Fozgometer?

I purchased a Fozgometer several weeks ago, and I have not had much luck with it. The needle jumps around too much to get a good reading. The manual does indicate that this may happen with undamped unipivot tonearms, which is what I have (JMW9 Signature). I suppose I could add damping fluid and try again, but if I'm not planning on using the TT with damping fluid, it seems like a waste of time.

Also, I didn't have the Acoustic Sounds test record. I have the Hi-Fi News test record. The difference is that, instead of a 1khz tone, it has a pink noise tone. I doubt if that would make a difference, though. Either should work.

No, I believe it would make a difference in that with pink noise, and white noise, it would be even more necessary to have a 1kHz notch filter as these distribute power over the spectrum. I would guess that even with a 1kHz test tone on an LP you would still do better with a notch filter because there is noise in a wider frequency band induced by the scratching of the stylus.

General statements, I'm not implying anything towards the Foz-gizmo. I'm guessing it is a DMM with a built in filter?

Here is a much cheaper and better way, which is really not much more difficult:

You can use the same method (Test record with 1KHz test signal) with a laptop and a free downloaded spectrum analyzer. I feed the signal from my phonostage into my Macbook.

Spectrum analyzer is iSpectrum. You can put a marker at 1KHz that displays the signal in dB at 1KHz (so no notch filter needed). You can toggle iSpectrum between left and right channel so that you can easily measure the crosstalk in dB.

For example, you measure a signal at -30dB in the left channel and the crosstalk at -66dB in the right channel giving you a crosstalk separation of 36dB. You minimize the crosstalk just as for the Fozgo meter.

This method is free, only requires a RCA to mini cable to connect to your Laptop and the signal is more stable as you can choose different averaging method with iSpectrum. Another plus is that you see the frequency played from LP displayed in the spectrum analyzer so can finetune the speed of the turntable as the signal should be direct at 1KHz.

This method safes you both the need for a the Fozgo + KAB spectrum analyzer. Let me know if you have any questions.

The difference is that, instead of a 1khz tone, it has a pink noise tone. I doubt if that would make a difference, though. Either should work.

For both the Fozgo and the method I just described you need a sine signal, for pink/white noise the signal is not stable. The Cardas record works well as the 1KHz signal is in the middle of the record.

I'll try it again with a 1Khz test tone and report back...

Tom