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Post by rexton on May 1, 2022 18:30:37 GMT
Advertised with 2 year warranty and supplied documentation completely shows that this ran out Jan this year! Cart is over 2 years old, which I didn't know on purchase. Anyway, it's going back and I've lodged complaint with Paypal as well.
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Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,358
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Post by Bigman80 on May 1, 2022 18:34:55 GMT
Advertised with 2 year warranty and supplied documentation completely shows that this ran out Jan this year! Cart is over 2 years old, which I didn't know on purchase. Anyway, it's going back and I've lodged complaint with Paypal as well. Oh, thats not good. You are right to take that action. |
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Post by robbiegong on May 1, 2022 18:52:01 GMT
Advertised with 2 year warranty and supplied documentation completely shows that this ran out Jan this year! Cart is over 2 years old, which I didn't know on purchase. Anyway, it's going back and I've lodged complaint with Paypal as well. Too right, and good luck with it. I returned a tune to seller in the US a little while back, listed as 'quote' in great shape - is probably the worse vinyl record I've ever had. Sounded like I put the stylus on sandpaper, horrific sound and the arm was up faster than anything you can imagine, for fear of mullering my beloved Cadenza-FGS. Side B was covered in scratches like an ice rink. I'm £66 out of pocket including the return tracked postage of £18.10. Tracking shows record as delivered 25 April and I messaged for an update, for my full refund ( he'd accepted the return), I've had no response so have emailed eBay, for them to step in and help. I like eBay, but once in a while ...... |
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Post by rexton on May 1, 2022 20:36:58 GMT
Advertised with 2 year warranty and supplied documentation completely shows that this ran out Jan this year! Cart is over 2 years old, which I didn't know on purchase. Anyway, it's going back and I've lodged complaint with Paypal as well. Too right, and good luck with it. I returned a tune to seller in the US a little while back, listed as 'quote' in great shape - is probably the worse vinyl record I've ever had. Sounded like I put the stylus on sandpaper, horrific sound and the arm was up faster than anything you can imagine, for fear of mullering my beloved Cadenza-FGS. Side B was covered in scratches like an ice rink. I'm £66 out of pocket including the return tracked postage of £18.10. Tracking shows record as delivered 25 April and I messaged for an update, for my full refund ( he'd accepted the return), I've had no response so have emailed eBay, for them to step in and help. I like eBay, but once in a while ...... Fucking hell, that's just Sh#t. |
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Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,358
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Post by Bigman80 on May 1, 2022 21:19:44 GMT
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Post by robbiegong on May 2, 2022 18:22:20 GMT
Too right, and good luck with it. I returned a tune to seller in the US a little while back, listed as 'quote' in great shape - is probably the worse vinyl record I've ever had. Sounded like I put the stylus on sandpaper, horrific sound and the arm was up faster than anything you can imagine, for fear of mullering my beloved Cadenza-FGS. Side B was covered in scratches like an ice rink. I'm £66 out of pocket including the return tracked postage of £18.10. Tracking shows record as delivered 25 April and I messaged for an update, for my full refund ( he'd accepted the return), I've had no response so have emailed eBay, for them to step in and help. I like eBay, but once in a while ...... Fucking hell, that's just Sh#t. Got notification of refund today, for the full order amount. Sadly doesn't seem to include my £18.00 to return to US amount but i'm just glad to be shot of the *#$%@ barsteward, selling utter junk as 'in great shape'. Somehow has 100% positive feedback, 5 neutral, same story of not in condition described and zero communication to issue. Would love to drop the deserved negative feedback, but would leave myself open to having my own tarnished, out of spite. These pee taking types, who couldn't give a monkies, do my head in  |
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Post by rexton on May 2, 2022 18:57:19 GMT
My seller has offered full refund, so I'll be down the postage, <£10 so, overall, a little out of pocket but money back in next 30 days.
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Post by robbiegong on May 2, 2022 19:24:07 GMT
My seller has offered full refund, so I'll be down the postage, <£10 so, overall, a little out of pocket but money back in next 30 days. Nice one Andy! |
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Post by rexton on May 2, 2022 20:55:52 GMT
Rexblog pt VI - Where next?
