The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

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Neonknight
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The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by Neonknight »

So the turntable delivered yesterday and I got an initial set up done. The condition is better than described and I am very pleased with the purchase. No speed issues like with the Amazon turntable!
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These users thanked the author Neonknight for the post (total 4):
slinger (Fri Jul 09, 2021 4:03 pm) • Fretless (Fri Jul 09, 2021 4:40 pm) • antonio66 (Sat Jul 10, 2021 12:53 am) • savvypaul (Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:50 am)

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Re: The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by Neonknight »

So I have had the table up and running for a bit now, and one of the things I did was make the arm installation quasi permanent. This version of the DV505 does not have a tone arm cable that comes out of the bottom but rather the back side, so a hole in the arm board is not required. This arm board is drilled for a Rega, but I am able to cover the hole with the tone arm baseplate . So I covered the bottom of the tone arm baseplate with Gorilla Glue double sided mounting tape. This stuff bonds very strongly, and the arm is quite secure.

For the moment I have an Ortofon MC200 installed as its my cheapest cartridge, and this was a trial set up. Everything aligned properly, and its amazing how quiet in the groove it is. Now the MC200 is a vintage cartridge and it has its own character and limitations, but all in all it sounds quite respectable. The output voltage is wickedly low at .09 mV, so perhaps I will source a SUT for it at some time in the future. My next step is to install and align the Ikeda 9 Kawami cartridge, but that process is tedious as its so difficult to see the diamond since it is a direct scanning design.

I have owned a few tables over the years, and the Scheu and Dynavector are as colorless and transparent as I have experienced. While there may be performance gains to be had by the ultra high end tables, I would suspect my system and room are not at the level of refinement to take advantage of those tables. I believe this is about as high as I can hope to climb, and I am fine with that cause the sound is very very nice.

Scheu Analog tables are not very common in the US, but when I browse HiFi Shark I see several of them available in Europe. The prices seemed quite reasonable to me, and I would say they are worth taking a look at if you are in the market for a turntable.

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Re: The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by antonio66 »

Good to hear you are happy with your purchase, do you think from what you have heard so far the Ikeda will be a good match for the tt?

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Re: The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by Neonknight »

antonio66 wrote: Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:11 am Good to hear you are happy with your purchase, do you think from what you have heard so far the Ikeda will be a good match for the tt?

Actually I installed the Ikeda last night. Alignment is a bastard to do on this cartridge, and since there is no cantilever I have to use the body for a visual reference and then listen. Spent all evening going through albums and making adjustments to VTA and tracking force. Think I have gotten it pretty well set up now, and its different than I have ever heard it before. The sound is more full bodied and smoother than on previous installations I have had, and its not what I expected. On some music its almost too smooth, or at least its different enough from my expectations to cause that to be my initial reaction.

I have a plan though, especially given my experience with the Ortofon MC200, and when I first installed it on this arm. On that install I had used a set of litz silver cartridge wires in place of the OEM ones on the LP Gear Zupreme head shell. These were the inexpensive ones off Ebay that cost about $18 a set. Last night when it was time to retire I decided to place an order for some more cartridge leads, but I decided to go with these. These leads look to use a higher quality wire and are not a ton more money, so I am willing to give them a shot.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/164900358242

Listening to the Ikeda now while I have my morning coffee and the overall presentation is nice. Now that I think about it I have not played the cartridge awhile, and perhaps it just needed to loosen up a bit. On Audiogon there are owners of these direct scanning Ikeda cartridges and their experiences are that it will not perform well in an arm like the Dynavector because the secondary arm body does not have enough mass in the vertical plane for this cartridge. Perhaps this is not going to be a complimentary combo, but at least I can give it a listen to and see how things turn out. You know though, its coming around this morning and returning to the presentation that I remember. Perhaps its just that I have not listened to it in awhile and I became accustomed to the sound of the MC200, or maybe it indeed need a bit of run in.

Oh well, I have some nice silver leads coming that will be a grand experiment. Guess this is why audio is a hobby and journey over our lifetime. It will be interesting to see where the Ikeda leads me while installed on the Scheu. I will say it is a lovely table and all I could have hoped for. The arm is quite a bit of engineering also, and its amazing to think it was produced at the end of the 1970's. This is a great deal of fun!

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Re: The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by Vinyl-ant »

Just add some mass to the headshell.

There is the same issue with linear tracking arms, especially short wand ones like my airprodigy. The vertical effective mass is much lower than the lateral mass, as it has to pull the entire carriage.
Your dv arm behaves in the same way. Laterally it has the effective mass of the entire moving assembly, vertically, just the mass of the vertically moving arm.

