Low volume on turntable??

i readjusted last night before bed with a printable protractor 😁 It was actually almost dead on by chance, must have been lucky. 

Any more thoughts on changing the AT95 that I just put in for another cartridge if I can stretch my budget to $80-100? its worth noting that this ghetto Sony phono stage I have rigged will hopefully be replaced in the near future with an Audible Illusions Modulus 3A, so at that point weakest link will be the Denon TT, but in the mean time if I can get a good enough cartridge for under $100 to minimally satisfy that new preamp that would be great. 

Thanks Mark, I'll start a new thread for the cartridge. Thanks again to everyone!!

I did calibrate the counter weight and anti-skate appropriately for the new cartridge....

I would add to the excellent inputs you’ve received from the others that anti-skating recommendations provided by the manufacturers of many turntables are often much too high. In many cases those recommendations correspond numerically to the tracking force, which would certainly result in too much anti-skating force.

See my two posts dated 4-11-2016 in this thread for how I would recommend that anti-skating be adjusted, at least in the case of most moving magnet cartridges, including yours.

Also, I couldn’t find a spec on the input capacitance of the Audible Illusions Modulus 3A (or for the phono section of the Sony receiver), but that can be a parameter that is important when selecting a suitable cartridge. It would probably be a good idea to contact Audible Illusions and ask them if they can tell you what that value is.

The sum of the input capacitance of the preamp’s phono stage and the capacitances of the phono cable and turntable wiring should **approximately** conform to the load capacitance that is recommended for the particular cartridge, by its manufacturer. If (as I suspect) the DP-31L turntable has a phono cable that is not detachable, and is in the vicinity of 5 feet long, figure on roughly 150 pf (picofarads) or thereabouts for the total wiring and cable capacitance (to which the input capacitance of the phono stage that is within the receiver or preamp would add, as I indicated). I see that your present cartridge has a recommended load capacitance of 100 to 200 pf.

Good luck. Regards,
-- Al

Al, nice to see you take part here.  hockey4496, Almarg always has some excellent experience and insight...

Very insightful indeed Al, I appreciate your taking the time to look into those details. I’m going to start a new thread for the cartridge question but in the mean time I would love to hear your thought on a cartridge you would choose under $100? I know you gave me your thoughts with details I would equally endorse in my selection, but considering my budget at this stage I would value your thoughts on a cartridge you’d endorse under $100, negating all other factors. I only say that because I will be using my current setup for a minimum of 1 year, and after that I don’t know yet which TT I’ll upgrade to. So really I’m just looking for the best investment i can make today. I’m sure with the level of quality the Sony phono stage is providing, one pico magnitude off won’t be too harsh on my novice ears 😁 Thanks again for taking the time to share you’re knowledge, my interest is peeked anytime someone talks real physics. That’s my sh*t (no better way to say it)