Analog and Digital or Oil and Water with a PV-10A

[simsjim]

Hello All,

I've been lurking on this forum for some time, but haven't made a large number of posts. That said, I have learned much and have been enlighten by the many perspectives, views, and advice expressed here.

First - Congrats to Lew and Bill on TAS Hall of Fame induction! Personally, my being introduced to your brand some 25+ years ago forever changed how I listen to audio - so Thank You! VERY well deserved.

I have a few question about the goings on and potential for optimization of my current rig.

Set Up:
Media
Sony PS-X70 Turntable
Bluesound Node 2i Streamer
NAD C538 Compact Disc Player
Samsung BluRay
Samsung HDTV
AppleTV

Pre/Pro
Conrad Johnson PV-10A
Outlaw 975 7.1 Channel Preamp/Processor

Amplification
Front - Kinergetics Research Chiro C-300
Rear - B&K ST2140

Speakers
Front - B & W 640i
Rear- Paradigm Alpha Mini

Here's where it gets interesting - and perhaps wildly non-standard:
Turntable, Streamer and CD player are going into the PV-10A via RCA

The PV-10A's Tape Out is connected to the Analog Aux-In via RCA on the Outlaw 975 (which unfortunately has only one set of independent RCA Analog-In jacks. There are others, but they cannot be separated from the video media inputs. I.E. TV, Disc, Game, Video, etc.).

All Visual Media is connected to the Outlaw via HDMI.

For amplification the Outlaw's Front Out is connected to the Chiro, Surr Out is connected the B&K. No Center, no Sub, no S.Back Height connections. I don’t feel the need, or have the space for elaborate surround beyond the 4 channels I have now. Maybe at some point a center will be ran to the Chiro (3 channels), but its not high on my list. If I have to make a spending choice between a phono cartridge and center channel, the cartridge will get the win every time.

There are two main reasons for employing the Outlaw - first the need for Video Media HDMI connections, and second (admittedly very lazy) the joy of remote volume control. A tertiary need is some surround sound and the requisite myriad Dolby/DTS codecs when watching movies - even if it is very basic 4 channels.

All that said, I can't help but feel that I go through great lengths to keep an analog signal path for the turntable using the PV-10A's excellent MM-only Phono stage. Given the limited flexibility of Outlaw's analog inputs, I run my other audio-only signals (CD, Streamer) through the 10A's available RCA inputs then into the Outlaw via the CJ's Tape Out as well. I think the Main Out on the PV-10A may be incompatible with the Analog Input specs on the Outlaw (Input Impedance on the Outlaw is 47K Ohms according to the owners' manual). Any thoughts on using Main Out to the Aux In? I get a sense from the specs it wouldn't work - and I don't want to risk damaging either unit to try.

Of course the proverbial elephant-in-the-listening-room is that the Outlaw is a digitally-based HT Multi-channel Pre/Pro. So my much-coddled analog stereo signal from the PV-10A get processed by a Cirrus Logic CS42528 DAC with Outlaw proprietary customization before being fed to my power amps (even if the DAC manipulation is allegedly totally neutral in "stereo/tone defeat" mode).

But there it is. Two systems isn't an option, so this is the best compromise I could come up with. Satisfying my nascent audiophile while keeping the video playback in the 21st century.

My curiosity is - is there a better way to set this up? Perhaps if I feed the Outlaw's Rec Out into the PV-10A? I think I would lose the remote volume control ability on the Outlaw - BUT from a signal conversion point of view, the PV-10A would be the final 'processing' of the signal then OUT to the Front (Chiro), while continuing to run the rear out of the Outlaw to the B&K. I'm curious how the Outlaw would react to not having a connection on the Front Out RCA jacks. Maybe I'll try that to see if there is improvement or change in the sound quality.

I don't want to make it sound like the Outlaw is awful, its not bad at all. The Chiro amplifies the signal beautifully and my speakers sing. But like any audiophile, I'm always in search of that tweak that steps it up incrementally, or perhaps significantly when we're lucky.

Any thoughts or better ideas (that don’t involve scrapping my current system)?

And finally, IF the best set up is to keep the CJ behind the Outlaw (and the Rec Out from the CJ to the Aux In on the Outlaw) are there mods that can be made to improve the "rec out" circuit (and any other circuit) of the PV-10A? Is there a Phono circuit mod? Would I benefit from some of the many mods that folks seems to rave about here if I am beholden to this unified system for both stereo and Multi-Channel HT?

On a separate, albeit related note -the odd thing I noticed the other day: I was streaming via the BlueSound Node 2i, which was hooked up to the TUNER input of the PV-10A. With the amps and the Outlaw powered on, but the CJ powered OFF, I was still able to get a signal from the streamer. As an experiment, I connected the streamer to the Aux In on the CJ and found the power on the CJ needed to be On for the signal to process to the Outlaw. Any thoughts on that oddity? Is the tuner circuit always "hot", or is this indicative of a need for servicing?

Whew long post! - forum admins - please feel free to let me know if this is really better served by two topics.

Interested to hear others perspectives on my setup, if there are better ways to balance out the multi-function nature of this set up, etc. And any thoughts about a signal passing through the Tuner circuit of the PV-10A without the power being on?

