Thank you for your responses - I took the weekend off from obsessing over my turntable so didn't see your posts until today.
The stylus is there and it is clean - inspected it under a loupe and used Zerodust to clean it. I improved the sound a bit by adjusting the gain on the pre-amp/phono stage but the sound is still not good. I am not sure how to test the tubes to see if they are bad - don't have a tester of any sort and don't have any spare tubes to see if a different tube would sound better. I do have another phono-stage I can try in order to eliminate the phono-stage as the culprit.
I actually emailed Chris of Teres about the bearing oil, but it has been over a week and there has been no response; apparently Teres Audio customer service isn't what it used to be. I am not sure how to go about checking the bearing oil - mostly, I am not sure I have the strength to move the turntable to where I would need to in order to work on it, let alone having the strength to pull the platter off (I think that is what you have to do with the Teres - it has been a long time since I put this turntable together!) How does the bearing oil affect the sound? The platter revolves smoothly and quickly reaches the correct speed, so it would appear the oil is still OK. Or is it just a good idea to replace it when the turntable has just been sitting for a few years? |
Thank you for your response, Jmcgrogan2.
I wish I lived close to Philadelphia, but I live in Colorado in the Denver metro area; I would be more than happy to receive a house call from someone who can help me, but don't know any other Audiogon members in the area, though I am sure there must be some. Any volunteers?!?
I am sorry to hear that Teres Audio now has the reputation of giving poor customer service. Back when I bought my turntable, things seemed to be different. I worked closely with Chris, went to his house to audition the equipment, exchanged frequent emails with him, and he even came to my house to help me set up the turntable once I had it all assembled. I haven't had any contact with him for a few years, though. Disappointing indeed.
(I also find it odd that Chris no longer even has a section on his website for turntables, just for the motor and tonearm he is currently selling. The only mention of current production turntables is the price for shipping them that is detailed on the ordering page. I wonder if he is getting out of the business?)
I did buy my ZYX cartridge/stylus from Mehran. I sure hope the problem is not the ZYX - I have no money to buy even a cheapie replacement. I will contact Mehran, though, if everything else I try fails to make my turntable sing like it used to do.
I am still curious why changing the bearing oil might improve the sound, but as I am grasping at straws now...I might as well do that bit of maintenance as well. I found my manual (such as it is - a print out of a few pages) for the Teres turntable; there is no recommendation in there about changing the bearing oil at regular intervals, but it does explain how to remove the platter. I'm not looking forward to it, but hopefully it won't be too painful of a task!
Holly |
Well John, Colorado makes a lovely vacation spot; are you not ready to take a nice vacation? lol Yeah, a long road trip indeed, and it won't necessarily be warmer here, either.
If it is the cartridge, I wonder how a $50 or less cartridge would sound in this rig? Might be an improvement over the sound my much more expensive cartridge is giving me! I will check the cartridge and stylus again, plus do the whole set up again, and change out the phono stage if need be to see if any of that helps. If it is the cartridge, I will be listening to CD's for a long, long time. :-( Luckily, CD's sound great in this system, but, oh, I do want to be able to play records again.
Stringreen - I do know what you mean, but Teres Audio was highly recommended to me by folks right here on Audiogon when I asked for turntable recommendations, plus they were a local company (working out of Chris's home at the time) and I could actually audition the turntable and bug the owner with lots of questions! It seemed ideal at the time, and all was well for several years. Perhaps if I had kept up with my system, I would also still have a line of communication to Chris. I may try another email to them, just to see if I can rattle some cages and get a response.
Holly |
Oh, Mofimadness! Somehow I didn't even see your post when I responded to John and Stingreen. Yes please! I am off to send you an email!
Holly |
Thank you for your response, Swampwalker. Yeah, I would say that the Teres Audio story is close to its ending - the fact that they no longer have a page on their website showcasing their current turntable offerings is rather telling.... Chris's father actually died in 2007 so I am not sure that his demise led to the demise of the business, but who knows. Anyway, I don't expect to get any help from Chris, though, ever the optimist, I did send another email.
