Urgently Needed

[neil wilkes]

Help.

I have managed to arrange the loan of a Tate II 101 SQ decoder and turntable to do that Wagner set.
Trouble is, I am told that the Tate has it's RCA output sockets very close together, and a high quality RCA plug will not sit happily side by side with another one.
The 4 outputs are apparently too close together for these to fit.

So.
Is there a special adapter I need, or should I just warm up the trusty soldering iron and make one from bits?

Any advice very gratefully recieved here.

 

[Malcolm2010]

Help.

I have managed to arrange the loan of a Tate II 101 SQ decoder and turntable to do that Wagner set.
Trouble is, I am told that the Tate has it's RCA output sockets very close together, and a high quality RCA plug will not sit happily side by side with another one.
The 4 outputs are apparently too close together for these to fit.

So.
Is there a special adapter I need, or should I just warm up the trusty soldering iron and make one from bits?

Any advice very gratefully recieved here.

Neil,

It would be cheaper to make one from bits, after all you would only need a very short cable from plug to socket to allow your larger connectors "breathing space". I had the same problem with a Revox A700, the phono connectors were just too close together for modern high quality plugs, and ended up making short pig tails.

Malcolm

 

[Cai Campbell]

Quality interconnect cables do not necessarily require big, fat connectors. I use Transparent Audio MusicLink cables with my Tate and they work wonderfully.

Rolling your own is certainly an option but there are plenty of quality commercial solutions that will work with the Tate's tight connector grouping.

 

[neil wilkes]

I will wait & see what it looks like when it gets here on the 25th, I reckon.
I do have some High Quality Gold Neutrik RCA plugs that do not look any wider than the cheapies do.
However, the owner of the unit said he'd had problems.
Whatever.
It will be quicker to use built ones, but it is no real hassle to make one. Me and my soldering iron are old, old friends.

 

[Cai Campbell]

The jacks are indeed very close together. I don't care for the spacing myself and initially had problems with my chosen interconnects. It's just a matter of finding a quality alternative that works with the confined spacing. A hassle, yes, but not insurmountable.

 

[Scottmoose]

Cheapest route might be to get hold of a pair of QED Qunix 1 at £20 apiece. Mine have lovely slim plugs made by QED themselves, though I'm not sure if they're still like this -mine's a couple of years old now. Shielding isn't great -only foil, no braid, but that's easily fixed with a couple of clip-on ferrite clamps, there's plenty of copper in the conductors, and they don't, or didn't subscribe to the 'directional RCA lead' lunacy. Probably better than spending a fortune on Eichmann bullet plugs or other slim equivelents (RCA plugs now have a 'sound?' Give me strength! ), let alone any of the suicidally priced leads lurking in every shop now.

 

[Malcolm2010]

Neil,
I assume you also have the necessary RIAA pre amp to go between the turntable and Tate for correct EQ and level matching?. Your first post did not mention that.

Malcolm

 

[neil wilkes]

I have absolutely no idea what is going to turn up.
It is stuff that is being loaned, not stuff I own.
Must admit, I would have thought it would need to go through the decoder first before any preamp.
But I know nothing at all about this.
I will phone the person who's equipment it is.....

 

[sspsandy]

Neil, the Tate is designed to use the 4 channel tape monitor on a quad receiver. the f l&r tape monitor outputs go to the 2 inputs on the Tate, the 4 outputs on the Tate go to the 4 inputs on the tape monitor. You select the tape monitor switch, and run all your cds and whatnot through the aux input on the receiver. If the newer style receiver does not have a turntable input, you need a phono preamp to connect it to the aux input. The Tate was designed in the days when it could be used with 2 stereo amps, you fed the fronts into the tape monitor loop, and the rears into the second amp. Which is why it has it's own tape monitor, since you'd be using the one in your receiver. (It has no built in amplification, it is a processor only).

 

[neil wilkes]

So it really should be run through an RIAA Preamp then?
I ask as there seems to be a contrary opinion http://www.tracertek.com/ where they are claiming that the RIAA is best applied in software to avoid phase shifting.
As I said earlier, I don't know. I'm a cretin when it comes to Vinyl.
From stereo vinyl, I run through an RIAA preamp.
For the Tate, what I had in mind was going from the Tate straight into my Midas Analogue console, in much the same way I always used to DI a DJ when doing live mixing. It always worked just fine in those circumstances, so will inputting directly into the Midas Preamps at Line level not be sufficient then?

