@oldrooney
I would not trust the rest of the set up either. Overhang is probably off also. You'll need a protractor. This is typical of store set ups. IMHE they are always off.
I have never had any trouble returning warped records with any of the big online stores.
Next time around get a moving Iron cartridge from Grado, Soundsmith, Goldring or Nagaoka. Any of these high output cartridges will outperform any high output MC cartridge and not by a small amount.
Just for the record (pun intended), records can exhibit severe rumble. All of the lathes used today to cut lacquers are very old and if they have not been properly maintained can rumble and transfer that to the lacquer. People without subwoofers may not notice it. I must have at least 10 records that rumble bad enough that I questioned the health of my own turntable switching to an old European pressing which turned out to be dead quiet. Unfortunately, all copies of that record are going to rumble also. Returning the record for another copy will not help.
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@noromance Wait, it gets better,@nlitworld posted a link on the ‘Weak Link in Vinyl Playback’ thread to a ‘cheap vertical alignment block’ which I purchased, and used to check my alignment, I found that the ‘expert’ who sold me the turntable, upgraded and installed a new cartridge, failed to set the VTA correctly. It was actually off by more than twice the distance I had already moved it to clear the warped ‘Revolver’ vinyl. So, I never should have had the issue I did to begin with. (I suspect he thought, as I did before @ghdprentice pointed it out to me, that the VTA was not adjustable; but if that is so, he isn’t the expert he advertises himself to be.)
In addition, I’ve changed my mind on accepting warped records after watching videos by In Groove record store owner and Michael Fremer; I’ve decided to open up each record I buy and inspect for flatness, and reject the item if any is found. If In Groove can do it, so can I, plus I don’t want to spend over $3,000.00 on the tool to take the warp out. I think, in my case, the warp was caused by shrink-wrap that was just a bit too tight.
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Good to hear, @oldrooney There's always a solution.
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To wrap this thread up, @noromance I found there wasn’t a problem money couldn’t solve. I bought a Pangea Vulcan turntable stand from Audio Advice. It arrived two days later, assembled easily, and seems quite stable. Added a 2nd shelf for storing records, so I have room for 200 in all, which pretty much my entire collection. The turntable is now installed on my system upstairs. The ‘Revolver’ album played flawlessly, warp and all; as did Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I miss the phono stage on my MC100 downstairs, and I hear a faint hiss from the speakers with the Freya+ in control, but the new (to me) XRT20s a singing a sweet, mellow, and full sound. There is an annoying hum when I touch the tone arm, but I touch the Freya while I’m doing anything, and it subsides to an acceptable level.
I am enjoying the easy access the upstairs system affords me. And I’m using my Oppo BDP-105D to its full potential, playing CDs, streaming (Pandora for now), and as. DAC for my phone or other sources as needed.
@ghdprentice you were right about the VTA tool shipping with the unit, it’s listed in the User Manual I finally got around to printing out. I wound up fashioning my own by grinding the short end of a 3mm Allen key down even shorter. The length has to be exactly right: small enough to slip into the mounting ‘cup’ and long enough to fully seat itself. I stopped grinding when the OD got to 1/2”. Taped it unobtrusively to plinth.
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Update: Modified a standard 3mm hex key such that the ‘key’ end would fit in a 1/2 inch slot and was able to adjust the VTA properly without marring the mounting cup. Whatever height you set the VTA you still have to cope with the inset cup which puts the socket head screw below the main deck height. I thought I had the original tool in the packaging in which I received the turn table, but that was not the case. Still have to spin the disk which brought the issue to my attention, but I am confident that I now have the tools to deal with it. Looking forward to equipping my all-analog system with a new set of speakers and a suitable amp in the near future. May look into a single-ended triode, or repurpose my Rogue Audio Stereo 100.
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@noromance Not yet. We are ‘in the process’ right now. I dug the existing turntable out of its hole atop the DAC, adjusted the VTA (think it did come with an adjustment tool, but I used a ball-end 3mm Allen key). I removed the ELAC phono stage. The turntable came with high-quality, directional, and short, RCA cables, so remotely locating on the current main system isn’t what I want to do right now. I’ve been dealing with a case of poison ivy, so, in a couple of days I expect to get it swapped out.
