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How long before your cartridge warms up?

Wondering if people would share how many sides of a LP must be played before they believe their cartridge has warmed up and is on "full boil" so to speak. My Ortofon MC Anna seems to like about 2 to 2.5 sides of an album (e.g. 33.3 rpm) before it really comes to life. This is something I am just starting to notice as I am fairly new to analog.
audiofun
dover
2,229 posts
 
If you read the fine print on your cartridge manuals, some manufacturers actually publish temperature and/or humidity guidelines. A friend of mine found the Shelters mistrack here depending on the season, whereas the Benz tracks fine all year round. Interestingly Benz publishes temperature operating ranges that fit the climate here.
audiofun OP
799 posts
 
I find this whole discussion interesting and I have already gleaned some good things to take from the discourse. Thanks all.
jcarr
382 posts
 
Hi Doug: your experience with altered VTF for different operating temperature is worthwhile, but with one caveat.

Increasing the VTF will make tracking more secure and bring the SRA back to where it should be, but it will not compensate for temperature-driven deviations in measured frequency response. To correct that, I don't believe that there is any alternative to setting the room temperature to whatever the cartridge manufacturer recommends.

OTOH, since the measured frequency response at the outer bands of the LP will almost certainly be different from the frequency response at the inner bands, perhaps it is not such an important thing to quibble over.

(I have been re-reading a white paper that the Entre company published for their EC-25 cartridge series, which includes graphs showing the differences between outer-groove response and inner-groove response. The outer-inner difference that Entre reported was between 6-7dB for a Japanese-made test record, and it looks to be about 13dB for a test record made in either the US or Europe.)

kind regards, jonathan

PS. Recommendation for Lyra owners - our preferred operating range calls for temperatures of 22-23 degrees centigrade, and a relative humidity of 58-60%.
audiofun OP
799 posts
 
So it does appear that is my room is below 75 degrees F my cartridge (MC Anna) requires a side or two to warm up and start delivering on the quality I know it to be capable of.., realized this last night when the sound wasn't so great and I correlated it to my over zealous use of the "cold" button on the thermostat :)
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