u/MikuEd

So I've been getting into cartridge swapping and it's been fun to be able to try different "flavors" and "lenses" depending on my mood. That said, I'm kinda in a position to acquire an upgrade to the UA-7 tonearm to a carbon fiber wand.

As a background, the STAX UA-7 first shipped to market with an aluminum wand, before eventually being upgraded to the UA-7/cf variant, which featured a carbon fiber tonearm. As with STAX tonearms at the time, they used a proprietary 5-pin connector system that allowed users to replace their wands with upgrades as they came. Some such upgrades included more rigid tonearms like the carbon fiber one, straight arms, and integrated arms where the headshell and tonearm wand were one continuous piece.

The supposed benefits of carbon fiber is, well, increased rigidity for better tracking and dissipation of vibrations, which was particularly important if you were listening through electrostatic headphones (so they say). It also eliminated some high frequency resonance "pings" that are a result of vibrations echoing inside the aluminum wand. But despite being made of carbon fiber, the UA-7/cf wand is actually a bit heavier than the aluminum wand, increasing its effective mass by a couple grams.

This isn't a problem for some of the cartridges I have in my arsenal, but it's a big penalty for something like my Shure V15 type III, which is already riding at a dangerously low 5-6Hz of tonearm resonance.

So here I am thinking... if I get the carbon fiber wand... I can just leave the aluminum wand with the V15 type III, effectively turning it into a "wand swap" operation.

My question is, is "wand swapping" even a thing? Was there a time where audiophiles were actually swapping wands to try things out? I know swappable wand assemblies are already pretty niche in the already niche subset of turntable geekery with tonearm modifications, but I was just wondering if this plan makes any sense, haha.

I've owned the Yamaha HP-1 headphones since 2010, and for most of its life it was sort of a novelty thing. I won't hide the fact that I grew up liking anime, and when Vocaloids became a thing in 2007, I was one of the first to get into the hype so my listening diet is a mix of old school Jazz and Classical sprinkled with a bit of progressive trance, house, RnB, and Japanese music of which I have a big collection of vocaloid music.

So for the unaware, Yamaha created a vocal engine that emulates human singing by stitching together vocal samples that could be played back via software emulation of speech. Basically, virtual singers. It was slow to catch on, but a certain voicebank by a company called Crypton Future Media became the de facto name of vocaloid in the name of Hatsune Miku.

Long story short, she became a cultural phenomenon in itself, spawning all sorts of community-driven art, music, and 3D models, one of which had her wearing this specific pair of headphones - the Yamaha HP-1. At the time, all I knew about it was that it was a planar magnetic headphone (marketed under their trademarked name "orthodynamic") and that Yamaha commissioned the design out to Mario Bellini, a respected industrial designer at the time. Little did I know I'd be falling into a rabbit hole for Yamaha products many years later...

When I first got them, the headband was in tatters. Typical for this headphone, as it was the first thing to fall apart. Its pads were flat and deflated. Earphone cup pivots were okay and the wires were stiff, but nothing too worrisome. I remember first plugging them in to my headphone amp back then (I was starting out and fresh out of college), which I think was a dinky NuForce desktop DAC/Amp. I recall it sounding a bit flat, muddy, uninteresting, really.

For a while, it just remained in my collection as a novelty item. My main drivers were an AKG K242HD and AKG Q701, which over time started evolving towards a Modi+Magni schiit stack, Audeze SINE, and Audze LCD-2 Classic.

Fast forward to a few months ago, I'm now set up with an upgraded Schiit setup with an electrostatic headphone in the chain (the STAX SR-L700mk2). I was looking to upgrading my turntable, when I ended up landing on a YP-1000. Then there was the rabbit hole of discovering that this was part of a 1976 catalogue that featured Yamaha's top offerings at the time: the YP-1000 for the turntable, the CA-1000III for the integrated amplifier, and the HP-1 for the headphones.

With renewed interested, I sourced the CA-1000III and refurbished the HP-1 by replacing its tattered headband and re-stuffing its pads with fresh 40PPI aquarium filter foam (very DIY, lol) . And holy heck... I've never heard these sound this good before.

The clarity of the headphones just opened up and the bass was no longer muddy. I think the increased distance of the driver from the ears and the proper seal introduced with the new pads gave the biggest boost to the sound profile as everything started sounding more coherent. The most striking quality of the headphones is perhaps its midrange purity - the sound of vocals is so natural, and the higher frequencies not too fatiguing in the least.

So much to my surprise, I find out that the FR of these headphones is actually pretty flat (included it here with a comparison to the LCD-2 Classic; sourced from Earphones Archive), save for an early roll off of the bass by 60Hz. So from my memories of the headphones being awfully muddy, refurbishing the pads did much of the heavy lifting to bring its tonality back to its former glory.

Then there's driving it. These have always been notoriously difficult to drive. For context, the Jotunheim 2 requires it to be in high gain mode and turned up to 1-2 o'clock to start sounding loud enough. But on the CA-1000III in Class A mode, it easily pushes it at the 9 o'clock mark. In addition, I'm hearing a better sense of bass clarity when using the CA-1000III over a modern amplifier like the Jotunheim 2. There's a clearer articulation, especially with bass guitar, where I can make out the individual plucks, and again, the coherent sound of the bass movement in complex bass passages in jazz trio pieces sounds wonderful.

