40 years of fitting cartridges to a variety of arms, I'm feeling stumped


Sibilance and distortion on the last track.
 
I have had no problem with setting-up numerous Ortofons, 2 Dynavectors, Yamaha MC-1S, Goldring 1042, Sumiko EVOIII BPS/Blackbird, Denon DL-304/DL-301MKII/DL-103R, Nagaoka MP-500/MP300. But this.....this Soundsmith ’The Voice’ - it’s beating me up.

I have tried what seems to be every conventional and unconventional means to getting it just right on the VTF, Overhang, Alignment, Azimuth, VTA and anti-skating. I haven’t given-up. There has to be a way - unless I either have the wrong arms (SME 309 and Audiomods Series 6) or I lose what skills I had in the eye-hand co-ordination dept.

I have read every word of Peter Ledermann’s instructions on the USB key and watched the videos. Still struggling.
I shall persevrere.
Any pearls of wisdom are welcome.

regamortis

I think it would be good idea to contact Peter Ledermann himself, the man in the know.

Call Peter on the phone and discuss your issue....he's friendly and knowledgeable

Hi @regamortis 

We might be able to help you if you better defined the problem.

Are you unable to establish basic geometry?  Assuming you can do so, what is leading you to believe you have a problem?

"It sounds bad" isn't an answer we can do anything with.

Know that Peter has some of the best QC in the industry, but there's still sample to sample variance, which is why he (for example) fabricates an azimuth plate for arms without this adjustment feature.

Know that for a 9" tonearm, a 1 degree SRA correction requires raising/lowering the bearing tower by 4.3mm.  If you're adjusting in fractions of a mm, you should go well beyond that - as much as 8mm up to 8mm down (about +/- 2 degrees).

Thom @ Galibier