Vinyl Newbie In Need Of Enlightenment... Is this it?

[Cucumber_Jones]

I had the chance to listen to a well set up vinyl system last week and I was blown away. There was the occasional analogue artifact but not much. The owner does clean his LPs - even brand new ones.

It was quite the system and I can see why people go to the trouble.

You will work it out. Please give us updates. Also send us some photos. You always take great shots of your terrific room.

[Removed]

Originally Posted by esteban

Yes, I checked that before playing the first album. The Phono Box II actually offers both MC and MM loads, and the Sumiko BPII is MC. I do not believe the problem lies there, but I am using the MC setting. Is this not correct?

Not correct....your cart is a high output MC which is 2.5Mv and your phono box has 60dB of gain in the MC position and 40dB of gain set at the MM position..... your simply over driving the cartridge with way too much gain, switch it to the MM position, that is the correct position for your cartridge......High output MC always need much lower gain and something in the 40dB to 48dB of gain

[esteban]

Thanks, Jeff. I just tried what you suggested. I unplugged the Phono Box, switched to MM, and plugged it back in. There is no LED indicator anywhere on the unit, so hopefully the change did take effect.

Things improved overall, the sound is now warmer and more natural, but the distortion is definitely still there, and still mostly apparent "on the outer edges" of the stereo image (apologies... that is the best way I can think to describe the issue). But all in all, still unacceptable quality, and still very much noisy and a little "edgy".

Also (and, again, excuse my ignorance on this subject), if a cartridge is advertised and designed as MC, why would one need to connect it to the MM option? I do understand your explanation in the above post regarding the gain but, good lord, can this get any more confusing? Sorry if I sound frustrated. I was hoping to spend a nice weekend enjoying my new record purchases...

When I asked my wife what she thought of the sound while playing one of her Prince records (she loves Prince and has an entire collection of his albums, even on vinyl, but she is not by any means an audiophile), she said "well, obviously the CD sounds better"...

[esteban]

More observations, to add to my post above:

Rhyno's 180 gm re-issue of "Coltrane Plays The Blues" now sounds terrific, but it is a very warm and natural-sounding record to begin with. On the other hand, Yes' "Far From Here" and McCartney's "Band On The Run" (also brand new 180 gms re-issue), both a lot more complex recordings, with plenty of heavy guitars and layered instruments, exhibit plenty of distortion, again "on the outer edges". McCartney's in particular is also very noisy and sounds positively nasty, with pops gallore. In the case of "Far From Here", the distortion seems to get worse as the record approached its end. The last two songs in particular were harsh. I am puzzled.

On the positive side, vocals and percussion sound terrific!

[Alberto]

Originally Posted by esteban

Thanks, Jeff. I just tried what you suggested. I unplugged the Phono Box, switched to MM, and plugged it back in. There is no LED indicator anywhere on the unit, so hopefully the change did take effect.

Things improved overall, the sound is now warmer and more natural, but the distortion is definitely still there, and still mostly apparent "on the outer edges" of the stereo image (apologies... that is the best way I can think to describe the issue). But all in all, still unacceptable quality, and still very much noisy and a little "edgy".

Also (and, again, excuse my ignorance on this subject), if a cartridge is advertised and designed as MC, why would one need to connect it to the MM option? I do understand your explanation in the above post regarding the gain but, good lord, can this get any more confusing? Sorry if I sound frustrated. I was hoping to spend a nice weekend enjoying my new record purchases...

When I asked my wife what she thought of the sound while playing one of her Prince records (she loves Prince and has an entire collection of his albums, even on vinyl, but she is not by any means an audiophile), she said "well, obviously the CD sounds better"...

Esteban.

The answer to your MC/MM question is simple. At 2.5mv our cartridge is a high-output MC so, electrically, it's a match for the MM input in your phono.

If we had talked before this, I would have probably recommended an MM cartridge to start with as I've found them more suitable tonally pleasant at the low-end of the price range. In other words, I would chose (and have chosen) a high-end MM vs. a low or mid-end MC. But this is all very personal.

As far as your experience goes, it sounds like there are setup issues. I don't clean my records (at least not with a fancy cleaning machine) and I don't have a lot of pops and ticks in them. I will not debate that a clean record will sound, er, cleaner, but I don't want to deal with that overhead and extra work. Sometimes, a brand new record needs a couple of plays to let the stylus smooth out some "debris" left during pressing. I have the same Dark Side of the Moon you have and it has some pops and ticks that went away after a few plays and now it sounds stupendous.