By-the-way, the record really wasn’t warped all that bad, but the clearance between tone-arm and the optional, installed, platter is really tight. I could probably have gotten it to spin OK by simply removing the platter mat, but it didn’t occur to me at the time. The tone arm is tapered, and with the VTA adjustment bottomed out, as it was, the tone arm was level, I raised it about 1/8 of an inch. I’ll post again when I get it up and running on my second system. Thanks for following up.
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@oldrooney Any joy with trying different turntable placement?
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@audioguy85 Yes. The manual specifically warns against loosening the screw. I found I had installed it on the 3rd, and not the 2nd notch as recommended. The angle of the dangle of the string seems to be a bit off to me.
@ghdprentice The VTA can be adjusted with a 3mm ball-end Allen key, although the mounting cup will get marred in the process.
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That had to be quite the warp! Hope you returned the record...unacceptable! By the way, the mmf 5.3 has the same anti skate set up as the mmf 7.3, although arm is different. There are still only 3 positions to set your anti skate on the rod attached to back of tonearm. Moving the hanger will do nothing.
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@ghdprentice I bought it used, no tool came with mine, and no manual, either. I better get online and see what I can find. The VTA should have been adjusted as part of setup, it’s the first time I’ve had an issue with it. The record really isn’t warped all that much, but just enough to cause an issue.
Edit: Found it, printing out now. Says it can be adjusted with an Allen key.
@audioguy85 The manual also shows three places on the anti-skate rod to allow for adjustment, I missed that when I was assembling it.
Thsnks for the help guys.
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@jeffreylee (@jrosemd and @vinylandtubes )
Nope. Totally missed the subtle hint, and I was looking right at the album cover when I responded. My only excuse is that I had a conversation recently with a new acquaintance who had the so-called ‘White’ album, and I asked her if the track with the lyric “Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine, etc. was on it, she didn’t know. I thought the track was a bonus track and not cited on the list of tracks on the album, and stated so to a good friend and musician, who corrected me to say, “I think the track is called ‘Revolution Number Nine.’” I guess the ‘Revolution’ displaced Revolver in my short term memory. All I know is that it is not found on the album titled ‘Revolver.’
Boy, am I embarrassed!🤦🏼♀️
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@jrosemd There is no Beatles album called "Revolution," which is why @vinylandtubes asked the question. Everyone is patiently waiting for @oldrooney to correct himself and say "Revolver" but he seems to think the album is actually called "Revolution."
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Wow, that VTA must be way out of adjustment to have the tonearm touch the record. The TT comes with a tool to adjust it.
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Well I found out what was popping the needle out of the groove: the brand new recording is warped, slightly, in my opinion, but it doesn’t take much to cause it to come into contact with the tapered carbon-fiber arm of the MMF-5.3 tone arm. As the stylus approaches the half-way point you can hear the sound of the record lip scuffing the underside of the tone arm ever so slightly, but you only hear it two or three times before it manages to pop the stylus out of the groove, causing to replay the same track or worse.
The record plays flawlessly on my Numark PTT-1 fitted with a $36.00 conical cartridge which has played both sides of about 700 used 45 RPM records which I suspect were salvaged from 70’s era jukeboxes. What a bummer. I’m not sure if I can adjust the VTA on the Music Hall, if I can, I will.
As regards the acoustic interference (and possibly EMF interference), I’m not sure what to do. Both times that I have encountered the issue, it has occurred with my temporary setup. I’m thinking I need to follow the advice of Paul McGowan, and devote a full system to just analog reproduction. It’s a pity, because my preamp is entirely analog, and it has both moving magnet and moving coil phono inputs. The moving coil input includes step-up coils from Ortophon. However, it also has balanced inputs and outputs, and two of the balanced outputs are switchable (speaker 1 and speaker 2), which allows me to run the Rogue Stereo 100 off the mains to the Warfedales, while allowing me to use the MC-252’s to drive the Bowers & Wilkins. A configuration That I am currently in the process of implementing (I have to clean up, move some furniture, and allocate sufficient speaker wire).
I originally procured the dual MC-252s with the thought of driving some electrostatic speakers, which I anticipated would require 500 Watts minimum power for the application, per Roger Sanders. So maybe I’ll add electrostatics to the mix, I suspect the B&Ws will stay on the digital side, though.
