Gonna have to ditch the Soundsmith Carmen II

Let me answer some of the questions:

I tried lowering VTA ended almost had no affect. I went all the way down just to be safe

I used a Mint protractor first, then I stepped up to a
SMARTractor to align my table. Tried different alignment types too.

I use a fozgometer for azimuth 

I also reached out to Peter as well early on in power and all his advice. He was very nice.

I align the cantilever not the body

The SMARTractor makes alignment very easy and exact. 

To answer some questions,

i look at the cantilever and it’s reflection. 

As for vta, I don’t have a tool. It I do have my ears. If it would have changed for the better reardless of the actual angle I would be happy. 

I clean before each side is played and check the condition of the cantilever and diamond often. 

Hello Peter,

I did call you about a week or two after I purchased it. That was about 4-6 months ago. I don’t listen every day, usually on weekends so it’s taken me a while to go through all my the different variables.  You did indeed try to help and I went through all the different suggestions. I thank you for that. I honestly don’t think it’s the cart, but as someone said earlier it may not be working in good synergy with the system.  And my room certainly isn’t helping due to its small size.  It’s not sibilance with distortion, but the S’s seem more pronounced than they should be. 

I did did call VPI and talked with them as well, and I even bought a new pivot and cup to make sure that wasn’t the issue as there were some minor small scatches
that looked suspicious. As far as the alignment is concerned I’ve got the table zero’d in using the SMARTractor, Fogometer and a digital scale and I have followed all the best practices as described by people on the know such as yourself. 

The thing is I love the presentation of the music through the cart!

 I have left a message for Mr. Ledermann on their voicemail, they were out I do believe or offer the day. I am awaiting his call I will keep you posted . . .

So last night I took the dynavector 20x2L off and put the Carmen II back on. The Dynavector doesn’t sound as “real”. Period. That’s what I love about the Carmen, things just sound real. I set up the cart again, and yes, I set it up correctly, and did a sampling of albums: old 70’s up to current releases. There wasn’t  a specific pattern,  but 2 out of 3 albums had emphasized “S’s”. The other 1/3 seemed fine.

i have Zu Omen Def MK ii’s with the tweeter upgrade. I know people have a love’em or hate’um view. I love them. My other speakers are Thiel cs2.4’s. The Zu’s sound more like real music. The Thiels are very accurate, but a accurate doesn’t always sound good. On great recordings Thiels sound great. On anything less than great recordings not so much. The Zu’s have a great midrange and midbass. One thing I remember reading on a review of the Carmen II is that the midrange was noticed to be a bit pronounced. I didn’t think much of it at the time seeing how every system in every room is different. I think what is happening is due to the more pronounced midrange of the Zu’s plus possibly the slight emphasis of the Carmen II may just be pushing the dB in that frequency range to be more noticeable.  It this is just a theory. 

I tried swapping tubes on the Decware integrated amp I use and while I found a set that deemphasized the problem frequency range a bit it also took some of the liveness away as well. 

Always a possibility I suppose,  but why then only on lp?

Just received my Carmen cartridge back from Mr. Ledermann.  In short the sibalence has been eliminated!

According to Peter he checked my cart against his reference cart and reference albums and while he could not detect any aborrant behavier he indicated he made some minor tweaks, which I feel was not because of any issue with the cart, but more for my sake and my system synergy. He also suggests I adjust my tracking force to accommodate his tweak.  I'm not sure what specifically was done to the cart but it worked. 

So so in short I'm very satisfied, and I would like to personally thank Peter for taking personal interest in a customer and making sure his customer was happy. 

This is is how you keep customers for life. 

You must remember he did a minor tweak to mine, I’m not sure what he did but he asked me that I track at 1.8g to 1.9g. However after doing that I found it still sounded best at 1.6g,  so that is where I am tracking right now.  

 What are you not getting out of it what you think you should?