Ortofon Red/Pro-ject Carbon Debut combination; rolled off hi-frequencies. Solutions?
The 540 should help. Try a granite shelf on brass cones. I found MF amps a bit dull. I swear by a $10 Belkin IC. No longer made but available on Ebay. Highly detailed and balanced. https://m.ebay.com/itm/BELKIN-Pure-AV-High-Quality-Dual-RCA-Audio-Cable-AV20302-06-39-ft-M-M-NEW-/281133593466?txnId=1762771702018 |
The Ortofon 2M red should not be the problem...Are you using a record mat? Felt and cork ones tend to diminish highs. What is the capacitance set at? MM’s are sensitive to this. The 2M wants 150-300 Pf. Also, long cables add to the capacitance as much as 50-250 Pf! Keep them short (2 ft) to prevent this being added to the total the cartridge sees. Finally check your SRA and make sure the back of the cartridge is not tilted down (sitting) towards the record surface (sitting up more forward is better to bring out highs). http://herbiesaudiolab.net/ttmat.htm Matt M |
Your Ortofon 2M Red is the problem! It’s mediocre cartridge, what else do you expect on such cheap turntable? One of my friend has replaced his 2M (on the same turntable) with Stanton 881 MKIIs and he never looked back since that day. Find yourself a better MM cartridge and stay away from the modern MM cartridges, buy the best MM from the 80s or 70s. Then you will undergstand why they are so good and why it was a choice for disc mastering engineers over the years. You will not find anything better than AT-ML170 VM OFC or OCC and btw Stanton 881 MKIIs is also great, read this article first. Another great high compliance Audio-Technica cartridge is AT20SLa (it’s my link, but there you can read some info i just don’t want to copy paste here). What else you can do to improve the sound quality ? Change load resistors inside your phono stage to 100k Ohms (Vishay Naked Foil resistors available on ebay from texas components - this is the nanufacturer). You will get a better top end compared to 47k Ohm. You can not make a mediocre cartridge sounds good by changing the cables or mat or anything, except the cartridge itself if you really looking for something better. Everything starts from the cartridge. But load resistance is important for MM. |
morbius, I own the Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB that shipped with the Ortofon 2M Red. Is this the table and cartridge you have? I thought the table sounded pretty good right out of the box. I did notice a little less sparkle in the treble than I was expecting and I had hoped that break-in of the cartridge/stylus suspension would help it open up a bit. It did open up a bit after a few weeks of consistent play, however I still felt it should have a bit more sparkle in the treble. I starting trying a few things to see if I could get it to open up a bit more. Here's what I did...... Removed the felt mat - sounds more dynamic without the mat. Set-up alignment - I went through a complete alignment of the cartridge. The factory alignment was off IMHO. Cable - I replace the stock interconnect cable with an Audio Sensibility Impact SE phono cable. Immediately better..... Replaced the 2M Red Stylus with a 2M Blue Stylus (the cartridge body is the same, so they are interchangeable). The blue is better across the board, including the treble. However, my cartridge moved when I installed the stylus and I need to go back through the alignment again. That's my Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB story. I'm pretty happy with the table at this point. I use it nearly daily and I enjoy the sound. I have a much more expensive digital rig, and I prefer the sound of the TT. It's just a more organic and engaging sound to me. With the replacement phone cable and stylus, I have about $900 new retail in the setup. Is it the best $900 combo setup you can buy? I have no idea. I would like to try other similarly priced setups, but I'm happy with my setup and not willing to spend any money searching for something different. |
Thanks for your valued input, guys. Let me further detail my system setup... My equipment is installed in a Soundesign metal rack on spikes. The turntable sits on the top of the rack on a 25 lb. slab of granite. I don't use a mat, the records are played resting directly on the acrylic platter. The stock Pro-ject feet are used. The both the Audioquest and Wireworld IC's used are 1meter in length. The capacitance of the inboard phono stage of the A3.2 is non adjustable and fixed at 47k Ohms. Based on the feedback so far I'm in agreement with most everthing I've heard from the group. My original thought was to upgrade the cartridge (or stylus) first then consider an outboard phono stage with adjustable capacitance. First, I'll be recalibrating the alignment of the cartridge this afternoon, just to be sure. Anymore input is appreciated. Thanks again. morbius |
