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I am at the end of my rope, please help

I have a problem that I can not solve and makes no sense to me at all.
My right channel is stronger than my left by a large margin. I can plug my tonearm cable directly into a Fozgometer (measures left and right output) and I get a substantially stronger signal on the right side. I confirmed this with my Voltmeter to make sure there was not a problem with the Fozgometer. So, as far as I can tell, this narrows the problem down to the Cart, Tonearm, Tonearm wire or the table.

Here is what I have tried:
1. Changed Azimuth in both directions. Small change but still much stronger on the right side.
2. Changed antiskating. Very little change.
3. replaced the cartridge. No Change.
4. replaced the tonearm and cartridge. No Change.
5. replaced the tonearm, cartridge and tonearm wire. No change.
6. I have used a second test record. No Change
My turntable is perfectly level.
I simply do not see how this is possible! I have an $83,000 system that I can not listen to. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

My system:
DaVinci Turntable > Lyra Titan i > Schroeder Reference tonearm > Manley Steelhead > Stealth Indra cables > VTL 450 amps > Stealth Mlt speaker cables > Vienna acoustic Mahler speakers
audioraider
hifihvn
943 posts
 
When I touch the white and blue pins on the cart I get a complete circuit. I don't think that should be happening. when I do the same to my backup MM cart I do not get a complete circuit. I am thinking that the cart has a short. Seems a little strange that it would be on both sides but my question is, Before I spend thousands on a new cart, is there any difference between a MM cart and a MC cart that would cause a complete circuit on an MC and not on an MM? Am I supposed to get a complete circuit?
Audioraider (Threads | Answers | This Thread)
Audioraider,Your reference to continuity is most likely causing confusion in this thread.There are good suggestions by knowledgeable people.Techs,Designers,Engineers,and hobbyist,are used to seeing 0 ohms for continuity.This may help give some clarification,if you are using the continuity setting in a digital meter.My meters that have it(feature),all give similar characteristics on continuity setting.This should tell you why you get continuity with the MC cartridge,but not for the MM cartridge.The link at the end is for one of my meters that has a continuity setting.It works best for tracing a broken connection,or direct short.It will beep below 25 ohms,and if the item being tested is above 250 ohms,is does not beep.It thinks nothing is being tested if it is above 250 ohms.Its just for quick convenience.That may explain the MM vs.MC question adding confusion.Your Lyra is around 5.5 ohms.Your MM is probably over 400 ohms.Here is the manual link for it.Hope this helps.Pdf reads page 6,actual page 2.Its for a Fluke 179 meter.[http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/175_____umeng0100.pdf]
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,861 posts
 
Hifihvn makes a good point. The way you assure that the reading you are looking at is real is to start out by shorting the leads of the DVM together and looking at the reading you get. If the leads are in good shape you will see about 0.1 ohm.

Now if the leads in the tone arm, say from the red lead to the center of the right channel RCA are more than about 1 ohm I would say that you have a problem. Now you might see a reading like 1.1 ohms; don't forget to subtract whatever the reading of the DVM is when you short its leads together. You are going to see some resistance because the wires are very thin. Some phono cartridges have source impedances as low as 5 or 6 ohms, so you can see that a series resistance like that could have an effect.

If you have beeper in the DVM that register continuity, it might beep if you have anything less than 400 ohms, so it cannot be trusted.
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Good points by Hifihvn and Atmasphere, of course.

Audioraider, in line with my earlier posts I would advise that you resist any temptation to perform any resistance or continuity measurements that would include your new $5800 cartridge in the measurement path. As I explained earlier, doing that may or may not be harmful, depending on the design of the meter, the design of the cartridge, and how long the test voltage from the meter is applied for, but an overabundance of caution would certainly not be inappropriate.

Regards,
-- Al
inna
7,296 posts
 
Audioraider, what hobby would it be?
Do other people hear what you do while listening to your stereo? Do you have anything near or around your turntable and cartridge that might cause the damage each time you replace things? It appears that there is some kind of unusual process going on there.
heyraz
177 posts
 
Did you try both of your "suspect" cartridges on another table/system/speakers? Or how about a cheap/different brand cartridge on yours?
In addition-I'm just going to throw this one out to you because it happened to a friend of mine, so please don't get upset.. the woofer of one of his speakers had it's wires reversed from the factory. That volume on that side always sounded lower whenever any portion of the recording was in mono. Yeah, that's right..a simple out of phase canceling effect.
We also played with/relied on our meters and test records to no avail. It's what you hear after all, isn't it?
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