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I am at the end of my rope, please help

I have a problem that I can not solve and makes no sense to me at all.
My right channel is stronger than my left by a large margin. I can plug my tonearm cable directly into a Fozgometer (measures left and right output) and I get a substantially stronger signal on the right side. I confirmed this with my Voltmeter to make sure there was not a problem with the Fozgometer. So, as far as I can tell, this narrows the problem down to the Cart, Tonearm, Tonearm wire or the table.

Here is what I have tried:
1. Changed Azimuth in both directions. Small change but still much stronger on the right side.
2. Changed antiskating. Very little change.
3. replaced the cartridge. No Change.
4. replaced the tonearm and cartridge. No Change.
5. replaced the tonearm, cartridge and tonearm wire. No change.
6. I have used a second test record. No Change
My turntable is perfectly level.
I simply do not see how this is possible! I have an $83,000 system that I can not listen to. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

My system:
DaVinci Turntable > Lyra Titan i > Schroeder Reference tonearm > Manley Steelhead > Stealth Indra cables > VTL 450 amps > Stealth Mlt speaker cables > Vienna acoustic Mahler speakers
audioraider
sprog
37 posts
 
If you're switching the cartridge leads and the Fozgometer shows the levels switch as well then there's no doubt that both of your cartridges have a faulty channel. It has to be that as there's nothing else connected.

I'd go with Vegasears suggestion. Or borrow a cartridge from somewhere...?

Good luck!
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,901 posts
 
Audioraider, the measurements you described indicate a problem with the tone arm cable. The center of the right channel RCA should have continuity to the red lead, ground of that RCA has continuity to the green lead. They should not have continuity to each other. The same goes for the other channel.

The way you described it sounds as if there is a short. Amazingly (and somewhat counter-intuitively), many LOMC cartridges can drive a short fairly well since they are high current and low voltage.

So if you stand by your description/those measurements, get your cables fixed. If I am right about this, the system will sound a lot better when you are done.
sprog
37 posts
 
By the way I've had loads of cartridges over the years, and still have several, and the same thing has hapeened to me on 3 occasions. I think you're just very unlucky to have it happen to the only two you have!

It may be fixable - Expert Stylus in the UK are very good at openiing up cartrides and fixing these kinds of faults. They can even re-coiul, if it needs it, however it's often a poor connection within the cartridge - to the pins, that causes it.

They fixed the faults they found with mine perfectly.
sprog
37 posts
 
I slightly mis-read your post Audioraider, I thought you had tried connecting the Fozgometer directly to the cartridge pins, rather than just at the tonearm lead ends.

Try taking the cartridge off the arm and connect the Fozgometer directly to the cartridge pins (via some wire, if you can do that?). If the channels switch as you switch leads then it definitely is the cartridge, as I explained earlier.
smoffatt
205 posts
 
I had the same exact issue with a Dynavector XV1's last year. The right channel was louder. Switching the phono cable at the phono stage input, the left channel became louder. Looking at the styli with a 10X loupe i noticed that the styli was ever so slightly tilted. It appeared that the cantilever had rotated c-clockwise on its axis. I tried to fix that by adjusting/compensating with azimuth but to no avail. I ended up sending the cartridge to Soundsmith. Peter found that the cartridge was seriously flawed. The coils were rotated. He could not re-aligned the coils but was able to fix the problem, removing the styli and mounting one of his Optimized Contour Nude Line contact Styli. Sounds perfect now.

Note: i had bought the cartridge used so i could not use any type of warranty service with Dynavector. The cost for the repairs were approx. $400.00

Send it to Soundsmith and Peter Ledermann will tell you what's wrong with it.

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