VPI Classic and ZYX 4D

To be clear, I do track the first (12dB) track completely clean but get mistracking on the second (14dB) track. Optimal antiskate to decrease this mostly right channel distortion seems to be between 2.5 and 3 on the SME dial.

I agree with you - something must be amiss - just can't quite figure out what it is!

In the meantime the overall sound is excellent so I put up with the occasional mistracking towards the end of sides of a few LPs.

gotcha.

The I was correct, I understood you tracked the 12dB's but you posted something here that sounded like you were unable to track any of the 3 tracks.

If you then track the 12dB, how bad is the distortion on the 14db's?
Is it on both channel? Lots of distortion?

I have now 99% good on the 14dB's. One ch is perfect while the other one is juuusstt the little top cres.
But since I don't have any powerful antiskate install I can't go any further but since you have the AS system you shouldn't have problem to get this one 100% right.

Just a little updat.

I have re-set the eight down to 2gr and lower the antiskate so just enough to get the 12dB's one thus the 14dB is not distorting.

Sound is ver clean dynamic and crisp.
Harmonics are comning through.
The funny thing is that I hear less distortion that when I had it set up for the 14dB's one.
I will hopefully do more listening in the next days.

But anyways it is true that ZYX works properly at 2gr.

If people are still reading me, I just want to ask Hfisher:

have you ran the lateral and vertical resonance test?
Side 2 track 2 and 3.
If not, please run it and tell me what your results are.
They both should be around 10Hz.

I have ran the 2 tests and I found out that without any extra weight they are both on the 16Hz which is not quite right.
I guess I will have to look into the stanless steel armtube.

Let me know.

This thread has gone off the rails...

1. As Myles Astor pointed out, fine tuning a cartridge when it has only 20-25 hours on it is a waste of time. Mark was wrong that all ZYX's need 100's of hours to break in (the UNIverse needs only 50 or less to behave normally), but 25 is certainly not enough. Stop fussing and listen to music for 100 hours or so.

2. Stephanoo and some others on this thread are MIS-USING the four anti-bias tracks on the HFN&RR test record. These tracks are not "tests" that must be "passed". If you set a cartridge to "pass" a higher db track than it wants to, you will end up with excessive VTF, excessive anti-skate or both.

This is a common misunderstanding among newbies, because the instructions with that record are poorly written.

These tracks were DESIGNED to make your cartridge mistrack. The only reason there are four tracks of differing amplitudes is that different cartridges track differently.

The idea is to pick the ONE track that BARELY causes YOUR cartridge to mistrack under normal VTF. Then adjust anti-skating until the mistracking is equal in both channels. DO NOT try to eliminate the mistracking and especially DO NOT try to "pass" higher amplitude tracks. That is a mis-use of the record.

Frankly, I find those tracks and the whole HFN&RR record worthless. I've set up 50 cartridges in the last 5 years, on my table and others, without using or needing it. Throw it away. Learn to adjust by listening to music. That's what you bought the cartridge for, that's how you should adjust it.

/rant