The valve system is always being placed under review with respects to what can be done next. I did go down the route of wanting an all MONO section and this is still very much a priority, probably about £3K worth when I factor in a mono SUT and a decent cart. Third world problems, eh !?! Secondly I hate the look of my 2nd hand Quadraspire rack system, it looks pants! I did intend spraying the whole thing black, then I was going to replace every shelf with bamboo, now I'm looking into permali or Panzerholz, I have a contact in India looking into this for me. The 301, I'm making enquiries about another new type of idler wheel to play with and I've started getting quotes for a permali plinth with dual 12" tonearm's, I'm still waiting for the quote, probably another four figure bill. Finally, I'm researching new 12" tonearm options. I own 2 SME 12" arms, a 3012, and a SME V-12, maybe a Supatrac blackbord, something from Alfred Bockrand, I have no idea, again more third world problems. I also want to look into the Croft preamp MM phonostage, I need another couple RCA5691's to make a full complement in the Croft, finally, I will at some point two box this bloody preamp!
As ever, stay tuned....
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Post by rexton on Jul 17, 2022 19:44:02 GMT
It's been a while, I'm bored, It's hot, so time for another update..... So, for a number of years I've been half-arsedly putting together a "REAL SOUND" system which started out as an experiment into the audiophile adventures of Jeff Day over on Jeffsplace Blog jeffsplace.positive-feedback.com/ my own system was a mish-mash of components that I already owned and just purely for fun I cobbled a system together to see how the products reviewed by Jeff sounded. My system is by no-means as grand as Jeff's (altough it could be), with big Tannoy speakers and Garrard TT's with exotic MC's. I've gone down the 300b power amp road lashed up with a modified Radford SC25 preamp sporting a clutch of Mullard M8317 valves. All cabling is Duelund, IC's are belden speaker cables termined high very high purity copper RCA's from Duelund, speaker cables alongside intrinsic speaker cabling and super tweeter cabling is all Duelund. The speakers contain Duelund bypass caps. Source duties originally started with my very modest digital system of a TEAC VRDS 25x CD player and SEG Caimen DAC, it sounded very good bags of detail.
For a while I was happy but I got an itch to hook up a TT and I've been working on a Thorens TD160 Super.
This TT has been sitting around on my listening room floor for well over 2 years as an on/off project, it's now finished and just requires some fine tuning, it's perfectly usable and produces some very nice sonics. I've still got a fews upgrades for this deck including a very nice JICO stylus. 
Here's a quick snap of the whole system.
I've not really got room for a third system in the listening room but what the hell! This system has been designed to be as simple as possible. I'll be using the phonostage on the pre-amp, it's ECC83 based so it should be a riot. I'm going to enjoy exploring old MM's, I really love the high output Shure MC's, I also have a few misc MM's sitting in a box that I haven't tried, some from Technics and some ADC carts. I've got four pairs of speakers that I'm going to try with this system, again, all purely for fun. It's going to be a really fun project over Summer and entering into Autumn just messing around and assessing new tweaks and components. The Thorens TD160 super is probably 85% finished and needs a little modding but what am I going to do with this, my latest purchase.....
I always said I'd never own another belt driven TT and now I have two sitting in the listening room. I've fancied trying a TT2 for years and this came up at a reasonable price, it's a low number example sub <500 serial number, well ok, maybe not that early. It's a little tatty and could be my winter project if I get bored, this will be partnered with my Alphason HR100S tonearm, it'll probably be some time before this gets some usage.
So there we go. Stay tuned... 
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Post by rexton on Oct 8, 2022 19:39:22 GMT
Tonight's Update - The Garrard Project - New idler wheel. 11 years on and we are still going strong with messing around with the 301! I managed to find this article over on the Korf Blog korfaudio.com/blog94 it got me thinking. My idler on my 301 is silent and works very well, but is the rubber component of the idler in good condition? I'll never really be able to find out. Most restored 301/401's now have Audiosilente idler wheels fitted by the likes of Audiograil and CTC, these must be well regarded if these guys are fitting them. So (without the aid of alcohol), I parted with £97 and ordered one to experiment with on my 301 and 401 TT's. Should be fun! It's now a waiting game from Italy, probably a very slow boat from Europe! Here's a picture of said idler wheel www.audiosilente.com/garrard-...rrard-301.html As ever stay tuned |
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Post by rexton on Oct 30, 2022 18:41:09 GMT
It's dull, dark and wet in Wakefield and I have a little time to myself so I thought I'd continue doing some restoration work on a turntable in my collection, mainly my Heybrook TT2. I decided to do the paintwork as you can see it's seen better days.
And now a few shots of the actual paint job! I'm very happy with the way that things came out. I resprayed the "skirts" of the TT + the top plate and the arm-board.
