Audio note turntables upgrade#

As you may guess, there wasn't a permanent influx of people going in and out of the room and the people who were didn't want to move. What an intriguing way to do business - I entered. One stated that there was no home cinema in the room while the other hinted that you shouldn't enter the room unless you are a music lover (I forget the exact wording). It also had a couple of signs on the door. Interestingly, this was the only room that had its door permanently closed. It was time to visit the Audio Note room.

At first, I thought it was my old ears but my son also concurred with me as to what sounded good and what didn't.īefore long, I had seen enough. Granted, there are more home cinema set-ups than ever before but there were still a lot of companies selling Hi-Fi that sounded really bad. Not today though - so what's going on? Only two rooms that I visited were what I would consider Hi-Fi. The thing that struck me about the show was the lack of good sound! I had not been to a show for a great many years and I am certain that back then there were more things worth listening to. First, before visiting the Audio Note room, I had a wonder around the show with my eldest son (his first time at a Hi-Fi show) because we had a couple of hours to kill. I had arranged to see Mario at the end of the show so that he would have time to demonstrate the turntable to me. Fortunately, the local Hi-Fi show was due in a few weeks time and I arranged to pick it up from him then.

Audio note turntables upgrade#

Also, it is not always possible to upgrade a TT1 to TT2 because some of the chassis that they use for the TT1 simply don't allow it.Īlthough Mario confirmed that he had all the necessary parts at the factory, he was reluctant to send the TT-2 to me in the post, as he didn't want to it to get mishandled by the postman and lose its factory set-up that is, of course, an important part of the build. The former would definitely mean a return to the factory, whereas the latter could be done elsewhere - possibly myself with the right instructions from himself. In addition, upgrading the turntable would be simpler because upgrading a TT1 to a TT2 was a far more difficult task than upgrading an Arm1 to Arm2. Mario questioned my choice of TT-1/Arm Two/IQ2 and advised me that, although a little more expensive, a TT-2/Arm One/IQ2 would be far superior in terms of tighter bass, transient performance, image depth, etc. Mario is a very dedicated individual who looks after Audio Note's audio shows and demonstrations (including home demos around the UK and parts of Europe).Īlthough TT-1 and TT-2 manufacture had moved out of the UK, Mario said it may possible to build me turntable using parts that were still available in the UK factory including a slightly damaged chassis that could not be used to build a retail model simply because of the way it looks. I was fortunate enough to be put in touch with Mario who works out of the Audio Note factory in the UK. The TT-1 had outstanding reviews and came highly recommended although its most common configuration was with Arm1 and IQ1. The Rega was also quite noisy picking up hum every time the stylus hit the record.Īfter various routes of investigation, I decided that I would try to get hold of an Audio Note TT-1/Arm Two/IQ2.

Still though, something was lacking - there were still aspects that CD had that my turntable lacked such as the tightness of the bottom end and more extended top end (although treble content was now more satisfying) etc.

The sheer musical presence superseded my CD set-up. Once finished, I was able to hook up my old Rega turntable and began listening to my old records once again. To facilitate this, I built the newly released Audio Note Kits Kit1 Phono Stage Signature. After all, I still had a collection of records that had been sitting on a shelf ever since I last moved house around 10 years ago and a Rega Planar2/Lustre arm/Dynavector 10X2 sat in a cupboard.įirstly, I had to build a phono stage for my, now, line-only system. Intrigued by the ever-escalating talk of vinyl in recent years, coupled with the fact that I have never heard a CD system that out-performs some of the vinyl systems that I have heard during my life, I decided some months ago to try it out for myself. Audio Note TT-2 turntable armed and ready to go