Future plans (and ruminations) notwithstanding, I think I’ll take the Music Hall turntable and the ELAC phono stage out of my temporary setup, put the Freya back in service, and pull a power amp out of the heap. I have an old Pioneer integrated amp with a phono stage rated at 60 Watts as I recall which works OK for 45 RPM recordings, and a couple of RadioShack PA amplifiers rated at 125 Watts into 8 Ohms (bridgeable into 8 Ohms for 250 Watts), but they don’t have the greatest fidelity, although some claim they are adequate.
@audioguy85 I’m pretty sure the MMF-7x anti-skate is different than the MMF-5x. The only possible ‘adjustment’ I can see is loosening a Phillips-head screw at the base of the string elevation arm/eye-hole allowing one to swing the arm around and varying the angle that the swing tugs the tone arm outward from the center, or perhaps bending the arm itself. But, as I said, I paid a professional to make all the adjustments for me. Also, all my turntables are mounted on walls, and after checking, they’re both external walls, but the temporary setup has a door opening nearby. When I slam the door, the record skips.
@vinylandtubes I was referring to the Beatles record first issued in 1966 by Parlophone (the name appears on the record label) and currently re-issued by Gammaphone/EMI in England (their logo appears on the front cover). The recording was originally produced by George Martin (RIP). The buzz about this release, noted on a sticker attached to the plastic sealing the item on the shelf is that it was an ‘Anniversary Edition’ (or at least it says such on the Abbey Road’ album) remixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell. Reportedly, they isolated the individual instruments and ‘re-mixed’ the whole album. Audioguy85 opined I would be better off getting an original used VG+ recording, but they didn’t have one that day at Cracker Barrel. I’ll keep my eye out for one though.
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@cey You're right, I should have said 'if no music is being played' ie stylus on dead vinyl.
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Obviously, vinylandtubes is not a Beatles fan.
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Off topic, but what is the “Revolution” album to which you refer?
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@dogberry if the stylus aint touching a moving disc its not pickin up the rumble.
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That music hall, does it not just have a spindle the anti skate thread (loop) is attached to? If so, there are only 3 positions for the weight. It’s not that difficult to move the weight from the outer most position to the inner or vice Versa. I know the mmf 7.3 has this anti skate set up. What you also need Is a wall mounted shelf for the turntable. Quite a few new pressings have defects. You are better off buying an older VG+ or better original pressing of that music. Are speakers close to turntable? That can cause issues...
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If possible, try the table with lid down, and with lid removed.
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@dogberry Thank you for the clarification. I knew it was low frequency noise that interfered with the music, I didn’t realize the term also connoted its source.
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And for future reference, rumble is a result of TT motor/spindle bearing noise, and is independent of the record being played. It is something you should hear (if you are unlucky enough to have it in sufficient quantity) whenever the turntable spins, even if there is no record being played.
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@elliottbnewcombjr I’m using the Music Hall 5.3. The picture you’re looking at is probably the crossover for the B&W 801 as I purchased it.
@noromance I’ll clear a spot somewhere to get the turntable away from the speakers. And yes, when I speak of increased sound pressure levels I am referring to acoustic feedback (I wasn’t aware of the term you use). I’m not convinced that there isn’t also some electro magnetic feedback as well, removing the turntable from its current location should alleviate both problems.
All I can say is that it worked fine with the Warfedales, the problem turned up upon the installation of the B&W 801s.
@lowrider57 As I responded to Noromance, first thing I’m going to do is move the turntable from its current spot to see if that makes a difference.
Off to work all, will check back this evening with current status.
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Are you guys sure, I also see the bottom of a McIntosh TT.
OP: Which TT are you using?
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The turntable is mounted on top of the Yggdrasil DAC, next to the Madrigal PDT3 on a shelf fastened securely to an internal wall.
WOW, the turntable is literally sitting on top of the DAC. Haven't you read any threads about component isolation? I know your setup is temporary, but you need to move the TT. As @noromance stated, try it on the floor first and not in front of those speakers. You're not experiencing rumble, it's acoustic feedback. I think you'll need to invest in some type of anti-vibration platform at the very least.
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I guess you mean acoustic feedback rather than rumble as such. Looking at your setup, I can't imagine a worse installation of a turntable. Could you try it on the floor as an experiment?
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