@gochurchgo I have overlooked the newness of your Cart' and do agree there is a period of Time Required to acclimatise the Damping/Tension Wire to the real world.
The Card Trick remains a decent methodology to fine tune VTA for another occasion.
Phasemation cart on Technics
I recently got a Phasemation PP-500 and it’s fantastic. Part of the pulling trigger was something I read where Technics would demo the G with a Phasemation PP-2000. Given these are the same weight I figured it would work.
its sounds great and only 5 hours on it so far but I wonder if I set it up right. I used the jig and had to add the extra Technics weight to the arm as the cart is a little heavier. It’s listed at 8x10-6 whereas the outgoing cartridge is 10x10-6.
I am eyeballing a heavier arm that’s said to be a great match with the PM carts.
as of now it seems like the lower mids are light though bass is punchy.
Wondering what else I can do to help things.
thanks
@gochurchgo As @lewm mentioned, the sound will change as the cartridge breaks in. Hopefully you like where you end up. Best of luck! |
@oceanandmountains very nice! I’m running Heresy IV’s and am considering the Leben. anyway, I have removed both weights and completely redid the arm/angle/tracking force etc. see if maybe I butter fingered something. |
@gochurchgo Yeah, sorry, aux weight too. The rest of the system consists of a Leben EL84 amp and Leben tube phono through Klipsch Forte IV speakers. |
@oceanandmountains same setup the other than the mat. Are you using the aux weight? |
@gochurchgo I’m not a cartridge guru, but I am using the Phasemation PP-500 on a Technics 1210G (stock arm) with a Phasemation CS-1200 headshell (13.7g) and Oyaide BR12 mat (5mm). I’m definitely enjoying what I’m hearing... Also, I believe the low compliance you are quoting above was measured at 100Hz; Anamighty Sound measures the PP-500 at 14x10-6 at 10Hz, so medium compliance. The Phasemation/Technics stock arm combo is fairly common in Japan. |
@lewm great point and I guess I have never really thought about it. |
As long as the tone arm effective mass and the cartridge compliance are not wildly mismatched, I personally tend not to worry about that issue too much. For one thing, we never can know the actual compliance of a given sample of the cartridge. All we know is what the manufacturer tells us is the compliance of an average sample. For another thing, we often are guessing at the effective mass of the tone arm. If you think your tone arm effective mass is too low, that is easily remedied by using a heavier headshell of which there are many good ones on the market. |
Thanks @lewm and you are correct about my mistake. And yes, its dumb of me to be asking questions after a handful of hours but I guess I wonder if its the suspension or the tonearm (which is not a great fit). I'll keep on keeping on. |
By the way, you seem to be conflating weight with compliance. At least the numbers you quote look like compliance data. But yes, for a low compliance cartridge, like yours seems to be, you want a tonearm with high ish effective mass ( not “weight”). Effective mass reflects the distribution of the mass of the tonearm, from counterweight to headshell/cartridge. |
@pindac thank you. I will revisit this. I guess I wonder if the tonearm/cartridge compliance might also have something to do with it? |
You can play with the VTA by setting the Cart' Body Level to the LP, or a Little Toe Down / Heel Down. It is not uncommon to see where Cart' users have selected a Heel Down alignment as their preference. This can be achieved in a controlled incremental measure by putting playing cards under the Wand until the Wand is levelled / Cart' Bottom Face Levelled. Adding / Removing Cards will then change the angle to the LP, p, when the |