Luckily, folks like Mofimadness exist in this world; he is going to come down after the holidays and help me figure out what is wrong with the system and to get it set up properly. I am hoping that I made a boneheaded mistake with the set up that has caused the distortion problem, or that it is a bad tube in my pre-amp. If it is indeed the cartridge/stylus suspension, I will be very sad as there is no way I can purchase a new cartridge, especially one as good (IMHO) as the ZYX. In that case, I will be listening to CD's for a long long time to come....
Holly |
lol - I didn't mean to imply that I was going to give up on analog; I just don't have ANY money to spare right now and probably won't for months, so if the cartridge is bad, I have no choice but to temporarily abandon my vinyl rig until I can afford to buy a decent cartridge - I don't imagine that my system would benefit by going from a ZYX to a cartridge of less than $50, even if it would probably sound better than what I am experiencing with the turntable right now.
If Mofimadness does determine that the problem is with the ZYX, I will definitely contact Mehran to find out what my options are. I still remember how nice it was to work with him when I was making up my mind about which ZYX cartridge would be "the one" for my system.
Holly |
Thank you for your response, Dougdeacon, and for your advice. My turntable tools are rather...primitive...I suppose, though the TTB protractor was recommended to me, back in the day, so I bet Mofimadness will be able to help me out there! I am sure I will learn a lot from him, finally find out how to really set up a turntable, as well as finding out what "gotta have" tools I need.
I will wait until Mofimadness gets down here to check the turntable out before messing with the stylus anymore, but I do have a Magic Eraser stylus cleaner (ok, a piece of Magic Eraser attached to a plastic toothpick, lol) but haven't used it this time around, just used the Zerodust cleaner.
If you have instructions for changing out the bearing oil, I would love to have a copy, too. I did find the instructions for removing the platter, which is the first step. The last time I looked into it, which was several years ago, Chris was recommending ATF, but he no longer responds to emails, at least, not to mine. What bearing oil do you recommend using, Doug? I would like to get this done before Mofimadness's visit; as I recall, it takes several days for the bearing to reseat so it needs to be done in advance.
Holly |
Thank you, everyone, for your responses. :-)
The phono stage is a Wright Sound Company WPP200C with the Wright Sound Company phono transformer/step up, model WPM100. Both the power supply and the pre-amp have tubes; Mofimadness indicated he would be able to check the tubes to make sure they are all OK. I am hoping that it is providing the correct loading for the cartridge - I know it used to work fine in my set up. Perhaps this is another thing that Mofi can check. I will have my other phono stage ready to go if it turns out that the Wright Sound phono stage is at fault.
I am going to wait for Mofimadness to come down here before I "play" with my vinyl system anymore - I don't want to make things worse and I am hoping he will quickly see/hear what is wrong. Unfortunately, I do not have any other stylus/cartridge to try so, as I have said before, I am really, really hoping that the cartridge is not at fault.
Chris responded to my emails - YAY! He was out of town for a couple of weeks which is why he did not respond previously. He said there was no need to replace the turntable bearing oil and that he does indeed still recommend the use of ATF in his turntables, as you confirmed, Doug. He has indeed cut back on his business, now only sells the motor and tonearm that are offered on his website, but he is still deeply involved in the world of good audio.
I did use a gauge to set the tracking force on the tonearm. There are no markings on the tonearm for it, you just move weights at the end of the tone arm to make adjustments. ZYX recommends a tracking force of 2 grams. I have it set at about 2.03 or so. The gauge I have is a no-name gauge made in China. I checked the accuracy of the gauge with a 5 gram weight; it read 5.002 so I think it is reasonably accurate; we'll see what Mofimadness comes up with.
I remain hopeful that it is something simple that I have overlooked or done incorrectly. I will let everyone know what happens!