Targeted mass helps
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Re: The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by antonio66 »

As I was reading the post, I thought add some mass to the headshell, so there's your answer :dance: , well maybe
The cartridge wires look to be a good deal, compared to some I've seen

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Re: The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by NSNO2021 »

I will be very interested to see how the new wires effect the sound, please keep us posted
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Re: The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by Neonknight »

The Dynavector is an unusual arm as you might imagine. There are two counterweights, one for the short arm that sets vertical tracking weight of the cartridge. Yet on the back of the main arm there is a second counterweight that you also have to set. Its position is based on the weight of the cartridge, and there is a bearing on the main arm pillar that has limited range, but nonetheless has to be set. After reading through the directions a few times I went through that process, and it made a noticeable uptick in sound quality. The top end opened up a bit more with sharper definition, longer decay, and more spatial cues.

I then market my settings and put the Ortofon MC200 back on the arm. Since it weighs 6 grams versus the 14 grams of the Ikeda I made the necessary counterweight changes and am pretty pleased with what I am hearing. The Ortofon is meant to be my casual cartridge, so it should get the most play time, and its pretty darn decent.

With that being said I am watching an auction for a NOS Dynavector DV Karat, these are the ones with the ruby cantilever versus the new ones which are diamond. I have had the 17D II series in the past and its a nice cartridge, while the connoisseurs of vintage cartridges say the ruby versions were actually preferred. Maybe I will get lucky with my bid and find out if there is any merit to that line of thought.

I am pleased with the table and arm though. In listening to the Scheu and Dynavector with the Ikeda cartridge installed I am not sure the SOTA with SME V and Transfiguration is really any better. There are slight differences, but all in all the tables basically perform at the same level and have similar presentation. But that Ikeda cartridge is a bastard to set up, and I am not sure I have it dialed in yet. I have one album where I get a touch of sibilance that I do not have with other cartridges or tables. So I think I still have a bit of work to do. Its a mighty fine combo though, and I hope I can get it dialed in.
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Re: The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by antonio66 »

You miust have read that joke about, "and what got you interested in vinyl in the first place" - "oh, I think it was the expense and inconvenience" Of course you've got to spend more time setting up your cartridges than actually listening to music :lol:
You say the tt's are pretty much on a par sound wise, I guess they would cost nearly the same if purchased new? Good luck with your bid for the Dynacector

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Re: The Scheu Audio Das Laufwerke No 2 Delivered Yesterday

Unread post by Neonknight »

antonio66 wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 2:46 am You miust have read that joke about, "and what got you interested in vinyl in the first place" - "oh, I think it was the expense and inconvenience" Of course you've got to spend more time setting up your cartridges than actually listening to music :lol:
You say the tt's are pretty much on a par sound wise, I guess they would cost nearly the same if purchased new? Good luck with your bid for the Dynacector
I guess I like setting up turntables, enjoy the tinkering aspect where you can coax that last bit of performance out of it. I only run one system, and I don't swap speakers or gear in and out like some folks do. My JBL weigh about 190 pounds each, so they are wretched to move and find there is no convenient place to store them. So the turntables are what I get to twiddle with, and cartridges are so fundamentally different I can alter the sound if I wish and get a different presentation if I select a different cartridge. Problem is I always gravitate to specific types of cartridges and so the sound becomes more similar than different.

I suspect the Scheu and the SOTA would be similar in costs. It is hard to nail down the cost of the Scheu as its imported so you have the importer mark up, and I cannot tell if their asking price includes a Scheu tone arm or not. From this page it looks like its only the turntable at this price https://rutherfordaudio.com/product/sch ... aufwerk-2/ Now remember I bought the table used it cost me $3.5K USD, I could not afford this new. The SOTA Cosmos Eclipse I did get new, but I had a monetary windfall that allowed for that purchase and I did not pay MSRP either. In the US it sells for $10K USD. The SME V came off the used market and so did the Transfiguration Audio Proteus cartridge, and both were lucky purchases at affordable prices. The SME V cost me $18K USD, the Dynavector DV 505 $1.1K USD, so the SME was more expensive. Now mine is an older V so its selling price when inflation and everything else is accounted for probably means its similar in price to the Dynavector. Its a bit difficult to ferret out the differences between SME V generations, and when this one was actually built. Since SME no longer sells these separately any V is worth more money than it should be, and I suspect there are better arms out there than it now. But it is a classic.

This is the end of the line for me for tables. I can't afford better than what I have, and I am not sure there are meaningful gains to be had above this level of table. Sure there are more expensive ones, more valuable collector ones, and yes I bet ones that even perform at a higher level. However, given my level of associated gear and the limitations of my room and set up I don't think it makes any sense to pursue them. So I will enjoy what I got, and see what an exploration of vintage moving coil cartridges can provide.

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