Kleos Sibilance

I have been trying to tame the silblance and tracking distortion on my scout for quite a while. I have taken the same records played on a scout to a friends house. He has an old Mission table, a very good one. There was no sibilance tracking error and no inner groove distortion on his table at all. He brought over the same alignment tool he used on his table and tried his best to fix it. When he was finished, he said that is the best it will be. Still sibilance and inner groove distortion. He said the same thing that Audiofeil said. Get a better arm and that the arm is not good enough to get the best out of the Benz. I guess unipivots are tough to engineer and the only one he has heard that sounded good was the Graham Phantom. He told me to look into gimble arm such as a triplanar. I cannot see myself drilling my scout to put a triplanar or phantom on it even if i could afford it. My room is always over 70 degrees so I don't buy that argument. A moving magnet cartridge would probably track better on my table. Could it be just a matter of being maxed out, facing reality, plain and simple. Maybe I should try a Rega RB300 and see if the problem goes away. I guess it is a pretty good value.

"Maybe I should try a Rega RB300 and see if the problem goes away. I guess it is a pretty good value."

Ixnay on the Rega. No VTA adjustment unless you buy the Mitchell mod. I believe the Rega's to be common not great.

What is the weight of your Benz? VPI has headshell weights. Call 'em and ask them to send you one. There is also somebody selling something called the Isolator, which is essentially a headshell weight with dampening. Might be worth a try.

As I said earlier, VPI wants HEAVY cartridges.

Good Luck,
Robert

Tzh21y - I agree with Rob on the RB300. It's an excellent arm for the price, but I don't think that you'll find it up to the task of completely eliminating sibilance distortion.

If you want to try Rega, I would suggest giving the RB1000 as it supposedly has much higher bearing quality and tolerances.

I have had for some time the Michell Tecnoarm with Benz LP and I have found the combo magical .. obviously for the price of the Tecnoarm.
If you are interested I'm selling the Michell Tecnoarm that's in perfect condition as a new one.

He mentioned the rega as it is pretty much a drop in and it is also widely accepted as a standard decent arm. He thought it might give me an idea on what is going on. I have the headshell weight and although it helped, the cartridge did not sound very good with it, to my ears at least. I have also tried the the antiskate and it did not sound as good as without. I have the Mint LP and my cartridge is definitely aligned as good as it will get. The frustrating thing is that it is sort of a teaser, the JMW tonearm allows me to get a taste of what the Benz is capable of, but will not allow the Benz to really shine. Does anyone know of a drop in replacement for the JMW 9. I am open to suggestions or is it just a matter of starting over.