They're holding my cartridge hostage!!

[Fran]

So the new wood SL arrived today!


Mounted it up tonight and did all the alignment and checks.... twice. It sounds like BS, but you can almost hear it settling in and becoming more sure footed as it plays several sides. The first thing I noticed is that it definitely tracks better than the L2 I had. Now, you can see from above that benz said the L2 cantilever had a slight bend, so that may well have contributed.

The cantilever and tip is noticeably smaller than the L2 as well - or at least it seems so anyway. Maybe my eyes have got 2 weeks older!! So while alignment was easy enough - the cantilever is brightly coloured if only 1/4mm in diameter - unaided alignment isn't an option for me at least. A large magnifying glass worked wonders with the feickert gauge. I have it set to ~1.6g at the moment - a little on the light side, but I'm going to leave it there for a week or so to let it settle in a bit. Benz recommend 1.7-1.8g or so.

For other vinyl users out there I bought one of these stylus gauges:

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/digital-pr ... 69?item=65

One of the guys on another forum bought one and did some calibration tests etc and it all checked out - and most importantly he confirmed that the platform is non-magnetic so its suitable for MC carts. Mine was shipped last week so it might be here late this week or next week. I have another scales here that I normally use but this one is cheap, neater and weighs right at the record height, a must with the current tonearm.

So all well that ends well, I'll update again in a little while when the cart has settled down a bit more.


Fran