Hey guys. Im having a super hard time getting my 2M Bronze to sound right on my PL-71 turntable. I have just upgraded from a 2M Blue that sounded pretty good to me. I have about 10 hours of tweaking and adjusting on the Bronze with no success. I have read countless threads on cartridge alignment and setup. I just can not for the life of me get this thing to sound right. Here is what I have done so far. I have my 2M Bronze mounted to a Pro-Ject Signature headshell. Im wondering if maybe my problems stem from the fact that the headshell @ 12 grams is too heavy for my stock Pioneer S shaped tone arm. Maybe someone can chime in on this? My 2M Blue is mounted to a $40 Ortofon standard silver headshell. I went with the Pro-Ject Signature headshell (aluminum version) so I could adjust Azimuth. Plus I figured the 2M Bronze would love a more solid headshell. I have adjusted the alignment with the Hi Fi new Test record protractor. I used the 2 point protractor. To get the inner and outer points dead on, I am at about 53mm from the back of the O-ring on headshell to stylus tip. I have adjusted Azimuth with a guage as well. I have the VTF set to 1.7. I have read that running the Bronze at the higher end of the VTF range (1.5-1.7) gives the best sound and least amount of mistracking and distortion. I found this to be true with the 2M Blue running the VTF at the higher end of the scale. My anti skate seems to be best at 2.0. I have played around with it on the test tones and I get the best results at AS set to 2.0. The imaging seems nices and centered to me so I have left it there for now. I think my problem may be with VTA. S you may or may not know the PL-71 is horrible to set VTA with. There are no guide lines to measure off of. I use digital calipers to measure the height of the arm assmbly right where the anti skate knob is. This gives me an idea of how low or high of an adjustment I made. I have a clear Azimuth gauge with the grid lines on it. I use this to measure VTA directly at the headshell. Right now I have it ever so slightly and I mean SLIGHTLY tail down. It seems like from totally horizontal to slightly tail down I lose vocals a bit. They seem to be in the background. Thats the best way I can describe it. If I move the tail up the highs get a little overpowering and screechy. The SSSSSSS are too smeared and the bass disappears.

On a side note..... When I first installed the new cart it sounded so amazing! I have the VTA perfectly horizontal. After a few days (4 records) I noticed that I lost some bass and the highs were a little too bright. I rechecked the alignment and found that the VTA had changed! The front was down, tail up. Maybe the stylus broke in a bit? It does not ride low to my eyes. Seems to ride the same height as my Blue. I reset my VTA and VTF and AS. Not sure why the cart dropped the VTA. Maybe someone has some ideas?

So thats where I am at right now. Im very frustrated. I like tinkering and finding the sweet spot but that has yet to happen and I feel defeated. Maybe the PL-71 is not the best TT for this cart/headshell combo? Maybe I need a better more accurate protractor? I have no idea how to plug in the numbers for an ARC style protractor. I have measured my spindle to tone arm pivot and it is indeed 209.5 as stated in manual. But I have no clue what other values need to be plugged into protractor calculators or what style protractor I need to get this sweet spot I keep hearing about. Pleas help guys! Im new to this and I know how good it can sound but I cant seem to dial it in. This post is my last chance to get this figured out before I question this TT is the right one for me. I have spent way too many hours searching the net and reading about alignment etc. PLEASE HELP!

Thanks for all your time!
Dave