Dynavector XX-2 MkII, riding too low?

welcome to Low Riders club 

why not upgrade with Dynavector ? 

I’ve read good things about Andy’s work. Thanks for the reminder.

Ever use Peter Ledermann at Soundsmith in Peekskill NY?  I wonder how they compare.

I have sent my cartridges to be rebuilt to the Needle Clinic in Washington State. Usually a week turn around time and always excellent results.  Andy is a good guy and won’t price gouge you.  I am a very satisfied customer. 

Agreed.  I have used Soundsmith in the past.  They do excellent work at reasonable prices.

If the Cartridge suspension has collapsed you can send the cartridge to Soundsmith and they will replace it with probably a better suspension and stylus. They are the only company in the US that specializes in
cartridge repair that I trust. And they are reasonable. When buying a cartridge always look into the manufactures record for repairing a defective cart. Most are very slow (a year or so). Soundsmith does it in about two months and constantly communicates with its customers about progress of the repair. 

I have no connection with Soundsmith

I had a DX20 like that and it ended up being the cartridge suspension had collapsed.

Awesome! Yeah to be honest, I’d be perfectly fine running a cart like that. At the end of the day, all of these are hand made/finished and none are absolutely perfect - you can always spot something a bit "off". No need to worry for now.

I did that Mark......don't see anything untoward.

Just raised rear of arm a bit. Arm tube still looks parallel on the index card,  and clearance under cart now looks a bit better. At least the gap is even, front vs rear of cart body. Thanks for the input.

Is there any way you can inspect the threaded shaft of the headshell to see if it is bent in any way?

I've unscrewed and  rescrewed (is that a word?  ha-ha!) the headshell a few times and it is seated properly.

A bad headshell  to arm connection?

Thanks guys, it does look that way to me also. Yet using the lined index card technique, the armtube looks completely parallel to platter (see photo). I guess this means the headshell is not completely flat, or somehow tilted down to the rear.

I’ll try raising arm rear a bit.

I agree, if you adjust the VTA so the flat part of the bottom of the cartidge is parallel with the record surface, it will give additional space.

The first thing I noticed is that all 3 of the cartridge photos show the rear of the cartridge body lower than the front (uneven spacing to the record). 

That can be enough clearance, but if it’s much lower than other units of the same model then that would still be of concern. Also unclear is if the suspension’s fully settled, or whether it will sag more over time. I’ve had Koetsus with just about that much clearance (relative to the crest of the fancy metal lip formed around the cantilever), or really even slightly less, run perfectly fine over the long haul. There’s a bit of unit-to-unit cantilever grade variation on those, too. Though to be fair, both my turntables have clamping systems (ring clamp or vacuum hold-down), which lets you get away with minimum clearance.

The other thing - maybe just camera angle - it looks like the stylus is riding a bit on its "heels". If you raise the tonearm/VTA towards more level, or even slightly on its "toes", it could help a lot with the clearance situation.

If I were you I’d call my closest Dynavector dealer or distributor, show them the pic, and ask what they think. In the meantime, double-check your VTA and VTF.

Picture is worth 1000 words.   Please go here to see the situation:

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery;area=browse;album=28086

(Is there a way to embed pics into my post?)

I just took cart off the arm and measured it with my calipers.  Best I can tell, diamond is about 2mm below cartridge body.   Once tracking force is applied, that distance is less.  So yeah.....less than 2mm clearance when record is playing.

1/8 inch is 3.2mm.   If that's what it is with tracking force applied, I do appear to have a problem.  Ugh!

I have this cart and there is about an 1/8" clearance on mine. I would think somethings not right.