Holly |
Well, it has been a while. Mofimadness came down this weekend and did some trouble shooting to see what the cause of the poor sound was. He said from the beginning that the only way a mistake in set up could cause the sound we were hearing was if I had installed the cartridge sideways. lol He thought it was probably a bad tube, but....
Well, the problem was the stylus. At first he thought the tip was gone and then he realized it was upside down (almost like installing the cartridge sideways I suppose!) Somehow I had managed to mishandle the cartridge and the cantilever twisted, or, possibly, the suspension had dried out while the system sat idle for years, allowing the cantilever to twist... Dunno, but it is trashed!
I had looked at the stylus and thought it looked odd but figured I either didn't know what I was looking for or my loupe just wasn't good enough. Sigh. Now I know what to look for!
The good news is that the phono stage is fine and all of the tubes tested near new, and it is likely that, once the cartridge is replaced, I won't have any problems with set up.
My tonearm is a Moerch DP-6 with the blue dot precision 12" arm tube. This is an extra heavy arm tube and requires a low compliance cartridge like the ZYX. The tonearm thus limits the cartridge choices.
At some point I am hoping to be able to get the ZYX repaired, but, due to a major lack of money, and the dearth of low compliance cartridges in the price range I can afford, I will be buying a Denon DL-103 cartridge to replace the ZYX R100H. I have a feeling I will be happy with this!
Thanks again to everyone that has offered me help here - and you were basically right from the get-go, Acresverde - the stylus was broken!
Holly |
I, too, am very happy that the source of the problem has been found, though I am very sorry that it was apparently due to me being careless with the cartridge/stylus at some point. Talk about being fumble-fingered..... :-(
I am indeed very thankful for Mofimadness and his willingness to help me - and he said he would come back if I run into problems setting up my new cartridge, too All praise to him! I am hoping I won't have problems with the setup and that I can invite him down for a fun listening session instead. We'll see!
I have read a lot of reviews of and posts about the Denon 103; it has some downsides but overall is considered a well-built and musical cartridge. I really think I will like it and this time around I plan to keep all of the components in my system until I really know what it sounds like and know what I would like to change - if anything - instead of foolishly running after 'the next best thing.' Maybe I can even get everything properly burned in!
Holly |
Please don't take my Audiophile club card away! OK, so I am perhaps more of a wanna-be audiophile, but still.... I will not be neglecting this system again; wasted about 7 years (wow, how time flies!) when I could have been listening to music!
Just ordered my new cartridge - Denon DL-103 - and will be working on leveling my equipment rack (has a broken spike/foot on the front that I shored up with some blocks, but....) For some reason Molfimadness recommended that I should level the rack first instead of putting various things under the turntable's "feet" so that I can level the turntable. lol Long past time to do this....
Holly |
Don't know how that "L" snuck in - Mofimadness, not Molfimadness! (Sorry, couldn't figure out how to edit after I submitted my post.) |
Yeah, I wish I knew "how the hell" I did that, too! I have used a piece of Magic Eraser to clean the stylus, but that was back when I was using the turntable and all was well when I turned it off the last time. I also used Zero Dust for the first time when I was trying to set up the turntable in December. I don't know if I was too ham-fisted and damaged it then. I don't know what happened, but I obviously did something I shouldn't have!
I am actually in the process of replacing the broken footer spike on the rack so hope to have it nice and level by the end of the evening! Mofimadness was very kind to me and didn't look at me like I was a nutcase for having things stacked under the turntable feet to make it level; he just said it really would be better if I fixed and leveled the rack... I can imagine what he was saying to himself, though! :-D
"I can almost guarantee its your cartridge. Remove it, send it back to the manufacturer, and have it repaired/replaced."
lol - yes, it has been determined that the cartridge is trashed, Stringreen. I emailed Mehran of Sorasound to find out what my options are, if any - when I can afford to do something with the ZYX; haven't received a response as yet. I also know that both Soundsmith and Andy Kim (Needle Doctor) are recommended for cartridge repair.
Holly |
