Gonna have to ditch the Soundsmith Carmen II

Dear Carmen MKII Owner;

I do not have you phone number, and did not get a recent message that you called.

When we initially spoke, I spent quite a bit of time going over the alignment procedure with you. There are alignment videos on my website, some (azimuth) explaining why the Fozgometer will often not work with our cartridges. I did tell you that when we spoke. You simply cannot use it.

I also asked you if you tested the skating force via our method on our website, but got no response. I use VPI tables in our showroom, and have used them at shows for 12 years. I am very familiar with them and I can promise you if you have not dealt with the skating forces on your unipivot VPI arm, you are not tracking properly. I can almost guarantee that.

It can be easily rectified with their anti-skating device and our method specifically for VPI arms - on our website.

Bear in mind, that if you do our test, (placing the stylus on a non-pressed region at the end of the record, BETWEEN the run out grooves), and you observe the arm FLYING in at great speed, that means you have likely about 80% of the VTF on the left groove wall, and 20% on the right. Even tracking the Carmen MKII heavily at 1.6 grams, that means you have .3 grams on the right stylus edge, absolutely NOT enough to track well, especially at high velocities (high frequency) and it WILL absolutely cause sibilant performance !!! Not to mention use of the Fozgometer on Soundsmith designs.

Again, I never heard back from you after our lengthy conversation where I tried to assist you, as to whether you had followed my advice. I also offered to inspect the Carmen for you to rule out a problem.

Surprisingly so, I do run into some customers who don’t accept my advice. When they call back, I find they have not done as I suggested. Please reach out to us again, and WE WILL HELP YOU. 914 739 2885

Many thanks -

Peter Ledermann / president / Soundsmith

Just received my Carmen cartridge back from Mr. Ledermann.  In short the sibalence has been eliminated!

According to Peter he checked my cart against his reference cart and reference albums and while he could not detect any aborrant behavier he indicated he made some minor tweaks, which I feel was not because of any issue with the cart, but more for my sake and my system synergy. He also suggests I adjust my tracking force to accommodate his tweak.  I'm not sure what specifically was done to the cart but it worked. 

So so in short I'm very satisfied, and I would like to personally thank Peter for taking personal interest in a customer and making sure his customer was happy. 

This is is how you keep customers for life. 

If your problem reappears at some point in future, I would next consider the new tweeter, as per John Tracy's post.  It could be a little "hot" by nature or poorly matched to the midrange/woofer for efficiency.  (Meaning if the tweeter efficiency is greater than that of the midrange driver, the result can be a "tipped up" tonal balance.)

What tracking force are you using now? I’m curious because I own this cart and regardless of setup, I haven’t succeeded in getting it to sound quite as good as I expected for the price.