A turntable, finally?

[Saxman]

Thanks Ivor

[Ivor]

Thanks Ivor

No bother, this might be an actual link, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1627458540875784/
The building itself is in Rathangan. Open on Sunday morning/noon and sometimes on Saturday. Not this weekend though.

[Saxman]

Thanks again

[Diapason]

A quick question: I'm noticing excessive sibilance some of the time which is slightly spoiling an otherwise excellent listen. I'm wondering if this points to a setup problem on my part? Is this a known sign of anything?

[Ivor]

A quick question: I'm noticing excessive sibilance some of the time which is slightly spoiling an otherwise excellent listen. I'm wondering if this points to a setup problem on my part? Is this a known sign of anything?

Sounds like alignment (no pun yada yada) Did the cart come fitted?

[Diapason]

Yeah, came fitted and I didn't touch it!

[DaveF]

Proper cart alignment, Vertical Tracking force (VTF) and Vertical Tracking angle (VTA) aren't just nice to haves in a turntable setup, they are pretty much essential to do.
When I first got back into hifi a few months ago I had a similar problem to yours. I found that my cart alignment was out a bit and the VTF was way off. Correcting this helped a great deal.
When I switched to the Hana cart I noticed the odd bit of 'shoutiness' on some LP's. In the end my VTA was set too high (the carts were physically different in height). Lowering the back of the arm about a mm or 2 eliminated this.

On various fora some say that sibilance is just part and parcel of bad pressings while others say nonsense that it's all down to your setup and how well your cart tracks. In any case I'd first check your setup.

[Diapason]

Thank you. I might go through the setup process again now that I understand it better. I should probably get myself one of those tracking force guage scale measure majiggers.

[Diapason]

OK, I should be working but I couldn't resist taking a moment or two to check a few settings.

Starting with the alignment, I checked with the supplied protractor and it looks pretty much spot on as installed. I don't think I could do better with my eye anyway.

So putting tracking force and anti-skate adjustments back to zero, I checked the balance of the tonearm. That could definitely be improved, so I took a little time adjusting the counter-weight until it seemed as balanced as I could get it. This was the bit that made least sense to me during initial setup, because I didn't really realise what I was trying to do. The instructions talked about adjusting until the stylus was 1mm off the playing surface, but it's pretty clear the balance was not right and the cartridge was pushing down. So I tried my best to get it to "float" this time and it required a reasonable pulling back of the counterweight.

When I was happy I set the tracking force and anti-skate back to 1.75 and stuck on a song that displayed lots of uncontrolled sibilance last night ("Before You Accuse Me" from Eric Clapton Unplugged). I thought off the bat that everything sounded just a notch more lifelike and sure enough when we got to the second line which last night was "...take a look at yourSSSSSelf", today there are no such problems. Nice one!!

Amazing what a little care and attention can do, when coupled with knowing what the hell you're trying to do! I feel much more confident now, things are sounding better, so thanks all. Of course, in googling this problem I found a LOT of people out there hate this cartridge, which I shouldn't have read. I also discovered that 2 of the albums I bought on Monday are on a Russian label called DOL who seem to have a reputation for just cutting vinyl reissues from CDs. It's all a learning curve...

[Ivor]

2 of the albums I bought on Monday are on a Russian label called DOL who seem to have a reputation for just cutting vinyl reissues from CDs. It's all a learning curve...

I have a few on DOL and they sound fine. I never heard that they use CD as a source but certainly a lot of reissues are done that way.

Well done on the tweaking, once you roll up your sleeves (literally) and make a few adjustments it's easier to recognise what's wrong and just fettle it. Don't mind what the internet says about a particular cart, deck, label or coffee. Enjoy what's in front of you. Yu can change in a few months if you wish.