The Bigblog!

Is that your amp on the bottom T?

I'm told that I must get a listen!

Well I did make him an offer he couldn't refuse although no horses were injured during the coarse of that conversation

The Aqvox is here (without any psu) lol.

I must be the only person who would specifically order a brand new product with no power supply

However, the PSU to go into it isn't here yet, so the wait continues. In the meantime the M2 Tech has been a wonderful substitute. It is a real music maker and is STILL one of the most underappreciated DACs out there IMO. I found my old review on this dac and unsurprisingly, in a better system, its performance is at levels well above that i wrote about previously.

Opening up the PSU (as i did before) the Avondale PSU isn't made how i'd choose to it, but to be fair what is?!

It's not a bad PSU, so i have decided to resist making any changes.... I literally wrote that and instantly changed my mind lol...maybe i will whack a PSU in there and see what happens.

In a bid to compare the Aqvox and M2tech to a more modern DAC, i picked up a faulty Topping D90. It is currently winging it's way to misterc as its fault is eluding me. Hopefully it comes back to me in full working order and i can compare these two old boy designs to the young topology on the block!

Other than that, the Ortofon Windfeld Ti is in a new loving home and the Ortofon Kontrapunkt b is sat on my shelf gathering dust. I have not had time to mount it or play any vinyl at all. A by product of the massively time consuming digital cable experiment i have been doing, but also the new temp job is taking up a lot of my time too. I have an absolute ton of classical vinyl to have a work through so hopefully when i am on Annual leave in a couple of weeks i can get some time.

I still have the 686 and a BT2 to finish, so i'd best go and get to work. Have a good weekend people!

It will, however, we may have an issue with Aqvox.

I decided to do a full inspection of the PCB and found this:



It appears a bit of solder bridging has happened in the construction and I am not convinced it is deliberate. I have email Aqvox, so I'll see what they say.

These pins are bloody tiny... I don't fancy trying to clean them up tbh

Yeah, I was hoping you'd say that 😂😂😂


There is another bridge on the other one in a completely different place.

I expect this is a fault, but let's see.

Waiting for the moon.... However the clouds are being a right pain in the ass.

Lens isn't long enough really, but still good practice playing with manual lenses.

Mutec mangling, that is not how you described that work earlier 🤣

"Mutec mangling"

Great sales pitch dude. 

@bigman Are you putting valves in the Mutec?  

It's been a long time since i listened to any vinyl. The PS5 induced noise in my system via vinyl has been a persistent thorn in my side, and as of yet, no solution has been found.

I still find it incredibly odd that 3x Avalon OBX have been built and played for hours in my system, but the only one with the issue is mine. This noise issue has pushed me to sell a couple of really nice cartridges and seriously contemplate giving up vinyl. Especially this week when i saw a Bricasti M3 for sale. I reached a point of no return i thought.

Then i strapped the Ortofon Kb to the arm and gave that a quick check before placing it up for sale.

Expecting to hear the intrusive noise, i turned the wick up and there was silence. I put the needle down and Dvorak's "New World" soared from the system in glorious vinyl wonderousness.

I was stunned. No noise at all.....what's going on?! The kids were on the PS5s..but not playing games. They were watching YouTube. I checked for the noise a few times that day and it was gone, until it wasn't. It's back.

Further experimenting suggests that PS5's transmit data packets when games are being played, and its the broadcast from the PS5 to the WiFi that is causing the issue. Also, they seem to transmit when they are in stand-by too.

So, back to selling up?

NO!

I enjoyed my noise free listening session so much that i am now absolutely determined to get rid of this issue, even if that means a total rebuild of the OBX into a specifically built and laid out two-box system, like i had before, but with some sort of OTT insulation to try and keep that out. I am also considering ripping up all of the carpet and floors so i can add a wired connection into their rooms. This issue has plagued me and robbed me of 12 months of enjoying vinyl.

I also have another option of adding a SUT to the MM side of the Avalon as that seems to be impervious to the WiFi or the PS5's behaviour, and we may also have another couple of options like a loop breaker and a small, but possibly significant wiring change inside. I may also change the selector switch too, for one with a Plastic body.

Vinyl...never simple is it.

Oli, you could always try some of those ethernet over power thingies, TPLink do them, and would be easier than ripping up floors to get a wired connection to the PS5.

I could possibly cheat by bringing it up the wall on the outside of the house and then running it around skirting on one wall of our bedroom before drilling through into the lads room. Then maybe another line into the other lads room.

That's probably simplest, but definitely not the prettiest.

I'll have to give it some thought.

For the cost of the wire you could always try it outside to see if it does the job and if it does tidy it up later. In my case the tidying always seems to be much later🤣

Thanks for that info.

I may just throw a long cable (20m) up the stairs and test the theory?!

Probably wise before drilling holes in the house 😂