But to be clear, the presentation is very "head centric" and isn't as resolving as say the STAX or the LCD-2 Classic. But it still has a focused nature to it that is very energetic and engaging. Also, much of the enjoyment I'm getting is coming from tinkering with the tone controls of the CA-1000III. I'm noticing I'm adjusting it more compared to headphones like the LCD-2 Classic or the SR-L700mk2... which makes sense, because they're quite flat in tonality to begin with. Modern headphones have more complex sound signatures that have you "tweaking" the sound with EQ to get the desired sound... with the HP, I'm starting with a flat response curve that has me responding more to adjusting it to match what I'm listening to (across the many genres I like, mind you).

So basically, I'm having more fun listening to music again through the HP-1 than I ever had with the LCD-2 Classic. It's just that good. But it only took finding the original "sister products" that it came with and some resto-modding to make me realize I had gold with me all this time.

I'm planning on writing a more extensive review and A/B comparison between the HP-1 and the LCD-2 Classic. But I'll end it here since this is getting very long already. If you made it this far in my lengthy post, thank you!

I'm in the process of creating my "time capsule" setup where I basically recreate a listening setup close to what one would've had around the mid to late 70's. The Yamaha YP-1000 was released in 1976 as a sort of smorgasbord of some of the best things in audiophile at the time, including the heart of a Matsushita (Technics) SP-10 direct drive motor, a STAX UA-7 tonearm, and... yup, a Shure V15 type III mated to a STAX HS-7 headshell.

Suffice it to say I went to the auctions to hunt one down, and I found this one with a broken stylus. Oddly enough, it was mated to a Grace HS-3 headshell, an ultra-light weight alloy headshell from the same time period. Nabbed it for $25 and slapped a JICO VM35HE aftermarket stylus on it and it fired right up.

Some interesting notes though... the V15 has a much lower profile than standard AT carts, so my VTA is off by about 1mm after looking at it through the acrylic block. The Grace HS-3 is also a pretty small headshell, meaning I couldn't reach the necessary overhang to achieve a Baerwald alignment...

But I said what the heck and just slapped everything together and pushed the cart as far as it could on the headshell. Ran some tests on the TACET record and the vertical alignment actually wasn't that bad. The tracking force test... it passed reasonably well with some minor mistracking on low frequency "rumbles". It did heck better than the VM95E on outer groove distortion through sibilance tests. And perhaps the most interesting... it had a recorded resonant frequency of 5-6Hz, lol.

Okay, so this is where sometimes, you just go with what sounds right and forget the numbers. I already isolated my system so footfalls isn't an issue... but warps? I whipped out a copy of Spyo Gyra (self-titled) that has a nasty warp on the outer rim that makes my VM745xML jump (without a subweight) but guess what?... V15 did just fine.

But the sound? This is interesting. Owing to the profile, it indeed has a lot of detail, but there's a "bokeh" to the sound that is just lovely. One example that stood out to me is the electric piano arpeggios and guitar plucks in "Give Life Back to Music" by Daft Punk. It's just so ticklishly good, almost like little stars falling and there's a slight glow to them. Not too dazzling, just right.

Another interesting detail I noticed is when I fired up Quincy Jone's "The Dude". Things sound... slower. Not by pitch, but more relaxed. I can confirm the strobe is showing the correct speed, and I have perfect pitch so I can tell that it isn't an issue with pitch. It just feels more... relaxed, but still energetic and groovy.

And this is with practically no alignment and a slightly off VTA. I'll be fixing it some time down the line with some shims, but as it is, it sounds amazing. I think I understand now why this is such a beloved cartridge by the more seasoned record listeners out there. Like, seriously, I can get addicted to this.

As a bonus, I'm almost done with my "time capsule" setup. I'm just having an old amplifier serviced, and with that, my entire chain will be basically a 1970's time capsule, barring of course an aftermarket stylus, but hey, something's gotta give sometimes, yeah?

Until next time, keep spinning!

So I recently got the TACET Vinyl Check record to test my setup, specifically the anti-skate (bias), since it's something that had been bothering me for a bit. Following all the guides and rules on setting the tracking force and matching it to the anti-skate, I'd use my headphones to listen to the distortion and would find myself needing less and less anti-skate up to the point that it was practically less than 1 g. On some records, I even found myself removing the anti-skate completely.

So with the test record, it was sort of like a confirmation that everything was dialed in correctly. The test track basically plays a tone with increasing volume to the point that it literally forces the stylus to start bouncing around inside the groove. Buzzing on the left channel would indicate excess anti-skate, while buzzing on the right would mean the opposite. Suffice it to say, there was minimal buzzing up to the point where it was so loud, the buzzing appeared on both channels alternately, meaning it was now bouncing left and right.

So, passed with flying colors... at an anti-skate of 0.5 g?! My VTF on the VM745xML is 2.0g but... Oh well, guess it justifies what I've been hearing with my ears all this time and that my original settings were correct.

