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Vinyl beginner frustrations Azimuth and VTA

Hi,

I've had my Pro-ject 6perspex turntable for a few weeks now, and its obvious now that there are several severe problems.

First of all, everything is placed slightly to the left. The soundstage is messed up, and too compact. When I move my head toward the left, vocals move left but stay in focus. When I move toward the right, vocals move right but immediately go out of focus and sound sort of like what you get when you mix up + and - on one speaker.

I guess this means that I need to adjust the azimuth. I've located the screw to do this, but I have no idea how much to move and how much movement is ok before I risk damage to the cartridge. The manual is a bit unclear on whether just twisting the screw is enough to adjust azimuth, or if I actually need to twist the tonearm manually. Could someone with the same turntable enlighten me? I'm also unsure about how the anti-skating weight might influence stereo imaging. There doesn't seem to be very much I can do with the anti-skating weight though, except selecting one of the three grooves.

Furthermore, while bass is tight and generally well defined (if a bit too overpowering on certain kinds of music), highs are virtually nonexistent, this is especially noticable for cymbals, which all but disappear. Midrange sounds more like what I get from cd, but especially vocals are too laid back and too far back in the soundstage

I searched around a bit, and from what I can see, the VTA needs adjustment. Again, I'm not sure exactly how much to move it by. According to this site http://www.walkeraudio.com/fine_tuning_your_turntable.htm I ought to raise the VTA.

However, my (horrible) pro-ject manual says the tube of the tonearm should be parallell to the record when it is lowered, but as far as I can see now it is slanting slightly downward, which would indicate that I should lower the VTA.

Hope I'm not too verbose... just needed to let off some steam :)
PS: I don't have any setup tools yet except the paper aligment tool that came with the table. I did order the one on www.turntablebasics.com though.
ahochan
rushton's avatar
rushton
2,445 posts
 
Hang in there, Ahochan! Trust your ears, get the alignment tool in hand that you've ordered, then take a deep breath and proceed slowly, step by step. When you have your alignment tool, start with overhang, then azimuth, then zenith. These are largely visual checks you will be making.

Setting azimuth on some cartridges can be tough if the cantilever is hidden underneath the body of the cartridge. The best tool to help you set azimuth will be a mirrored surface with scribed lines so you can see the length of the cantilever reflected in the mirrored surface (which will double the appearance of any offset) and align it to the scribed lines. Zenith is a bit crazier to get right. In all cases, keep in mind that your goal is aligning the cantilever, not the cartridge casing.

When you have your visual alignments made using your alignment tools, then move to set VTA and tracking force. Remember that these are interactive, and that some cartidges are more sensitive to VTA than others. Once you have them set approximately correct, then it's time to follow the Walker Audio instructions you found by listening and making the iterative adjustments Lloyd recommends. His directions really pay off if you're willing to invest the effort.

Among the articles you may have found online, I hope you found this one from VinylZone. It's a pretty good explanation for what you're working on:
http://www.deadwaxcafe.com/vzone/cartalign.asp

Great suggestions from others above -- we all seem to have been preparing replies simultaneously. :-)

Good luck!
ahochan OP
10 posts
 
Sorry, forgot to mention my cartridge. Its an Audio Technica AT33EV MC. One thing that worries me a bit is that the manual for the cartridge says to set overhang to match the overhang of the cartridge that came with the table, but of course there was no cartridge installed. The pro-ject manual doesn't seem to say anything useful about overhang, so when I initially installed the cartridge I just put it about midway along the rail.
rushton's avatar
rushton
2,445 posts
 
You'll use the alignment tool your ordered from Turntable Basics to set your overhang. Just follow the instructions that comes with that tool and you should be fine.
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nrenter's avatar
nrenter
765 posts
 
You could use this protractor generator from Conrad Hoffman:

http://www.conradhoffman.com/chsw.htm

I find it produces a far better tool than the TB protractor. YMMV.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
stonedeaf
101 posts
 
VTF: About 35 years ago I worked a Shure cartridge clinic with a engineer from the Shure factory. Folks could bring in any turntable and cartridge and we would inspect for stylus wear and set up their cartridges using a test record and oscilloscope.The engineer would always ask me for the maximum tracking force for that cartridge (regardless of manufacturer) and set the Tracking force for that. I finally asked him why the max every time - his response " Minimums are set by the marketing dept - max's by the engineering dept - believe whichever one you want". He then waited until the next V-15-II came up ( top of their line at that time) - set the VTF and antiskate for 1 gram -put it on the test record and the waveform distorted on a much lower velocity band of the test record - increased VTF and antiskate to 1.5 grams - it tracked cleanly every band on the record.
I have installed and set up several thousand cartridges since then - always have set to max.This was one of the things ( along with the outrageous performance to price ratio - always a best buy) that I liked about Grado carts - VTF 1.5 grams -period. Most of these were relatively modest tables that in the pre-CD era folks used a LOT.
YMMV - but max VTF works for me.
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