terrible, I don't think anyone has mentioned this but you might consider lowering the tonearm a slight, slight bit, so that the cartridge is tilting upwards. That will help flush out the sound some and it may help with the higher signal. Aside from that, if you have a gain adjustment in your phonostage, I would try turning that down.
A pitch too High!
Recently, I damaged the V2 MM cartridge of Clearaudio Concept Wood turntable, so had it changed with a Grado Prestige Blue. The VTF for V2 is 2.2g while Grado blue stands at 1.5g. I took someone’s help to fix this. He even made azimuth adjustments and it sounded fine. But I soon realised that the sound had become thinner, voice being the primary indicator and just before the stylus landed on the record, it skipped back a bit then hit the record. Sometimes the tonearm would skip all the way out of the record, backwards. I called the guy back, and he felt the VTF should be fixed to around 2g to avoid the backward skip. He did so and that problem was licked and it seemed the voice thinning issue had also vanished. But last night, I put on the first pressing of Aretha Franklin Amazing Grace, and all along I found her pitch way higher, it was all too high pitched and uncomfortable. Seemed the bass had gone missing a little. On my Boulder 866, I could immediately hear the difference when the track was played through Roon. It was not as high pitched, thin as it sounded on analogue. I intend to call the guy again but wanted to know from experts here as to what the issue could be.
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@atmasphere @chakster Why do you guys want me to buy a new Grado stylus. Are you assuming the stylus may be damaged? A few bounces across a record can damage a stylus is it. ? Thought it was made of tougher stuff. Though sound wise I don't have an issue right now. I think a few more records down I'll get a fairer idea.
@goofyfoot adjusting the tonearm was one of the first things I had done. Getting it parallel to the record. |
Terrible, no a few bouces should not bother it. I think atmasphere thinks you got another new cartridge and was thinking the bad sounding one was a previous cartridge and not the Grado. Ralph, he got the cartidge sounding better by finally getting the arm ajusted correctly. Looking at a stylus to determine wear in not easy. It takes a special high powered (read very expensive) microscope and you have to know what you are looking for. Even the cheap usb microscopes we use for alignment purposes are not strong enough to detect moderate amounts of stylus wear. It is just the very extreme tip that wears. I can do it with a binocular medical microscope with special lighting but it is like looking at a CT scan, one slice at a time because the depth of field is very small. |
terrible, a tonearm where the cartridge is a slight bit higher than the back of the tonearm will creatte a fuller sound. I said it will flush out the sound but I meant flesh out the sound. A tonearm where the cartridge is lower than the back o the tonearm will bring more detail at the expense of sounding too shrill. Yes, I realize your tonearm right now is exactly parallel. |
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