Help with uninspiring sound with my turntable.

I agree on all the posters above, including the breakin comment. I used to own a full circle, act arm and a lyra cartridge years ago before I went to my SME.

I think that unipivot arm is very tough to set up. And hence maybe contributing to your issues. I am not sure I ever had mine set up properly.

My dealer has a full circle in stock, I've heard his a few times and it sounds great. So I know it's not the table. (He is using a cardas heart cartidge)

Thanks again for the responses. As far as my anti-skate - it is a wire with a weight. where the wire attaches to the tone arm can be moved to different groves to change the effect, but I have no idea how to tell how much counter force each grove represents. I bought this TT used so I do not have a manual to explain this. Does anyone know this arm well enough to give me an idea?

Mapman, you may want to try less anti-skate tahn what is the norm. i do it by ear and have made pretty big improvements in the sound. my tracking force is 2.1 grams and I've found it to sound the best at .9 grams anti scrape.

You also may want to try different loading for your MC.
I have 2 MC's, I use 100ohms for 1 and 1000 ohms for the other. Wire type, cable lenth and connectors can all effect loading.
You can the MM input to try 47k loading with out changing the MC loading.
Loading has alot to do with the dynamics.

Liketolisten,

I used to own the Wilson-Benesch Full Circle with the A.C.T. 2 tonearm, Sumiko Blackbird cartridge and Graham Slee Era V phono preamp and the sound was extremely clean and articulate. Sibilants had no distortion whatsoever.

I purchased that turntable new from Music Direct and they were kind enough to do the cartridge alignment for me.

I sold the table few years ago, but I still have the protractor that the table comes with. It is basically a disc with a mark point for the overhang and a single null point.

I highly recommend to get the Mint Tractor. You should also look into the Mint Tractor thread to get more information and tips on how to get the best out this amazing tool.

I have a PDF file of the manual, which I'll email to you. You'll be able to set the anti-skating with this manual, as well as the azimuth.