Connecting the Groove Sleuth to your
sound card
The
Groove Sleuth Mk.II
is connected to your sound-
card's line inputs (as shown above). Levels should
be set on the interface in the normal way and you
will find that the preamplifier delivers audio at a
sufficiently high level for all commercial sound-
cards, both internal and external.
Chapter 5
–
Phaedrus Audio
PHLUX II
- Active Phono
Cartridge
The Phaedrus Audio
PHLUX II
active phono
cartridge a new development in phono cartridge
technology in which a moving-magnet motor
system is buffered by a miniature amplifier
thereby securing the performance of a moving-coil
cartridge with the superior tracking and general
convenience of the moving-magnet type. Using a
combination of the
PHLUX II
cartridge, the
Groove
Sleuth Mk.II
and Pspatial Audio’s
Stereo Lab
software, first-rate needle-drops may be obtained.
More
information
is
available
from
www.phaedrus-audio.com/PHLUX.htm
The power to the
PHLUX/ PHLUX II
active cartridge
is supplied via the signal cable: rather as phantom
power is delivered to modern microphones. In this
way, the
PHLUX
may be fitted to any standard
turntable without any rewiring. All that is required
is that the phono preamplifier supplies the
appropriate current and voltage to the turntable
leads. This circuitry is provided within the
Groove
Sleuth Mk.II.
PHLUX-II digital correction
The PHLUX-II cartridge has a very level frequency
response. Variation is confined to ±1dB. This is a
very good result and is illustrated in the graph
above by the red trace.
Nevertheless, ±1dB is just perceptible; especially
when it is a monotonic 2dB drop as shown in the
graph. The result is a very slightly "warm" tonal
balance.
So,
before
applying
recording-
characteristic equalisation, it is possible to correct
this very slight response anomaly in Stereo Lab
software. The black trace indicates the corrected
response which brings the variation of the PHLUX-
II frequency-response to less than ½dB; a result
below accepted levels of perceptibility.
The combination of PHLUX-II, Groove Sleuth Mk.II
and Stereo Lab offers a solution with which to
extract the information captured on the original
record with forensic accuracy.
Chapter 6 - Recording "Needle-
drops"
To record a needle-
drop, you will first need
a
program
which
records audio. Pspatial
Audio can recommend
Audacity
, a free, easy-
to-use, audio editor and
recorder which runs on
the Mac platform (and, in fact, on Windows and
GNU/Linux too).
Audacity
is free software,
developed by a group of volunteers and
distributed under the GNU General Public License
(GPL).
Audacity
features, not only the recording
tools you need, but other tools which you can use
to enhance your needle-drops like click and noise
filtering and speed change. You can read about
and download
Audacity
on their website
(
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
).
