Audio Technica ART9 sounds awful

I did some work on the azimuth and the vta.  Seems to have taken care of the problem.

Thanks to everyone for their 2 cents...most helpful and supportive

Safebelayer; was either far out?

safebelayer ...

Now that the cartridge is working properly, what are your impressions??

Frank

Just a last gasp:  The source of a phase issue (one channel out of phase with the other), if there is a phase issue, need not be limited to the connections of the color-coded leads at the cartridge; it could be downstream at any junction.  It could even be at the distal end of the very short leads between the cartridge and the headshell, if someone misconnected the leads to the pins on the headshell, for one channel.  (This also assumes you use a tonearm with a removable headshell.) I realize you are now satisfied, but just sayin'...

It's not even out of the question that the defect in your cartridge, if there is one, is simply that connections to the external pins for one channel are reversed internally, although that would be hard to imagine for a company like AT.

I offer this only because I find it unlikely that maladjustment of azimuth or of VTA could have the particular effect you describe, unless azimuth was WAYYYY off, maybe.

I forgot to add that I disconnected the anti skating.  Between this and the azimuth the soundstage returned.

Oregonpapa, I don't have an answer for you yet.  It sounds alright at this point but I wouldn't be fair to say anything more.  As an aside, no offense to pani, I prefer Dynavector's sound right out of the box.  That's the beauty of this hobby, I can shape the sound as I like it, because previous few of us have heard the music As it was originally recorded to state what it should sound like.  Yes?