2. analog
  3. 170417-161828

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.
128x128terrible
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 

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. 

goofyfoot's avatar
goofyfoot
1,370 posts
 

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. 

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,800 posts
 

 Why do you guys want me to buy a new Grado stylus.

I'm was not suggesting any such thing.

I misread the situation and had thought you got a different cartridge and thus solved the problem. Re-reading I see now that it was gauge instead. Either way I'm glad you got it sorted- good work!

terrible's avatar
terrible OP
44 posts
 

@atmasphere No worries. Thank you for your help.

 

@goofyfoot This gets a little confusing as somewhere above in this thread, somebody suggested I keep the counter-weight end 7-9mm above the cartridge. This link was given to me as advice https://www.vandenhul.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Phono_FAQ.pdf

Though, I have still kept the tonearm parallel to the record when the stylus is hitting the record.

goofyfoot's avatar
goofyfoot
1,370 posts
 

terrible, I would say that Vandenhul is probably right but he did state ’in my expeience’ and the likelyhood is that he never had the same problem that you’re experiencing. My cartridge too is in a slightly lower position than the weight on my tonearm. However, if the sound is too shrill, then havng the cartridge a slight bit higher than the weight of the tonearm is the antidote. It shouldn’t be that difficult to determine where your tonearm height is and then adjust it up or down to see what sounds best. If you find that it doesn’t matter and that your cartridge is still sounding shrill, then I’d try turning down the phono amp gain. If that doesn’t work, then I’d load a different cartridge.

More to discover