So I bought my first new record in years, in fact I bought several of them at once at my local Cracker Barrel. (Doesn’t everybody buy records at Cracker Barrel?) What caught my eye was the newly re-mastered Revolution album, and there was Abbey Road by the same crew, and Thriller by Michael Jackson, an Eagle’s Double Album. When I got them home, and had the time, I dropped the Revolution album on, but two things were immediately obvious: (1) There was a terrible rumble preventing me from getting much volume at all out of the speakers, (2) The anti-skate was much two strong; I couldn’t even get it to play the last two tracks on side 1, the stylus pulled out of the groove and slid back toward track 1.
I pulled the phono leads out of my pre-amp phono inputs and inserted my ELAC phono stage into the chain into a line input on the pre-amp. The ELAC had a rumble filter, but it had no effect.
I don’t use my turntable often, but it has a new Sumiko high-output moving coil cartridge installed, the Songbird, and it doesn’t have many miles on it yet. It was professionally installed for me, and until my experience with the Revolution album, it worked just fine. I was very pleased. The anti-skate, however, is not easily adjustable: just a small weight on a very fine piece of fishing line. I could add weight easily, but taking it off would require disassembly, replacement of the weight, and reassembly. Frankly I found the antI-skate the most difficult part of the setup the Music Hall 5.3.
The only change to the system that might contribute to the rumble is the installation of the new (to me) Bowers & Wilkins 801 Series 2 speakers. There is a lot more sound pressure in the room when those babies fire up. The turntable is mounted on top of the Yggdrasil DAC, next to the Madrigal PDT3 on a shelf fastened securely to an internal wall.
I bought the Music Hall turntable because I couldn’t get my older Numark PTT-1 DJ table quiet. It tumbled too when I had it on top of my Cerwin-Vega floor standers. Moving the turntable away from the speakers, even a little bit, solved that rumble problem.
Anyway, interested in your suggestions and thoughts on the issue(s) described above. The record is still on the table, I just got discouraged and left it there.