The veneer still needs doing, maybe when I'm more in the mood, and I still need a original Linn lid and then it'll be nearly finished. The TT2 is a great little deck and lives as my main source in my 3rd system.
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Post by rexton on Oct 30, 2022 19:52:05 GMT
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Post by rexton on Nov 13, 2022 18:35:08 GMT
You can tell it's the long nights when more and more of us start uploading updates, tweaks, resto's onto our blogs and I'm no exception!
I've had the Heybrook TT2 looking across at me now for several weeks just asking when I'm going to refurbish the veneer. It's looking thin in places and TBH I didn't really want to do a complete replacement for the veneer. I'm not the best at this job and whilst I can do the veneering (to a reasonable level) I decided to keep everything original and lightly sand out some of the more superficial scratches and then apply a resto polish and then have a look at the results. Things have actually turned out really well and I'm happy with the results, I don't think I'll be doing anymore with the veneer side of things, altough, the deck still needs a few small details finishing. That's the beauty of this little resto, everything has been done slowly and generally when I've felt like doing something. So here's a few more pics.
Finally, I decided upon a new equipment rack for the Garrard 301 system. Here's one I built myself which replaced the Quadraspire system. It's 4 x1m 20mm threaded bar with M20 nuts and washer holding together 19mm bamboo shelves. Every shelf can be adjusted and levelled which is something that could not be done on the Quadraspire. The damping factor of the shelves is significant better at 0.26 compared to the mdf shelves at 0.017. I have to say that I can hear a difference. I'm not going to write an indepth analysis but lets say that things have firmed up considerably with more focus and detail, well worth the hassle. With Xmas approaching I have a few ideas for tweaks and upgrades for the Garrard 301 and the Technics 1210 system. I want to try some experimenting with the big active ATC's speaker stands and then add a mono cartridge to my Garrard 401 and then have a good play with it through the Croft/Sondex amplification. All good stuff, stay tuned!
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Post by rexton on Nov 20, 2022 20:57:54 GMT
A quick update tonight.
I decided to work on the 301 tonight and swap an idler wheel over. I purchased a AudioSilente idler wheel some time ago and temporarily fitted it to my 401 to keep it out of the way, so tonight the poor old 401 is idleless.
You can see the 1210 sitting next door to it. I've not switched that on for quite some time, I've been fiddling around with belters and idlers, DD not had a look-in for a while.
And there we have it, transplant complete. The 301 also had a NOS Yannis Tome 420.5 Silver Litz tonearm cable fitted, this is a off the menu special order! Everything if sounding excellent at the moment, the idler wheel is deathly silent!
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Post by rexton on Dec 10, 2022 19:23:49 GMT
Sunday - It's time for another update! (23831)
This update details my MONO system I've played around for quite some time with MONO setup's and have collected approx. 100 mono pressings through different genre's. I'm very lucky to have some weird and wonderful speakers. The two main contenders for speaker duties are Tannoy Monitor 15" gold with a RFC bespoke cross over or a One Thing Audio ESL57, both have pro's and con's. The ESL57 is sitting a little low and needs to be lifted probably another 3-6" off the ground for me to get a full "wall of sound", the 15"MG sits at perfect ear height. I'm still evaluating but I thought I'd post a few pictures of how the system looks so far. Firstly I needed some speaker cable and some banana plugs as the ESL57 dosen't accept spades, luckily I had some pure copper banana plugs that I'd saved from years ago, they were very tarnished so I polished them. Speaker cable was simple OFC 4.2mm diameter copper, cut down from a larger set that I used to run with the 15" MG's. Here's a pciture of the speaker cable + setup equipment.
I also needed a splitter as my Ortofon SPU MONO has a very bad habit of humming when attached to a stereo phonostage, so this one was a cheap and cheerful Amazon purchase for £8, I bought two as I intend to disect one and make one with far better components but at the moment it'll do.
I've been looking into cartridges and I'll probably end up with a Miyajima MONO at some point but at the moment my Ortofon MONO SPU will have to suffice.
Here's a quick picture of the speaker cable being used on my Sondex S100 amp.
Finally a picture of my speaker setup, the Tannoy 15"MG's and the Quad ESL 57.
The Quad ESL57 sounds amazing, plenty of tweaking to go. Probably will have some SEAC 850 Tripple C speaker cable spare soon, I'll probably use that instead of no-name OFC cabling. The '57 height needs modding, I could always make a better splitter and maybe, just maybe a better cart.
Stay tuned.....