Bonus was that I checked the resonant frequency of my current tonearm/cartridge combo to be somewhere between 8 and 9Hz based again on the test record. True enough, this aligns with my estimated resonance that I calculated to be between 8.7 and 9.2Hz. Vindicated yet again!

Anyway, just wanted to share how fulfilling it is now that I'm appreciating records at such a nerdy level. I don't claim to know everything yet, and I'm still learning, but it's been fun hanging out here in this subreddit and learning from the rest of you. So yeah, happy spinning guys! Have a wonderful day and hope y'all are listening to something lovely, too!

It started less than 2 months ago when I decided to sort my priorities of upgrading my deck to what was originally planned to be a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon EVO 2, but instead I went for a vintage Yamaha P-550 off of FB Marketplace. Long story short, I fell in love with it and went down a rabbit hole learning more about Yamaha turntables during the heyday of vinyl records.

Indeed, when people think of Yamaha, they think of the GT line, the "Gigantic and Tremendous", line of turntables, known for their massive footprint and heavy tonearms. The YP-1000 remains to be a sort of sleeper hit in that regard, as not so many people really talk about it other than "it was pretty good". This and the fact that the turntable is even given a shoutout on Yamaha USA's historical timeline as the brand's first attempt at Audiophile-grade turntables to match their then prestigious line of receivers and amplifiers.

Prior to this, Yamaha was outsourcing its turntable builds to Micro Seiki, pretty much the go-to OEM for turntable stuff at the time. The same thing happened with the YP line in 1975, only the collaborations extended beyond just a single manufacturer. Under the YP-1000 is a Matsushita (Technics) SP-10 Direct Drive motor mated to a STAX UA-7 dual suspension tonearm, all mounted on a wooden plinth made by the same team at Yamaha responsible for sorting out the wood used in their grand pianos.

Thinking about it, I kinda like the idea of all the best things in audio at the time just thrown into one deck. That and the fact that there's a Technics motor in there, so can I sit at the lunchroom table with the Technics boys now? Haha! Also, as someone who loves STAX, it feels like a beautiful thing to listen to records through electrostatic headphones. It's a totally different level of immersion that, at least in my opinion, rivals modern recordings today.

I sourced the original headshell as well: a STAX HS-7, mated to an Audio-Technica VM745xML. Suffice it to say the stereo separation is insane. Holographic imaging in my classical recordings has never felt this deep, and the bass extension (of which there isn't much to begin with on the SR-L700mk2 ear speakers) feels more present as compared to something like the VM95E on my P-550.

I think I've found my "for life" player in this turntable, but it's already 50 years old at this point, so the caps probably need replacing. I already serviced the motor by cleaning and re-lubing it. All in all, she looks fresh save for some small cosmetic marks due to problematic shipping (the seller didn't remove the counterweight or platter, so I found a part of the counterweight rattling inside the package). After this, I plan on securing a moving coil cartridge to round up the entire vinyl listening experience. I'm thinking of a DL-103R paired with a Yamamoto HS-1A headshell. If anyone has any suggestions for MC carts I should check out, please let me know!

First time posting here, but been an audiophile for quite a while and got into records a couple years back. My starter table was a TEAC TN-180BT. I dabbled a bit and upgraded the stylus to an ATN3600E, which opened things up. But the one thing that annoyed me was that records, especially old damaged ones, would keep skipping. Decided it was time for me to invest in a newer table. I was in the market for a Pro-Ject EVO 2 but things happened and it didn't seem feasible for me to purchase one any time soon... but I had an itch.

So I saw a listing in FB marketplace for an old Yamaha P-550, refurbished from Japan. I grew up with Yamaha products and always had a thing for them. Heck, one of my favorite vintage headphones is a Yamaha HP-1. So I said what the heck and dropped $70 for it. Came in looking clean, cartridge seems to be original but the stylus was swapped for an ATN-3400. Changed it to a VM95E and... holy crap I didn't know all my vinyl records could sound this good. Spent the last 2 weeks going through my collection and just falling in love with it all over again.

Now I'm kinda in a "Yamaha turntable rabbit hole" learning about why no one seems to be talking about them and the stuff they released in the 70's and 80's. I know Yamaha today is kinda meh (mostly rebadged throwaway decks from a Taiwanese company, save for their GT-5000). But yeah, these vintage Yamahas are legit. Now I'm eyeing the YP-1000 because it has a STAX tonearm, and as you can tell, I'm a STAX fan.

So, any Vintage Yamaha fans out there? Hello!

I grew up with records, but my folks sold our old turntable when I was a kid when CDs started to become a thing, so it wasn't until a few years back when TEAC released a collaboration miku-themed turntable that I got back into collecting vinyl.

As an entry-level consumer record player, it was the bottleneck in my setup, hence why I decided to upgrade to a vintage Yamaha. It just seemed like the right thing to do, and seeing them next to each other kinda reminded me of that "Miku visits grandpa" artwork/song that went viral a few years back, haha.

Just felt like sharing after seeing people sharing their CD collections. Physical media for life!