Happy Listening,
James

[AnotherJohnson]

The way you have this set up is correct, and probably optimal, for these components if the goal is to do what you are doing. Tape out is the way to go ... not main out. You don’t need double volume control and impedance matching will be as intended via tape out to aux in.

I did something like this in the pre hdmi days. I enjoyed having the functional home theater. Admin is a home theater buff, and he uses a PV12, so he may have more specific advice to share.

[simsjim]

That’s for the reply. Indeed, I was drooling over Admin’s home theater renovation thread that is linked in his signature. I’ll take a closer look since there is a ton of great info in that thread.

[admin]

Agree with AnotherJohnson. Looks like the proper setup and I would not have two volume controls in the same path.

Always nice to see home theater enthusiast among us audiophiles. I think there is a lot of overlap,... but also some significant differences. My approach to have a shared home theater / listening room has been to have two separate setups. This has worked well for me as I am looking for a different kind of sound from my music and movies. Not to say this is necessarily superior. However, it does keep things a little simpler in the sense that there are simply less components in each individual setup. I worry about ground loops and general interference from cheaper power supplies on consumer grade equipment. This of course will be vastly different depending on your own setup and power sources. What may be a terrible ground loop in one setup may be non-existent in another. Regardless, at the end of the day, the most important thing is that we enjoy our systems be it for audio or video sources.

[plurn]

...

All that said, I can't help but feel that I go through great lengths to keep an analog signal path for the turntable using the PV-10A's excellent MM-only Phono stage. Given the limited flexibility of Outlaw's analog inputs, I run my other audio-only signals (CD, Streamer) through the 10A's available RCA inputs then into the Outlaw via the CJ's Tape Out as well.

In this set up, the schematic for the pv10a shows that the non-phono stage inputs are just being switched (via the input selector) to the tape out (with one resistor inline), there is no amplification or tube magic happening and no buffering. In fact it would probably work for these inputs if the pv10a was powered off. So if you are listening to non-phono stage input with the pv10a turned on - you may be just wasting tube life needlessly.

Depending on the source devices each one of them would need to be compatible with the Outlaws input, rather than just relying on the pv10a main output to be compatible with the Outlaws input. The good thing is the Outlaw input impedance at 47K Ohms is very easy to drive so pretty much anything will be compatible with it.

For the phono stage input, it is being amplified to line level and riaa applied, so it would need the pv10a powered on, but no final stage amplification/buffering/volume on the pv10a would take effect.

I think the Main Out on the PV-10A may be incompatible with the Analog Input specs on the Outlaw (Input Impedance on the Outlaw is 47K Ohms according to the owners' manual). Any thoughts on using Main Out to the Aux In? I get a sense from the specs it wouldn't work - and I don't want to risk damaging either unit to try.

47K Ohms is a fairly high input impedance. High input impedance is easy to drive - not harder. A 47K Ohms input impedance should be compatible with pretty much any line level device including the pv10a main output. The pv10a manual even says: "We recommend the use of an amplifier with an input impedance of 10k ohms or higher". So the Outlaw is fine in that case.

...
On a separate, albeit related note -the odd thing I noticed the other day: I was streaming via the BlueSound Node 2i, which was hooked up to the TUNER input of the PV-10A. With the amps and the Outlaw powered on, but the CJ powered OFF, I was still able to get a signal from the streamer. As an experiment, I connected the streamer to the Aux In on the CJ and found the power on the CJ needed to be On for the signal to process to the Outlaw. Any thoughts on that oddity? Is the tuner circuit always "hot", or is this indicative of a need for servicing?
...
Happy Listening,
James

Based on the schematic, as I mentioned above, I would have thought any of the non-phono stage inputs would work with the pv10a power off providing the correct input was selected. So I would have through tuner, cd, video, and aux should work. So for me the only odd thing is that it did not work for aux - don't suppose you had the wrong input selected at the time? In any case this does not indicate a need for servicing.

It is a shame your Outlaw does not have two analog inputs so you can connect pv10a tape out to one, and pv10a main out to the other, then set the volume on the pv10a to the exact same level as the tape output and use the Outlaw to switch between them to make it easier to hear which sounds better.

[plurn]

...
Set Up:
Media
Sony PS-X70 Turntable
Bluesound Node 2i Streamer
NAD C538 Compact Disc Player
Samsung BluRay
Samsung HDTV
AppleTV
...
The PV-10A's Tape Out is connected to the Analog Aux-In via RCA on the Outlaw 975 (which unfortunately has only one set of independent RCA Analog-In jacks. There are others, but they cannot be separated from the video media inputs. I.E. TV, Disc, Game, Video, etc.).

All Visual Media is connected to the Outlaw via HDMI.
...
Happy Listening,
James

Just had a look at the Outlaw manual and it has 5 analog inputs. While you say "There are others, but they cannot be separated from the video media inputs" that may be the case, however it seems you are using at most 3 of those for video media inputs (Samsung BluRay, Samsung HDTV, AppleTV) so that could mean you have two remaining - AUX and one of the others. So for example if you are not using "Game" for anything, you could use it as an analog input for something despite not actually feeding the Outlaw video into its "Game" video inputs.

So if you do have eg AUX and GAME available, you could do the comparison I mentioned earlier of comparing the tape and main outputs of the pv10a, or just use the extra input for the bluesound or the cd player.

Note that bluesound also has digital outputs so it could connect digitally to the Outlaw if you liked.