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Post by rexton on Dec 18, 2022 18:28:24 GMT
A wee update...
My listening room has several setups. Tonight I decided that the Prog/Metal system needed a wee update. I have been highly delighted with the results of my homemade bamboo hifi racks and decided to order up the parts for a second rack for the Prog/Metal system. Each rack takes a couple of hours to make and enables me to have a peice of furniture which is both aesthetically pleasing to my eyes, flexible for turntable setup, and can be moved very quickly around the room. The sonic benefits are not subtle after moving away from Quadraspire MDF products. The Prog/Metal system has long needed a good re-organise and I've slightly optimised the cable dressing aspect of things. The whole listening room looks a lot better and less cluttered.
I've also been messing around with the power supply to the valve amps from the PS Audio P10. I've had both pre/power amp in the high voltage sockets and I have to say that things really have opened up and sound a lot better. It will now be very very easy to move plugs around the back of the P10 for experimentation. And here's a quick update of how things look now in the room. The big Tannoys hide my ATC 50's !!.
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Post by gninnam on Dec 18, 2022 20:25:09 GMT
Looking good  I built a similar rack about 15 years ago and pound for pound it works really well:  |
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Post by robbiegong on Dec 18, 2022 21:56:39 GMT
Just the radiator's behind the systems that would bother me a bit, but I'm sure you either don't have them blazing behind or not found it to be a problem.
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RexBlog
Dec 19, 2022 12:18:01 GMT
via mobile
Post by rexton on Dec 19, 2022 12:18:01 GMT
Just the radiator's behind the systems that would bother me a bit, but I'm sure you either don't have them blazing behind or not found it to be a problem. It’s never ever been a problem. The cables are better dressed so they don’t contact the components. The radiator might cause problems with reflections with the speakers . This is one area I’d like to try and investigate at some point |
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Post by rexton on Dec 19, 2022 16:42:28 GMT
Looking good I built a similar rack about 15 years ago and pound for pound it works really well: Excellent, great minds think alike!! Loving the Lenco, is that a Leak integrated on the bottom shelf?
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Post by gninnam on Dec 19, 2022 17:31:08 GMT
It is - still in the garage somewhere!!
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Post by rexton on Dec 23, 2022 22:36:16 GMT
Another very small update. Probably nobody will read this or have any interest, but I have been messing around with the settings of the PS Audio P10 supplying the pre and power amp in my main valve system with the 301. I've lessened the MW strength and the Phase Tune control down to a value of 2 and set the voltage to 231V. Output voltage now hovers around 230.x to 230.5 volts which I find ideal for the Sondex and Croft Amps, this has no impact on the Garrard 301 as it's not linked to the P10. I've removed the eddy current break from the 301. Overall, very, very happy with these small tweaks. The soundstage just fills the full width of the room, very solid, very conherent and the whole presentation of the soundstage has a great sense of ease. Very addictive.
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Post by rexton on Dec 30, 2022 19:41:16 GMT
Another dark night and another update!
Xmas break has been well spent getting small jobs and tweaks done in the listening room. Firstly, rewired the BatPure super tweeters. A lot neater job, re-installed them and wow what a difference. I have been listening to the Tannoys now solidly for 3 months with no SuperTweeters to see if I could spot a difference. Tonight I noticed within the first 10 seconds that detail levels had improved immensely. Decay, higher trebble, notes floating in the air, more sparkle on cymbals, all previously present but now to a high level. These will be stopping in.
Finally got my arse into gear and made a stand for the Garrard 401/SME V-12 combo. This combo will now form the backbone of my mono system. It's nice to have a 301/401 sitting next door to each other. OK, that stand was salvaged from old Quadraspire stuff sitting in the garage. I also hooked up my Magnum Dynalab FT101A, gives very good reception, very nice when listening to Classic FM or Radio 2/4. The 401 equipment rack sits on castors which means its very easy to roll in and out of place if I need access to records.
Finally a quick snap of both systems sitting next door to each other, my main Valve system with the 301 and the MONO system with the 401.
I've still got a few things to do with the MONO system such as modify the Quad ESL57 speaker stand to sit a little higher and order 2M of SAEC 850C speaker cable, then we start looking into a new MONO cart, Miyajima here we come?
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edward
Regular
Still prospecting?