If not, then does anyone know where I can find out just what the RIAA curve is, and how I can apply it with either a linear phase or miniimum phase EQ/Filter?
Seems to me that the Midas Preamps really ought to be up to the task, and as I say, it used to work in Live engineering with all the DJ's and the inevitable technics SL1200 turntables - yes, I know they are crap, but that's not the point here.

The point is I am ignorant of what I need to do the job, and If I need to go out & buy a 4 way RIAA preamp then so be it.
But if it won't work with the Midas Preamps - why not?

 

[Cai Campbell]

The Tate is going to expect a line-level input. The output of a turntable is not going to be strong enough to drive the Tate, nor will it be RIAA equalized. You need a phono amp between the turntable and the Tate, no getting around that. Also, don't go cheap on the phono amp, people often overlook the importance of this critical piece in the quality chain. Last word of wisdom. The synergy between your phono cartridge and phono amp is very critical. It is all too easy to put together a cartridge/phono-amp combination that generates sub-standard or unfavorable results.

 

[neil wilkes]

How about this solution then:
(Due to utter lack of 4 channel RIAA Preamp)
Turntable - Midas - Tate - Digits - Software RIAA curve, either original or IEC updated one.
I got this back from some Audio restoration "experts":

Thanks for the question. Yes, using a mathematically correct RIAA curve has
two major advantages:


1. The curve does not suffer from inaccuracies caused by resistors and
capacitors which, even if they are 1% units, cannot be perfect devices.
Also, they will change in value over time and as a function of temperature.


2. These Rs and Cs are also implemented by channel and will never match
each other perfectly. This leads to phase errors which can never be Zero in
a normal analog EQ.


Both of these problems are solved by bringing the audio in "flat" and then
applying a mathematically correct EQ. We do exactly the same math on both
channels and get zero phase error. Also, our algorithms do not drift, age
or change with temperature.


The difference is quite hearable.


Here's a link to the formula for the standard RIAA curve. Note that this is
indeed a curve - there's not a straight part anywhere from 20hz up to 20khz.
Most preamp EQs try to implement the whole complex curve with 3 poles of Rs
and Cs.


http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/audio/riaa.htm


Another advantage of this approach is that it makes it easy to do non-riaa
material such as pre-1954 LPs and 78s. You don't record with the wrong EQ.


Does this actually make sense?
I have the correct curve as a preset for the Voxengo CurveEQ - the programmer wrote it for me specially.

Failing this, then I guess I will need to have a serious rethink.....

 

[Malcolm2010]

Neil, this will not work, fundamentally the turntable output MUST be equalised and level shifted to about 300-500 mV BEFORE entering the Tate, no other option will do. Sequence as follows

Turntable --> Riaa pre amp/ EQ --> Tate --> 4 channels to your DAW

I understand your desire to have as flat a phase response as possible, but this will not work, the Tate would not decode correctly, if at all. There is no need for a four channel RIAA pre amp, only a "normal" stereo one, the decoding is the done within the Tate

Macolm

 

[Cai Campbell]

Ugh.

First off, you don't need a four-channel phono-amp. Indeed, there is no such thing (well, you might consider a CD-4 demodulator to be a four-channel phono-amp, but I digress). The Tate's job is to take a two-channel audio signal and turn it into four channels. Thus, you need a "standard" stereo phono-amp to sit between the turntable and the Tate.

You could use a software-based RIAA equalization tool, but that means you have to digitize the raw outputs from the turntable. Even the highest output phono cartridge is going to require significant amplification in the digital domain. Not a good thing! Then you have to route the digitized RIAA equalized signal back through the Tate only to digitze the outputs again.

Seriously, do the right thing and use a phono amp. Software is not the right solution. You want to keep the squiggly lines from the vinyl record in the analog domain as long as possible.

 

[neil wilkes]

Okey Dokey.
PLEASE excuse my incredible STUPIDITY here.
For some really odd reason, I had this mental image of a 4 channel preamp.
I have a perfectly good 2 channel preamp with RIAA and the whole shooting match.
Cambridge Audio C500, with Phono Preamp fitted as an extra.
So not a problem.

Cai - thanks for the reasons on why NOT to use digital RIAA. I was sort of wondering how I was going to get a strong enough signal, given that the RIAA curve goes from approx +18dB at the 20Hz end to around -18dB at the highest point. Trying to guess what level to record at would be a true nightmare. That implies an input level of -18dBFS peak.
Which will utterly defeat the whole point of recording at 24 bits, as there will be so much missing resolution.

I appreciate the tolerance here, when it comes to vinyl, I am so ignorant...