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.

terrible10-31-2021 10:56am

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millercarbon Details Discussions Posts This discussion 12,531 posts 11-29-2021 at 05:45pm Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete That test is misleading. You have to watch very closely to be sure the stylus is skating on the vinyl and not following the groove. In your video it is clearly in the lead-out groove. Some test records have a blank side for this. Best is a 45 LP cut on one side only, leaving the other completely blank. All this side bias testing seems to me is missing the point. Because if the problem was side bias you would be hearing it from one speaker or the other, or more in one than the other. Like Mike said, right is outside groove wall away from the spindle, left is inside closer. If you are hearing it equally from both channels (or close enough you can't tell) then your side bias (anti-skate) is correct and it is something else.
atmasphere Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 11,800 posts 11-29-2021 at 08:58pm Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete However, I did exactly that and was getting distortion. So I found that by adjusting the anti skate so that the needle stayed in the center of the laser disc and without drift, that this gave me distortion free results. Do not set your anti skate this way until you've tried doing it as described above. @terrible You can see that depending on the arm you might get different results. A person that I know that makes the Triplanar arm once told me that there really isn't a standard for anti-skate settings. So what works fine for one arm may not for another. So don't regard this comment is contradiction so much as the point that you might have to goof off with this setting to see what works best for you.
millercarbon Details Discussions Posts This discussion 12,531 posts 11-30-2021 at 06:17am Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete There is no standard for anti-skate because of how it works. Skating forces are generated by drag on a overhung stylus. This is why tangential tracking arms have no side bias. Since they are tangential the only force is in line with the arm and there is zero skating force generated. Pivoted arms all generate skating forces because of the overhang. The amount of skating force varies constantly depending on how heavily modulated the groove is, how high the tracking force is, and how gracefully the cartridge traces the groove. The Soundmith Strain Gauge for example is famously low moving mass, low wear and a superb tracker. Sure enough I had to reduce anti-skate a lot when going from Koetsu to SG. Checking on a blank record is a pretty good starting point. Probably good enough to be one and done. But no one setting is ever perfect all the way across a record. All we can do is play listen adjust, play listen adjust. It is like setting sub levels, after a while you figure out what is a good all-around and then you are done. I have these same test records. Probably the same tracks are on them. Don't know. Never bothered. Play music. Works just fine.
terrible OP Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 44 posts 11-30-2021 at 07:17am Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete @mijostyn I just got Joni Mitchell - Live at Carnegie Hall, there is a blank side on the third record. I'll use that. Just reconfirming, since so many things are being said, do I put down the stylus on a rotating blank record at the centre or at the assumed run-out area? And then watch it drift slowly towards the spindle? For the laserdisc method, I found a video of an Indian guy, he used a CD. Though I don't have a blank disk, can I use one like this?:
terrible OP Details Discussions Posts This discussion Message User 44 posts 11-30-2021 at 12:00pm Copy Comment URL Report Comment Edit Delete Yes! Exactly but in your video the arm is drifting too fast towards the spindle so you want to add more antiskate. I also must add that your turntable must be level, exactly level. @mijostyn I have centred as much as I could. Please look at the pic below and let me know if there's an issue with TT balance: View post on imgur.com I have also done a test on a blank record: And this is what Joni Mitchell sounds like currently on my system: