Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Interconnects for LP rig

I just recently added a Pro-ject turntable and phono preamp to my G68-SL/DSP 5500 sound system. The turntable, cartridge and preamp are decent quality, not entry level and not super high end either.

Overall the sound seems pretty good to me but not great. I haven't tinkered with any Meridian settings yet, just basically plugged it in to the Tape input.

The interconnects are bargain basement variety at this point. I'm looking for advice on what level of IC's to upgrade to. The dealer who sold me the Project stuff said he could sell me two pair of nice IC's at $200 a pair or two pair of good IC's at $400 a pair to take the sound quality to the next levels. What do you Meridian wizards think about this decision? I don't really want to spend $800, but if it will make an audible difference in clarity, sound stage, etc. it might be worth it in the long run.

Latest product from Russ Andrews - if you really want to spend that kind of money.

Take a look at Audioquest, Shunyata Reasearch or Tara Labs all
are made in the US and they have cables at many price levels.

For $800 you’d be better off getting a better cartridge and phono pre-amp, that’ll actually make a difference.

Setting the phono pre-amp to the correct settings (capacitance and load if possible) and the input levels on the G68 will also make more of an audible difference.

ATB,

Steve

The turntable is the Project Pro-Ject 2 Xperience SB DC. The cartridge is Ortofon 2M white. The preamp is Project Phono Box Ultra 500. Like I said, it's not high end but it's not entry level. That being said, I don't want to upgrade the cartridge and phono preamp now. Do you think good quality interconnects will make a difference?

My personal opinion is setting the levels correctly on the G68 will make more of an audible difference than a set of interconnects.

I recently hooked up my turntable (Technics SL-5/Audio Technica AT92E) to my (new to me) 561, going to a pair of DSP5000.2s. I was disappointed in the Turntable performance, until I remembered to set the levels on the 561 properly for an analog source. Once that was done, it was MUCH better.

I believe interconnects "can" help, but not hugely. The law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty soon as far as interconnects go (at least in my opinion).

What interconnects are you using? The ones that came with the Pro-Ject turntable? What does Pro-Ject (not your dealer) recommend?

isn’t that a mono cartridge?
have you tried changing the settings?

This is a good write up on how the settings will change the response.

The graph on the link shows how adding capacitance will change the frequency response by adding a peak and changing the high frequency roll off.
If you really want to change the cable between the turntable and phono pre-amp, I’d recommend a cable with as low a capacitance as possible; you’ll be able to add some in with phono pre-amp, but you can’t take it away.

ATB,

Steve

Hey Dan, can you walk me through the way you changed your settings? I'm not familiar with how you tweak the Meridian gear in this manner.

Hi Mr. Vegas,

I was mainly commenting on setting up the GAIN of the analog sources properly. I only know how to do that for the 561, as that is what I have recently done. (I did it ages ago for my 562V/565 setup - the procedure may be the same, but check the manuals).

For the 561 look at the user's manual here. Go to page 76 of the manual (I think it is page 82 of the PDF).

That is the adjustment I had to make. I was pleased with the result.

Depending on your speaker setup, you can also tweak things like bass, treble, phase, and balance and save them as a custom DSP preset. Then you could have that source default to that preset. Look on page 24 and on (PDF page 30) in the 561 manual.

Other HH'ers may have more in-depth knowledge.

I hope this helps.

Dan

Hello, I looked through the online documentation of the G68 and could not find anything that specifically addressed the topic of adjusting gain levels on analogue inputs for the G68SL. Am I missing something?

I'm not sure if you can do it from the front panel, I normally set these things via the config program:



You can set it for each analogue source.

ATB,

Steve