A bit of general advice on TT and tonearm 'sounds'.

[karma67]

Yep you’d be better off with a dansette ��

[AJSki2fly]

Hi Mike, sorry to hear about your sibilance issues, they are likely to be cart/arm set up IMHO.

I thought for the past 6 months I had my cartridges and arm set up just right, but did some recent investigation and discovered that it was 1.5mm off on Lofgren A, and also the azimuth was slightly out.

An AoS friend printed of the exact Lofgren A curve set up chart and sent it to me, and found the error when I checked. So I went back to basics, made absolutely sure the pivot to centre spindle distance was spot on. I then checked the arm was parallel to record surface as a start point for VTA. Then very carefully I adjusted the cartridge in the head shell until the stylus exactly traced the Lofgren A curve (I did this with the paper chart sat on top of an old record to minimise error), this took a lot of patience, at the same time I kept checking the cartridge side walls lined up with the lines on the chart at both the outside and inside points. I then set up taking weight and bias. The last thing I did was to put the Hifi test record and the 300hz azimuth test track, using a dB meter app on my mobile I measure the out put from each speaker with the phone about 300mm from the mid range speaker. It was about 1.5db out between channels, so I carefully adjusted the azimuth using the head shell adjustment(not easy if you do not have this). So with the first cartridge I did this with it took me about 2 hours of faffing and re-checking before I felt it was correct. When I did the other head shell and cartridge it took me just under and hour as I was more familiar with the process.

I was quite shocked by the improvement generally, effectively everything now sounds well balanced, with a very good sound stage and separation, great mid/top end detail and strong bass, it all sounds lively and involving. So how is that different from before, well before I was noticing that some records just sounded a bit dull, or lifeless, and some were just a bit bright as if some control was lost or edgy.

So my advice is what ever you do swapping arms/carts around really take your time with the arm/cartridge set up, it really isn't that easy, as I have found out. You may find it is just worth revisiting and double checking the set up of each before swapping them about. By the way have you checked the cartridges you use with each arm are reasonably compliant with them, I know this can have an impact as well.

I hope that helps a bit, All the best

Adrian

[Mikeandvan]

Now my fucking cart is broken, tried changing stylus and there was some resistance, so pushed harder, more resistance, got the magnifying glass, looked blocked, stuck a mini screw driver in there, now its fucked, lucky i got it cheap, but now i have a brand new styli and no cart. Was gonna try the Orton Quintet bronze, but at £500 a pop I'm too frigging clumsy for that, better stick with these Jap cheapos.

[Mikeandvan]

Hi Mike, sorry to hear about your sibilance issues, they are likely to be cart/arm set up IMHO.

I thought for the past 6 months I had my cartridges and arm set up just right, but did some recent investigation and discovered that it was 1.5mm off on Lofgren A, and also the azimuth was slightly out.

An AoS friend printed of the exact Lofgren A curve set up chart and sent it to me, and found the error when I checked. So I went back to basics, made absolutely sure the pivot to centre spindle distance was spot on. I then checked the arm was parallel to record surface as a start point for VTA. Then very carefully I adjusted the cartridge in the head shell until the stylus exactly traced the Lofgren A curve (I did this with the paper chart sat on top of an old record to minimise error), this took a lot of patience, at the same time I kept checking the cartridge side walls lined up with the lines on the chart at both the outside and inside points. I then set up taking weight and bias. The last thing I did was to put the Hifi test record and the 300hz azimuth test track, using a dB meter app on my mobile I measure the out put from each speaker with the phone about 300mm from the mid range speaker. It was about 1.5db out between channels, so I carefully adjusted the azimuth using the head shell adjustment(not easy if you do not have this). So with the first cartridge I did this with it took me about 2 hours of faffing and re-checking before I felt it was correct. When I did the other head shell and cartridge it took me just under and hour as I was more familiar with the process.

I was quite shocked by the improvement generally, effectively everything now sounds well balanced, with a very good sound stage and separation, great mid/top end detail and strong bass, it all sounds lively and involving. So how is that different from before, well before I was noticing that some records just sounded a bit dull, or lifeless, and some were just a bit bright as if some control was lost or edgy.

So my advice is what ever you do swapping arms/carts around really take your time with the arm/cartridge set up, it really isn't that easy, as I have found out. You may find it is just worth revisiting and double checking the set up of each before swapping them about. By the way have you checked the cartridges you use with each arm are reasonably compliant with them, I know this can have an impact as well.

I hope that helps a bit, All the best

Adrian

Thanks Adrian, I wish there was someone I could pay to do this! My cart set up did seem pretty good really, arm very level - parallel with record, very centralised vertically, got electronic scales for spot on downward force. Anyway, getting a 1210 gr tomorrow, gonna put my 750 on it, I have an old Denon 110 kicking around, as I now have to wait to order another mp 200 cart from Japan, mind you ther're not the bargain they once were, now £300, and MP 500 is only £500 from Japan, so that's now more tempting, thing is you can change styli with MMs and replacement ones for MP 500 are only £200. Was thinking of trying another cart too in the meanwhile, Goldring 1042 perhaps?

[AJSki2fly]

Thanks Adrian, I wish there was someone I could pay to do this! My cart set up did seem pretty good really, arm very level - parallel with record, very centralised vertically, got electronic scales for spot on downward force. Anyway, getting a 1210 gr tomorrow, gonna put my 750 on it, I have an old Denon 110 kicking around, as I now have to wait to order another mp 200 cart from Japan, mind you ther're not the bargain they once were, now £300, and MP 500 is only £500 from Japan, so that's now more tempting, thing is you can change styli with MMs and replacement ones for MP 500 are only £200. Was thinking of trying another cart too in the meanwhile, Goldring 1042 perhaps?

Hi Mike, it is very tricky I think when first setting up an arm and cartridge. Mine was set up by a dealer and I watched him do it at my house when he delivered the TT, and to be honest I did not think much of what he did. It’s taken me at least 6 attempts to get to feeling I understand what to do and know I stand a reasonable chance of getting it right. The problem is that if it is slightly out then it will affect how it sounds.

All aspects are critical IMO as I outlined previously, any one being wrong can deteriorate the sound and worst case cause distortion.

I purchased a goldring 2500 and find it excellent and someone else did on AOS after my write up. It’s a MI(moving iron) and to my ears comes very close to the detail of a MC. I brought it to save use of my expensive Benz micro and same reasons as you, stylus is replaceable.


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