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Stylus not tracking and sounds terrible

I haven't used my TT in about 6 months due to a remodeling project. The TT was not moved, just not used. Yesterday I fired it up, tried to play some new vinyl, and ran into a problem.

The sound is terrible, shrill and scratchy sounding with no bass. The stylus randomly skates and hops. I tried playing a couple of records I know sound great but the problem remained.

The VTF, VTA, and azimuth are set correctly. I swapped out cables to and from the TT to the phono amp but still have the problem. I tried balanced and single ended cables to my pre from the phono pre.

I tried increasing VTF, playing with the VTA, disconnecting my subs, nothing changed.

The TT is a VPI Aries 1, Benz-Micro LO cartridge, Pass Aleph Ono pre. I've owned all of them since new or almost new so it all has some years on it but it sounded great before. Could the cartridge go bad in 6 months by just sitting there unused?

I had a similar problem a while ago and determined it was vibration/resonance from my room. I have the Aries sitting on a Ginko cloud platform now and it is pretty well isolated.

Everything sounded great the last time I played music on it. The only thing that changed was the location of the phono pre. It used to sit next to the TT but now my ARC amp is in that place. Could the tube amp be doing something here? The TT is right next to it on the same shelf.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
nolacap
tablejockey
3,887 posts
 
Have you given the stylus a good cleaning- magic eraser or whatever you use, and ensure the arm is resting properly in the pivot spike?

I've had weird unexplained SQ issues with these two simple checks.
nolacap OP
84 posts
 
The arm is on the pivot and the damping oil is in the well and the stylus is clean.

I'm going to try moving the table on to the concrete floor.
slaw's avatar
slaw
21,349 posts
 
What type of renovations did you do? Anything that would have affected your tt support structure?
smrex13
645 posts
 
Is there any chance that someone (significant other, roommate, friend, contractor, dog, cat, etc.) might have damaged the cartridge?  If the tonearm has been knocked off its rest while someone was cleaning, partying, trying to play a record, etc., there could be damage to the cantilever that is causing all of the symptoms you mentioned.
nolacap OP
84 posts
 
The renovations were in another room. I had to move all my records. That's why I didn't use it during the reno.

It's possible someone messed with it but it was covered by a plexiglass cover. The cantilever is not straight, it comes out of the cartridge shell angled towards the record rim. It's always been slanted that way though and seemed to play just fine.

This is my only cartridge. I may buy an inexpensive cart and swap it in to see if that's the problem.
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