Michell My Belle! Customer Upgrades His Gyro Turntable With Michell Techno Tonearm

Christmas arrives a little early for one of our customers as he has treated himself to a new tone arm on his Michell Gyro turntable. He had an ageing Rega RB300 previously installed on the turntable that was starting to become troublesome. With our advice the customer chose the obvious choice, the Michell Techno A tonearm in black to match the existing finish of the turntable.

Michell Gyro with new Techno A arm fitted

Michell Gyro with new Techno A arm fitted

At the same time we have also removed the old acrylic plinth and lid giving the deck a much slicker look and feel. This was achieved by adding the Michell Gyro Spyder kit as shown below. The old deck is dismantled and the feet are removed from the plinth and threaded on to the new Spyder.

Michell Gyro Spyder kit

Michell Gyro Spyder kit

Techno A arm unboxing

Techno A arm unboxing

New arm mounting plate

New arm mounting plate

The old arm mounting plate needs to be replaced as it is the single mounting point plate. The new mounting plate is seen fitted in place above. The new three point mount all ready for the new tone arm.

Tonearm mount from top

Tonearm mount from top

Techno A arm fitted

Techno A arm fitted

Next we need to fit the cartridge to the tonearm. Our customer decided to go for the Rega Ania MC cartridge as shown below.

Rega ANIA MC cartridge during fitting

Rega ANIA MC cartridge during fitting

Rega ANIA MC cartridge

Rega ANIA MC cartridge

Now we need to adjust the height of the tonearm to make sure the vertical tracking angle is correct for the cartridge installed. This is achieved by the clever Michell thread at the mounting of the arm. In this case no adjustment was needed so the three mounting screws can tightened to fix the tonearm in place.

Tonearm height adjustment

Tonearm height adjustment

Michell Techno A arm Scallop counter weights

Michell Techno A arm Scallop counter weights

Two different weight scallops are supplied depending on the weight of your cartridge. In this case the larger of the two has been used.

Scallop counter weight in place

Scallop counter weight in place

Checking tracking force

Checking tracking force

Above we are checking the tracking weight using Project Measure IT stylus balance gage.

Ready for the first play

Ready for the first play

Cue up ready……”drop the needle on the record”

Cue up ready……”drop the needle on the record”

Michell HR power supply + Nytech CDP122

Michell HR power supply + Nytech CDP122

Above is the is older Michell HR power supply (this has now been replaced with a more modern looking box and case work) alongside the Nytech CDP122, our weapon of choice at the moment when it comes to supplying moving magnet or moving coil setups.

Final pic of the completed setup

Final pic of the completed setup

Thanks to Steve for his permission to blog about his latest audio upgrade. In the pic above we have the front of his home cinema setup. The classic Pioneer plasma, Arcam AVR550, REL S3, Oppo UDP-203 & the now discontinued Bowers & Wilkins 683S2 teamed with the HTM61S2 center speaker. He finishes off his surround system with two B&W M1 speakers on the rear and B&W CCM665 in the ceiling for Dolby Atmos, creating a very impressive 5.1.2 system. Michell Techno A arm and Rega ANIA MC cartridge is available from all branches of Audio T.

Michell Engineering turntables are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Cardiff, Manchester, Southampton, Swansea

Thanks for reading: Hefin, Nick (blogger) and Kerrin Audio T Cardiff.

New Oppo UDP-203 4K UHD Blu-Ray Player

We  love home cinema because the sound and picture quality is getting better and better from year to year.  So what makes for a great home cinema experience?

Well, in addition to good sound quality, you definitely need a brilliant picture! Oh yes, no doubt about that. This is why we ordered the new Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player.

So what's in the box ?

The UDP-203 is supplied with a remote control , a power cable , a hdmi cable and a user manual.

In terms of connectivity , the Oppo has a lot to offer:

It has two HDMI outputs (one for audio only, just in case your av receiver doesn't pass through 4K) , an HDMI input (for passing another 4K source through, 2x USB-3 inputs on the back, 1x USB-2 input at the front , RS-232 , digital optical and coaxial outputs, trigger in and out ports and 7.1 channel analogue outputs.

We connected it up to our Panasonic TX-58DX902B 4K TV and we loved it straight away. In comparison to our shop Panasonic 4K Blu-ray player DMP-UB900, which is good, the Oppo's loading time is faster and once the movie is loaded and played, the picture quality is staggeringly good with better black levels and finer around the edges of objects.

Put in the 4K Blu-Ray with "The Revenant" and you see what I mean. This player draws you in when you look at the water in the beginning of the movie, it looks soooo realistic and cinematic like we haven't seen before.  This is also due to HDR. It means High Dynamic Range and through that, you see more levels of white and black (the contrast). Stunning!

We want to watch all our movies again in 4K! I know that some people might wonder, why you would want to do this, but do it and you'll see why. We are hooked by the quality of this player and even playback of your standard Blu-ray's won't disappoint. We have been waiting for a player like this one for some time and now it is here.

The supported disc formats are UHD (4K) Blu-ray, Blu-ray (2D & 3D), DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, CD and AVCHD.

Anything not to like? We can't think of anything...

So what about the support of online services such as Netflix, BBC iPlayer and so on, that you get with so many Blu-ray players and 4K Blu-ray player these days? The answer is - No. This player has been designed to play movies to the highest standard, with the best possible picture and sound quality. Most of these online services are available through modern smart TVs and set top boxes these days.

The Oppo UDP-203 can also be used as a media streamer and set up either via ethernet or wirelessly. I connected a 500GB usb-drive with tons of music on it to one of its usb3 sockets on the back of the player and used the remote control to select music via the TV screen menu. There is also a free app for IOS and Android that turns your phone or tablet into a remote control.

The app allows you to browse and play from  NAS (Network Attached Storage) drives or usb drives with all your music or photos on. Tidal is shown on top of this screen shot but according to Oppo, it is not available on this player. 

We think this is a very good 4K Blu-ray player and should be on your short list.

Please come and see us here at the Swindon shop and we're sure you'll be blown away by its sound and picture quality.

Cheers and see you soon

Stefan and Andy