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Please help, distorted and hissy treble

Guys, I have a denon DL-110 cart, oracle alexandria TT, well tempered arm (which i rewired this weekend with cryoed cardas stuff). And am still not happy with the sound. The treble is very hissy and seems to breakup and distort. Its more aparent on some albums than others, is this a function of crappy albums? Or is there something im overlooking. I am using the parasound PPH-100 phono stage with audioquest quartz cables. I had very simaler experience with my anthem PRE 1 phono stage. If I could get a smooth even response with minimal distortion I would be very happy. Ive played with VTA, it doesnt seem to help much, azumuth is pretty close, as is the cart alignment (i have no protractor). I also used the shure gauge to set stylus pressure.

Let me know if you guys have suggestions!

Thanks so much - Evan
eoie943220dd
dan_ed
2,451 posts
 
Cold solder joints? Secure ground leads? If all was working well before you re-wired then recheck all of the connections. There may also be some breakin in the new wires but that would not sound like what you are describing. You didn't hit the MM/MC button by mistake, assuming your phono has one, did you?
newbee
4,767 posts
 
You say cartridge alignment is close, but you have no protractor. Close don't count in TT set up! Get a protractor. If you haven't already, try increasing VTF to max of manufacturers recommended range. And yes, a lot of alblums have groove noise along with a variety of other noise producing faults. Hissy, I don't know...I always think of under-powered phono preamps when I hear about hiss, especially tube ones, when using cartridges that have very low outputs.
twl
3,251 posts
 
I agree with Newbee.

Get a protractor.
jphii
485 posts
 
I agree too, and here are some links to help you out:

Vinyl Asylum FAQ's

On second thought, that link ought to give you enough to go on for a while. If you look through there, you should be able to find a protractor that you can print out. Freebies work.

Also, new cryo-wire does have a break-in period. Let it play for a while to open up.
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