While my system sounds delicious with digital - even with Pandora and Rhapsody - when I want to push deliciousness even further I go to vinyl. When properly setup it's simply in a different league in term of involvement for me. But it took me a while to get good at setting up my turntable and cartridges, a millimeter here and a fraction of a gram there can make a big difference.

Alberto

[Removed]

MC cartridges come in three flavors, LO, Med and Hi output and all three require different amounts of gain (amplification). There is no set amount for a given cartridge, like your 2.5mV can run well with 38dB-48dB of gain and every phono stage/cartridge match up will be slightly different.....If your still getting distortion or mis tracking its most likely your set up and you should really look into a few tools like a scale and protractor.....also remenber there is good sounding vinyl and bad sounding vinyl just like CDs.....
__________________

[Masterlu]

I agree Jeff, however that particular McCartney "Band on the Run" 180 gram Album is a very good one!

[W9TR]

Esteban,
Don't give up! You will be able to get your rig sounding fine. While it is hard to diagnose remotely, here are a few thoughts.

Your descriptions are excellent. Both the "distortion on the edges" and higher distortion in the inner grooves point to insufficient vertical tracking force. The VTF range for your cartridge goes up to 2.0 grams, I would start at the maximum and see if things settle down. less is not necessarily better when it comes to VTF.

Is the overall tonality ok? Does the distortion go down or disappear when you switch to mono? When you switch to mono, does the image center perfectly between the speakers? Or it sound diffuse?

Regards,

Tom

[bumboola]

You do know that 1.9g VTF equals 19 on the counterweight, right? Did the dealer balance and calibrate the counterweight or did you do that yourself? If everything was done correctly using the dial on the counterweight is at least .05g accurate. As I said and the above poster said it sounds like the VTF is too low. Distortion over more complex passages is a classic symptom of too low VTF. You could also have a build up of dust and fibers on your stylus and that would cause what you are describing.

I started out with this exact same table and still own it. I experienced none of what you are describing and having never owned or even heard a turntable before I fell for it (the format) hook, line and sinker. I knew as little as you know about it in the beginning as well.

[esteban]

Originally Posted by Cucumber_Jones

You always take great shots of your terrific room.

Thank you! And big thanks also to everybody who's been contributing to this thread with tips and observations. The wealth of knowledge in this forum is truly priceless.

Alberto: now I know better! Remind me to touch base with you next time I decide to make such a huge leap of faith!

Tom, the overall tonality seems to be ok, yes. No problems there. I can appreciate what analog lovers mean when they talk about "liquidity" and a more "fluid" and "continuous" sound. It's the "outer distortion" and grunge, plus the noise levels, that kill it for me. In the meantime, even though switching from MC to MM helped significantly, the problem persists. You folks are probably hitting it right on the head and this might all have to do with a VTA issue. My dealer did set-up everything himself and, even though I'd love to get my hands dirty trying to tweak things myself as you indicated, I have to confess that this is a brave new world to me, and to say that I am more than intimidated is an understatement. You speak about VTA, tracking errors and counterweights, etc, and I do appreciate your help immensely, trust me, but music enjoyment should not be THIS complicated! Last turntable I used was 25 years ago or so. My father's. I was 10 or so and I could operate it with no issues at all. Sounded great, from what I remember. It was fully automatic, came with a dust-cover, and did not have a diminutive "weight" hanging from an almost invisible and all-too-fragile-looking thread. Thank god I have no pets! And I don't remember my father's table being this noisy nor picky (by the way, it still works to this day). So I did contact my dealer and hopefully he'll be able to stop by sometime soon to try and identify the problem. He said he'll also bring a NAD preamp to compare with the Pro-Ject. I'll let you all know how things turn out as soon as I have news. I haven't played any more albums since.

In the meantime, I'll admit that I'm beginning to feel as if this whole affair was the wrong choice for me. Even if the sound does improve (and I'm sure it will), I think I'll have a hard time adjusting to the realities and idiosyncrasies of analog. My Oppo 95 and Squeezebox Touch give me too much musical pleasure and pretty much demand nothing from me in return. To make matters worse, one of the Ennio Morricone albums I mentioned earlier seems to be defective, because it has a rhythmic, constant, impossible-to-ignore noise all across Side B. It basically follows the same sonic pattern throughout the entire running time of the side, and that is why I believe it to be a pressing defect, independent from the other issues I am experiencing. And this was the album I was the most excited about! Brand new, recent pressing. 180 gms. Cost me almost $40, and that was more than a month ago. Can't return it. I'm in luck this weekend, it seems.

A part of me wants to eat the above words, though! Badly. A ton of audiophiles can not be wrong, after all. Hopefully once I can actually learn how to love the table I'll get inspired enough to take some nice photos.