was out of the range of normality. At 4 O’clock on the preamp’s volume control I still wasn’t getting a similar output, and the sibilance on vocals was distracting to say the least. At lower volumes, the sibilance wasn’t present so I began to think that the volume setting was just too high on my preamp.

The first attempt at solving the problem was to try setting the Project Phono Box to the moving coil setting to get more gain even though my cartridge, a Grado Gold is a moving magnet (Grado actually refers to it as a moving iron.) That did increase the gain to an acceptable level but it also wreaked havoc on the frequency response. High frequencies became MIA while the bass became over whelming. This lead to the thought that maybe a phono preamp with more gain was necessary (us audiophile can turn anything into an excuse to upgrade.)

So I brought home a Project Phono Box SE. It was slightly better sounding but gain was still an issue. Again switching over to the MC settings was tried with the same result. Then while looking at the DIP switch an idea emerged. I notice that on the Phono Box SE switches 5 and 6 were in the UP position on both MC settings and DOWN for the MM setting. This lead me to think that the switches might have to do with gain. All of the other switches were left in the MM positions except for 5 and 6 which were moved to the up position. To see the diagrams in question please consult http://www.sumikoaudio.net/project/manuals/phonoboxse.pdf for a diagram. Again this provided acceptable gain but the frequency response was off, not by as much as it was with the Phono Box trying the same trick or the MC settings for the Phono Box.

Original Phono Box MM positions:

Original Phono Box MC positions:

New Phono Box MM position:

This arrangement gave me the gain and frequency response that I wanted.

The new bundle of joy

Originally Written: Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Baby's home! Today at work the UPS man delivered a 17 LBS. bouncing pro-ject turntable, I named it the 1.2. I was expecting today to go slowly because I wanted to play with my new toy so badly (keep your minds out of the gutter please). But there was lots to do (including cleaning records on the store's VPI record cleaning machine to listen to at home) so it went by fairly quickly.

So I get home and unpack the 'table and it is only then that I remember that my brother said that he was going to keep the Grado Gold cartridge. No biggie I figured I've got a Grado Gold on my other 'table, that table really sucks. Ain't I spoiled rotten? This presented a few problems. To start with I had only brought home the tools to set up a 'table, not mount a cartridge. Mounting a cartridge is a little like performing minor surgery. But I'm always game for an adventure, so I figured what the fuck go for it. So I unmounted the Grado off of the other 'table without noting which wires went where assuming that it would be marked on the cartridge itself. Bad assumption, STRIKE ONE, well no big deal I'll just find the original instructions. Couldn't find them, STRIKE TWO. Well, I'll just log onto Grado's web page and download them, Strike Three. Wait a minute, the catcher dropped the ball and I'm running to first. After much searching I found a close up picture on the internet that showed the proper wiring scheme. SAFE! Back in business baby!

Thus far I've listened to three records and I'm on the fourth:

1. Pink Floyd-"The Piper At The Gates of Dawn" Mono, as it should be.
   
2. Steve Miller-"Fly Like An Eagle" This guy fucking rocks! My new co-worker gave me this record because he had an extra copy. He also was generous enough to give me a copy of Beach Boys-"Endless Summer."
   
3. Led Zeppelin-"IV" 'nough said. This record and "In Through Out Door" were given to me by my good friend Clint who found them at a garage sale. The copy of "In Through Out Door" is in better shape, it even has the original brown paper bag. That's probably because it wasn't played as much because it's their worst album. But with a band like LZ their worst album is better than most bands best album.
4. Ray Charles-"Greatest Hits" my parents gave me this one and for once their lack of musical taste pays off, it looks like it was rarely if ever played! It's in great shape.
   

Right now I'm using a pro-ject phono box to pump up the volume and an Audioquest Sorbothane record mat instead of the stock felt mat to reduce vibration. I'll reserve judgment on sound quality until all the votes are in and counted but, it's promising. There's still tweaking to be done, but when isn't there?