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Ortofon Red/Pro-ject Carbon Debut combination; rolled off hi-frequencies. Solutions?

Hi there.

I just bought a Project Carbon Debut SB with a factory equipped Ortofon Red. After 30 hours break-in the mids are fine (smooth, rich and full), bass is a little fat but tolerable but the highs, as I expected were rolled off; but more than I expected and not acceptable to me. Obviously, there will be compromises in a "bargain" turntable but mechanically and sonically I think it's good basic platform to start with.
 
The TT is playing back through the inboard phono stage of my Musical Fidelity A3.2 integrated. I've swapped interconnects, starting with Audioquest Diamondback (nice mids, darker top end) and Wireworld Equinox 6's (brighter top but not much inprovement in air, and surprisingly a bit grainy and obscure in the mids).

I'm thinking my 1st step is upgrading the cartridge to either the Ortofon Blue, Shelter 201 of the new Audio Technica VM540ML; the replacement for the old AT400ML which was a bit too bright but otherwise highly musical and faithful in reproduction (I had one in my Music Hall MMF5.1) but there aren't any reviews of it to be found on the web or in hi-fi mags.

I am on a budget and before I start throwing hundreds of bucks around and burning months of experimentation on swapping out cables, outboard phono stages and cartridges I thought I'd throw this subject open to discussion to my brothers of the cloth who have the same high fidelity point of view as I.

Any recommendations or opinions are welcome. 


morbius2130aol

Showing 1 response by reubent

reubent
6,939 posts
 
morbius,

I own the  Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB that shipped with the Ortofon 2M Red. Is this the table and cartridge you have?

I thought the table sounded pretty good right out of the box. I did notice a little less sparkle in the treble than I was expecting and I had hoped that break-in of the cartridge/stylus suspension would help it open up a bit. It did open up a bit after a few weeks of consistent play, however I still felt it should have a bit more sparkle in the treble. I starting trying a few things to see if I could get it to open up a bit more. Here's what I did......

Removed the felt mat - sounds more dynamic without the mat.

Set-up alignment - I went through a complete alignment of the cartridge. The factory alignment was off IMHO.

Cable - I replace the stock interconnect cable with an Audio Sensibility Impact SE phono cable. Immediately better.....

Replaced the 2M Red Stylus with a 2M Blue Stylus (the cartridge body is the same, so they are interchangeable). The blue is better across the board, including the treble. However, my cartridge moved when I installed the stylus and I need to go back through the alignment again.

That's my Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit SB story. I'm pretty happy with the table at this point. I use it nearly daily and I enjoy the sound. I have a much more expensive digital rig, and I prefer the sound of the TT. It's just a more organic and engaging sound to me. With the replacement phone cable and stylus, I have about $900 new retail in the setup. Is it the best $900 combo setup you can buy? I have no idea. I would like to try other similarly priced setups, but I'm happy with my setup and not willing to spend any money searching for something different.


 
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