Tonearm resonance


Always have had an issue with tonearm noise. I can't afford the the to spend a fortune on a turtable but I just love the sound of vinyl. I have an MMF 7.3 with the stock tonearm and ortofon bronze cartridge which I'm planning to upgrade to a Hana EL most likely. Anyway, I just saw Funk Firm decouplers online the other day and am curious as to whether it is effective or not. If anyone has had experience with it I would love to hear about it. Thanks

johnnybwood

Showing 1 response by mijostyn

@sokogear  Right here scratching my head.

@johnnybwood The only thing you will here with a tonearm cartridge mismatch is feedback (if the arm is too light) and only under some circumstances. What you are looking for is a quieter tracking cartridge and the Hana is not it. Other sources of noise include your phono stage which should be obvious when you turn the volume up. You NEVER put anything between cartridge and the tonearm except maybe a solid shim. The cartridge has to be rigidly oriented to the turntable.  If the resonance frequency is too high you add weight in the form of heavier screws or longer screws with washers. Soundsmith makes a nice set of graded cartridge screws. 

If you are looking for a quieter cartridge you need a more advanced stylus profile, but these are usually in more expensive cartridges. Ortofon's Replicant 100 stylus is a very quiet tracker if set up carefully. Grado cartridges have been said to be quiet. The Soundsmith OLC in the Voice is almost as quiet as the Replicant 100. The Gyger S is as quiet as the Soundsmith OLC. The Grado 1042 is a very reasonably priced cartridge with the Gyger S. Clearaudio uses the Gyger in the Charisma and some of it's moving coils. Van den Hul probably uses the Gyger in some of it's cartridges as Van den Hul designed it. 

Lastly, if your records have been played with a bad stylus or not kept clean and static free the result will be increased background noise. You may want to take some of your records to a store with a decent turntable set up and see how they sound.