Integrating a new turntable into existing system and having sound quality problems...

None of the other albums had the same level of thinness and tininess as the diana Krall album but they all seemed light on bass compared to listening to CDs on the same system.

One odd thing i noticed on the Diana Krall album was that my tonearm kept wanting to come off the album at the start rather than grab a groove and work inwards. not a problem i have experienced with the other 6 albums I have been playing.

Thank you for all you helpful suggestions.

I have tried to reset the counterweight and VTF per the instruction manual.  I haven't tried going outside of those recommendations to see if that makes a difference.

I'll try taking a look at the wiring but that may be beyond my level of expertise with the equipment.

Unfortunately, I purchased the turntable in the nearest large city and the album was purchased from the local drug store that has a couple set ups (so you can imagine how cheap they are)

I did check the phono box and it is switched to MM.

One other thing i noticed  is that when I am not playing any music but my integrated is set to the AUX input where the phono is attached, i do hear a humming coming from the left speaker which is also the most distorted speaker  when listening to the Diana krall album.

The issue is most noticeable on the diana krall vocals, and some tracks much more than others, but there seems to be an overall distortion in the highs on the other albums as well.  not sure if that is just a weakness of vinyl or not.  I was wondering if my phono may not be amplifying the level enough before feeding into the integrated and that playing the integrated on 10:00 is starting to clip or distort at the high ends.  I play the CD player between 9-10:00 and never have this issue.  I was wondering if a phono preamp with gain on may help the situation.

Thank again for all your advice

Thank you again for all of your suggestions.

Stingreen - Unfortunately I don't live close to Arizona, I'm up in Vancouver.

Minkwelder - I will start to review some of those threads on the Debut Carbon buzzing.

Here is a list of what I have done to date:

1. hum comes from speakers even when power to turntable is turned off (but still plugged in)

2. I removed the grounding cable and it make a much louder hum.

3. I reconnected the ground cable to my power conditioner instead of phono amp.

4. I tried different interconnects

5. I switched the L and R and the hum started to come through the R speaker instead of the L

6. I switched the input of the TT to CD on my integrated amp and the hum was still there

7. I fiddled around with the interconnects to the TT and it seemed very sensitive causing additional humming or reducing humming if I kept my finger on it with a certain amount of pressure.

Clarification - when I say hum, it is a combination of hum and crackle that comes through the left speaker even when TT is not playing or turned on.  It really expresses itself with certain vocal ranges (i.e. Diana Krall and Michael Buble duet), where it sounds awful.  On some other jazz albums without vocals the effect isn't as noticeable.

I guess I am off to the dealer next week.  Any suggestions on whether I should be sticking with a new Debut Carbon of if there is something else I should get (including an upgrade) for up to $1k.  The Rega RP3 with Elyse are on sale for less than $1k in Canada.

Thanks

swampwalker - I only switched the interconnects between the TT and phono box.  Maybe i should have tried between phono box and amp as well.  For #7, I was applying pressure at the TT outs.  They seemed quite "temperamental"

Next stop is the dealer

Thanks

I visited the store where i purchased the turntable for the owner to take a look at it.  the crackling in the right channel was present on his system as well.  He thought that the poor sound quality was related to poor tracking since the cartridge was brand new.  He tested it on a tracking album and tweaked the counter weight to be much heavier than the manual called for.  he suggested i play it like that for 100-200 hours and then slowly back off the counter weight by .5 at a time. Also adjusted the anti skate accordingly to new counter weight position.

Solved the problem of the crackling speaker which was present even without an album playing and took care of the horrible sounding vocals on the Diana Krall album.

thank you everyone for your help!

vwman111, something isn’t right. As others have said, you shouldn’t have to run much higher VTF on a new cartridge. You could have the dealer install another cartridge to see if you ended up with a bad one..

And if the problem isn't with the cartridge, minkwelder may be on to something regarding the tonearm free-play. I’ll add that it could be bad wiring inhibiting the travel of the tonearm. That might explain the intermittent crackling you hear. One way you can check free-play is to “float” the tonearm and observe how it responds to small amounts of weight or force. I won't go into the details of how to do that with this post but if you're interested I can provide detailed instructions or you can do a web search and find many such instructions.

Regards,

Tom.