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swisser
Trending Lyricist I
June 15, 2023

Interesting problem with Amp and turntable

  • June 15, 2023
  • 51 replies
  • 1705 views

Father in law gave me a nice vintage turntable so I ordered the Sonos Amp and received it with much excitement. B&W speakers are on the way but for now I don't have passive speakers which made trouble-shooting interesting... 

TT and phono stage to line-in on the Amp streaming to my Arc and one SLs in the other room and... uuuggh... a quiet, harsh, tinny sound with ZERO bass.

So... after hours of fooling around I'm still at square one. In a nutshell this is what I've done:

-Tested the turntable (phono stage has a separate headphone jack... sounds great)

-Used other line-in sources to the Amp... my phone, cd player... all sound great.

-I even hooked up an audio interface to the turntable and then to my Amp. It has a line-out so I was sure I was getting a line level signal. This also sounded great. There's obviously some ADC going on in there and this solved the issue... not sure how?

As soon as I put the exact same same line-out from the phono stage back into my Amp directly I get the quiet tinny sound again. Any ideas of what i might have missed?

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51 replies

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buzz
buzz
Grand Maestro
July 2, 2023

I have confirmed it is an MM cartridge and that my preamp is configured accordingly. But do you have another example of how it could be "miswired"? Do you mean in the turntable itself? Because I'm pretty sure that from the phono out to the Amp, it's wired correctly.

Check the wiring to the back of the cartridge in the turntable’s head shell.

swisserAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
July 2, 2023

Thanks. I'll try both of these.

AjTrek1
AjTrek1
July 2, 2023

@swisser 
I’ve been monitoring this thread. What puzzles me that no mention of the brand/model of the TT nor the Pre-Amp being used has been mentioned; nor asked for that matter  (unless I missed it) 🤔. Kind’a like going to the Doctor for pain relief and one fails to mention where the pain is felt. Can you please provide the Brand/model of the TT and Pre Amp.

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swisserAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
July 2, 2023

@swisser 
I’ve been monitoring this thread. What puzzles me that no mention of the brand/model of the TT nor the Pre-Amp being used has been mentioned; nor asked for that matter  (unless I missed it) 🤔. Kind’a like going to the Doctor for pain relief and one fails to mention where the pain is felt. Can you please provide the Brand/model of the TT and Pre Amp.

 

The TT is a Thorens TD318. By "vintage" I just meant that it's not new and by the looks of it, it's from the early 90s. The preamp was a Pro-ject Phono Box, suitable for MM/MC. In my initial panic and stubbornness, I sent it back because I was sure it was the issue. In the meantime I bought a cheap one (LD Systems PPA2) but it showed the exact same symptoms. The weird thing is that they sent me back a NEW Pro-ject Phono Box, even though I'm now sure there was nothing wrong with the first one. So I've now tried three preamps and nothing has changed.

 

Ken_Griffiths
Ken_Griffiths
July 2, 2023

@swisser,

Do you notice any difference in the TT playback quality to other Sonos Rooms mentioned, if you adjust the ‘Audio Delay’ in the Amps ‘room’ settings? (Settings/System/[Amp Room Name]/Audio Delay), aswell as increasing the line-in ‘Source Level’ in the Sonos App too.

swisserAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
July 2, 2023

I've also moved all my Sonos speakers around the apartment and placement makes absolutely no difference. This seems to also point to an issue in the TT.

I think this question has already been answered by @buzz but I'll ask again for clarity: If the turntable sounds fine through a traditional (no Sonos/streaming) set-up, also sounds fine through the Sonos Amp with passive speakers, is it still possible that there is an issue with the turntable?

 

swisserAuthor
Trending Lyricist I
July 2, 2023

@swisser,

Do you notice any difference in the TT playback quality to other Sonos Rooms mentioned, if you adjust the ‘Audio Delay’ in the Amps ‘room’ settings? (Settings/System/[Amp Room Name]/Audio Delay), aswell as increasing the line-in ‘Source Level’ in the Sonos App too.

The audio delay and source level settings unfortunately haven't changed anything. I have the level set to 10 now, but I've tried changing both of them every step of the way along with the compression setting

 

    nik9669a
    Senior Virtuoso
    July 2, 2023

    Have you tried generating a diagnostics and speaking to Sonos? That might identify/eliminate any issues with the Amp. 

      swisserAuthor
      Trending Lyricist I
      July 2, 2023

       

      Have you tried generating a diagnostics and speaking to Sonos? That might identify/eliminate any issues with the Amp. 

      I haven't yet, but I will tomorrow and update here.

      buzz
      buzz
      Grand Maestro
      July 2, 2023

      It seems to me that the mono speakers are having the issue, not the stereo speakers. You can quickly test this by switching AMP to mono.

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