I'm beginning to get the hang of things now I think, the amps are realy settling in, the new Audiomods arm is getting better by the record. It requires some real LTC, with slight agustments, tiny changes, they are all significant in heading towards the final setup.
The system as a whole seems to be going this route, a small tweak hear, a tiny change there, fractional changes that on their own are not significant but 'the sum of the whole' make it all worth while. A significant change this morning; put the TT through the 'tape input' . . . advised in the 'amp destructions' as the shortest, least interupted signal path. Another change is ballancing the phono stage volume control against the Stereo 40 own intigrated volume control, sugested by Floyd Droyd, amazing how much this helps.
In the couple of weeks I have had the 'Icon Stereo 40', we have come from very good, to bl**dy amazing. Much of the fiddling, tweaking and balancing has been to produce a sound presentation that we like, some would say 'better', I say 'to our satisfaction' . . . however there are changes that I put in the 'better' cattegory, tiny yes, but as above the 'sum of the whole' is a plus, a move forward.
I had planed to have a final session with the 'Croft Basic Micro intigrated amp', unfortunaly, circumstances did not allow. My meory is, dynamic, detailed but the true valve sound is the job of a full valve amplifier . . . that bit of solid state dilutes the final presentation IMHO. Time to move on . . .
CJSF