Cartridge upgrade for VPI Scoutmaster

Wooten,

I was using a XLO phono cable. With that, the best loading I found was at 81 ohms.

Then I changed to a Purist Audio Venustas. I could immediately hear that the loading was different. With that cable, I found that 100ohms was best.

As the Airy breaks in, people have found that the loading requirements change. Since you bought your used, you may not have much of a break-in or loading change.

Darrell

The phono cable has no effect on loading.

Ralph Karsten (Atma-Sphere) explains this quite thoroughly in a recent thread.

The voltmeter azimuth adjustment really seems to be a crap shoot without a filter ("low pass" I believe) to eliminate the bounce in the DMM reading. Others have mentioned that this is easily built from Radio Shack parts but I haven't come accross instructions on how this is done. Does anyone know where to access information on how to construct one of these. Without it, it's really a guess as to which numbers to go with for calculating cross talk. For this reason, I currently start with the azimuth level and adjust by ear if it seems necessary. Wooten, you may want to have a filter ready before you try the DMM method.

Sonofjim-
I THINK I’ve got that handled. I made two sets of jumpers that I will be hooking up to a stereo pair of VSA subs’ speaker level out. I can roll off everything below 40-200 Hz. depending on what I set it to. The track I’ll be playing is a pure 1000hz tone off a test record. The noise from the TT should be rolled off the signal going to the two voltmeters I have on order. I ordered these because they have settings for low voltage AC. The not-so-optimized voltmeter I have now showed me that my azimuth is off by about 5% or so. I am hoping this will work well. I got the idea from Fremers TT set up DVD. I’ll post results later.
After I get the azimuth correct I’ll most likely get a Mint LP protractor.

My voltmeters (Mastech DT9205 from Amazon) came Tuesday. They were easy to use, and the process was pretty straightforward. I got the general idea from the Michael Fremer's Practical Guide to Turntable Set-up DVD. It took me 1 1/2 to 2 hours to get the Azimuth "just right". I think it would take less time the next time now that I have a little more understanding of the finer details. The cross-talk was reduced and the imaging seems much more precise. I am very happy with the results.
I am still working to set optimum VTA and cartridge loading.