Inner groove distortion solved!


I started a discussion last Friday about my dissatisfaction with my VPI Prime Sig. with Soundsmith " The Voice" cart and received many kind responses. I untwisted the tonearm cable as you all told me and experimented with real anti-skating. Today I got a blank record and adjusted it so that the tonearm was stationary. Wow, great sound from start to finish! I don't see how VPI can advise their method. I just listened to Hans Theessink and Terry Evans record "Visions" on the Bluegroove label and it's unbelievable. I was familiar with Evans from his work with Ry Cooder since the 70's. I want to thank you all for the info, I tend to shy away from making adjustments to turntables because I thought I would leave it up to the pros. But you guys are truly the pros! Back to listening.
joeyfed55
I did watch the Lederman video yet again and took millers advice and put on a record that has a demanding passage at the end. There was breakup in the left channel so I made small adjustments until the distortion was minimal and both channels were relatively equal.

Perfect!

Analog playback is far from the black magic everyone makes it out to be. Its actually really easy to understand, at least once its explained. Ledermann I think is even better at this than Fremer, maybe even as good as Miller! Almost! Ha! 

Anti-skate is just one small aspect of perfect LP playback. If you listen close, want to get the most, and are willing to try things like this then you are in the most rewarding niche in all of audio. 

So where you are now, you've pretty well gotten rid of all of the worst most obvious mis-tracking. Your rig is sounding a lot better now. You may even notice it sounds better even in places you never thought it was bad before. That's the beauty- you fix one problem, you notice benefits well beyond. Huge side benefit, you've learned to hear - and understand it. Take this same approach with the rest- VTA, VTF, etc- learn to understand both the mechanical aspects as well as how they sound, its really hard to overestimate just how much better you can go even from here. 
Good stuff MC, thanks. Do yourself a favor and check out Hans Theessink on Bluegroove records, outstanding!
Funny you should mention. Big Terry and Hans fan here. Live and Let Live with Terry and Bobby King has Ry playing throughout. Great Album. 

Yeah dentdog, Ive had that album since it came out! As a matter of fact it's going on the tt soon. Also waiting on delivery of Jederman Remixed- the soundtrack from discogs by Hans. Ry is on that too. Heard about it from JV at TAS. Ry is tops in my book, a real treasure! Be well.
Joey then you noticed in Peter's video that he and Frank Schroder recommend setting the anti skating so that the tone arm drifts in slowly between grooves in the run out section. I set my arms with the HI FI News test record and low an behold they both drifted in slowly between grooves in the run out section. So I have to conclude that without a test record this is a reasonable way to approach life. 
If you are a real Ry fan check out Captain Beefheart's Safe As Milk. Ry only lasted one album with the Captain who was notoriously difficult. He would be replaced by Bill Harkleroad aka Zoot Horn Rollo an extremely under rated guitarist.