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Help: New Rega P3 & Grado Platinum; No highs


This is my first table and it seems terribly simple
to set up but alas, I am defeated. The sound coming
out of this combo is muted, dull, and with no high
frequencies. Switch to my CD and things seem
right again.

What I did:

I aligned the Cart with the cardboard alignment gadget
I set the bias and tracking weight to 0
I balanced the arm to just above the LP using the weight
I set the tracking weight to 1.5
I set the bias to 1.5

Result: dull, lifeless, mushy sound with no highs.

I increased the tracking weight and bias to experiment
but it didn't help. After two 3 hours I decided the right
thing to do was to search for a rope and hang myself but
I couldn't find one so I had a shot of tequila and went to
bed instead.

I also notice that the tone arm lifter level doesn't rise
high enough to push the arm up so I have to slowly
drop the arm on an lp. This seems like it *could*
easily bend the cantilever so I would like to know how
to fix this as well.

I'm in Seattle so if there are any local analogue experts
reading this, I'd love to chat on the phone.

Thanks
Tom
eastside_guy
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
#1 You have to use Grado Platinum with proper VTA. You can get 2mm and 4mm rings to adjust your cartridge-record profile.
#2 Grado-Rega isn't a good combo(never heard a successful setup)
#3 Make sure that you get enough gain in you phono(not sure what output version of the cart you have)

And finally I've just placed a thread with the problem that is very similar to yours and I want you to get in there.
eastside_guy OP
29 posts
 
My Setup:

Grado Platinum Ref 1.5mv
Rega P3 with the tonearm that comes with it.
Classe 30 Preamp set to mc operation. (Good volume range)
Classe 100 amp
Martin Logan Aerius i
fatparrot
1,314 posts
 
Before you go nuts, give the unit some playing time to burn in. I just set-up a SME table with a Grado reference, and it took a good 40 hrs. for the sound to open up. I am not familiar with the table; just know of it. Can the phono cable to the pre-amp be replaced with an after market premium cable (most stock cables are dreadful!) Also, what are you using for a phono pre-amp? You might want to give Grado a call. They told me that that for the VTA, their cartridges should appear to have a slight backwards tilt (the bottom surface of the cartridge should not be parallel to the record surface but appear to be SLIGHTLY higher in the front than the back. Email me if I can be of help. Good luck!
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
Fatparrot is making a right point about arm's original internal and phono wires. They're horrible.
I assume that not only the phono stage but tonearm wiring is also important to match the cartridge.
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