Posts: 194
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Post by edward on Dec 30, 2022 21:02:36 GMT
Another very small update. Probably nobody will read this or have any interest, but I have been messing around with the settings of the PS Audio P10 supplying the pre and power amp in my main valve system with the 301. I've lessened the MW strength and the Phase Tune control down to a value of 2 and set the voltage to 231V. Output voltage now hovers around 230.x to 230.5 volts which I find ideal for the Sondex and Croft Amps, this has no impact on the Garrard 301 as it's not linked to the P10. I've removed the eddy current break from the 301. Overall, very, very happy with these small tweaks. The soundstage just fills the full width of the room, very solid, very conherent and the whole presentation of the soundstage has a great sense of ease. Very addictive. Interesting. What were your settings on the P10 before you changed them to MW of 2 and voltage to 231? I also have a PS thing also but not really played with settings. May do so now prompted by your post. How are you controlling the 301 speed? Separate speed controller? Another dark night and another update!
Xmas break has been well spent getting small jobs and tweaks done in the listening room. Firstly, rewired the BatPure super tweeters. A lot neater job, re-installed them and wow what a difference. I have been listening to the Tannoys now solidly for 3 months with no SuperTweeters to see if I could spot a difference. Tonight I noticed within the first 10 seconds that detail levels had improved immensely. Decay, higher trebble, notes floating in the air, more sparkle on cymbals, all previously present but now to a high level. These will be stopping in.
Cool. Due to a previous reorg I took my ST-25 offine and kept forgetting to put them back. Will do so on 6th Jan at about 9:50am (as they are stored behind 'the tree'  ). Be interesting to see if I hear the change you detected? BTW, are you gonna trade up to Will's new monos? Did you see Paul's review? E |
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Post by brian2957 on Dec 30, 2022 23:24:39 GMT
Nice job with the Takets Andrew. That's exactly what I did with mine. Bought a couple of wooden boxes from The Works and mounted them into that. Unfortunately they didn't work for me and I sold them on. I might give them a go again in the future.
The racks, and your two systems, look fab. I wouldn't mind having a go at building something like that. Where did you buy the rod mate. What size is it?
You have two very nice systems there mate.
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Post by rexton on Dec 31, 2022 10:21:51 GMT
Nice job with the Takets Andrew. That's exactly what I did with mine. Bought a couple of wooden boxes from The Works and mounted them into that. Unfortunately they didn't work for me and I sold them on. I might give them a go again in the future. The racks, and your two systems, look fab. I wouldn't mind having a go at building something like that. Where did you buy the rod mate. What size is it? You have two very nice systems there mate. Hi Brian, hope your ok and thanks for the nice comments.
The thread, nuts and washers are all 20mm. The bamboo boards are 19mm thick. The rod was bought from a local shop just up the road from my house, it was one of those weird internet searches when you realise the shop is literally just 5 minutes away.
I honestly don't think I'll need another rack again as the design works really well for damping and levelling of components.
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Post by rexton on Dec 31, 2022 10:30:21 GMT
Interesting. What were your settings on the P10 before you changed them to MW of 2 and voltage to 231? I also have a PS thing also but not really played with settings. May do so now prompted by your post. How are you controlling the 301 speed? Separate speed controller?Edward, the P10 settings were set to maximum MW of 5 or 6 this is not great for keeping THD down on the output voltage, voltage was also set at 240V and then I started messing around originally lowering the voltage supply to the 301 to stop excess motor vibration, a well known trick amongst the 301 brigade. The 301 is speed controlled with the Pheonix Engineering EAGLE psu and Roadrunner tachometer. The EAGLE generates it's own regenerated sine wave and has the ability to control voltage going into the 301 motor. I power the Roadrunner tachometer with a battery PSU. Cool. Due to a previous reorg I took my ST-25 offine and kept forgetting to put them back. Will do so on 6th Jan at about 9:50am (as they are stored behind 'the tree' ). Be interesting to see if I hear the change you detected? BTW, are you gonna trade up to Will's new monos? Did you see Paul's review Which Paul are you talking about? Are we talking about the the STA100 monoblocks? If so, then yes, I'd consider an upgrade but they would have to produce a significant improvement over what I already have, especially with the ? £5K+ price tag. I've found out that very careful attention to damping and vibration supression have worked extremely well on my main 301 valve system. |
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edward
Regular
Still prospecting?
Posts: 194
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Post by edward on Dec 31, 2022 12:03:06 GMT
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Post by rexton on Dec 31, 2022 13:03:27 GMT
Many thanks, interesting reading. Still, £5K+ is a big punt for something unheard, I'd need a demo first. |
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). Be interesting to see if I hear the change you detected?