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Vinyl beginner frustrations Azimuth and VTA

Hi,

I've had my Pro-ject 6perspex turntable for a few weeks now, and its obvious now that there are several severe problems.

First of all, everything is placed slightly to the left. The soundstage is messed up, and too compact. When I move my head toward the left, vocals move left but stay in focus. When I move toward the right, vocals move right but immediately go out of focus and sound sort of like what you get when you mix up + and - on one speaker.

I guess this means that I need to adjust the azimuth. I've located the screw to do this, but I have no idea how much to move and how much movement is ok before I risk damage to the cartridge. The manual is a bit unclear on whether just twisting the screw is enough to adjust azimuth, or if I actually need to twist the tonearm manually. Could someone with the same turntable enlighten me? I'm also unsure about how the anti-skating weight might influence stereo imaging. There doesn't seem to be very much I can do with the anti-skating weight though, except selecting one of the three grooves.

Furthermore, while bass is tight and generally well defined (if a bit too overpowering on certain kinds of music), highs are virtually nonexistent, this is especially noticable for cymbals, which all but disappear. Midrange sounds more like what I get from cd, but especially vocals are too laid back and too far back in the soundstage

I searched around a bit, and from what I can see, the VTA needs adjustment. Again, I'm not sure exactly how much to move it by. According to this site http://www.walkeraudio.com/fine_tuning_your_turntable.htm I ought to raise the VTA.

However, my (horrible) pro-ject manual says the tube of the tonearm should be parallell to the record when it is lowered, but as far as I can see now it is slanting slightly downward, which would indicate that I should lower the VTA.

Hope I'm not too verbose... just needed to let off some steam :)
PS: I don't have any setup tools yet except the paper aligment tool that came with the table. I did order the one on www.turntablebasics.com though.
ahochan
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stonedeaf
101 posts
 
VTF: About 35 years ago I worked a Shure cartridge clinic with a engineer from the Shure factory. Folks could bring in any turntable and cartridge and we would inspect for stylus wear and set up their cartridges using a test record and oscilloscope.The engineer would always ask me for the maximum tracking force for that cartridge (regardless of manufacturer) and set the Tracking force for that. I finally asked him why the max every time - his response " Minimums are set by the marketing dept - max's by the engineering dept - believe whichever one you want". He then waited until the next V-15-II came up ( top of their line at that time) - set the VTF and antiskate for 1 gram -put it on the test record and the waveform distorted on a much lower velocity band of the test record - increased VTF and antiskate to 1.5 grams - it tracked cleanly every band on the record.
I have installed and set up several thousand cartridges since then - always have set to max.This was one of the things ( along with the outrageous performance to price ratio - always a best buy) that I liked about Grado carts - VTF 1.5 grams -period. Most of these were relatively modest tables that in the pre-CD era folks used a LOT.
YMMV - but max VTF works for me.
creativepart's avatar
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creativepart
154 posts
 
Stonedeaf, that was the 80's when people judged how good a cartridge was by how light the VTF was. If you sold a $100 cart with 1.5 grams listed as the VTF and some competitor sold one at the same price but listed a 1.0 gram VTF people would flock to the lighter spec'd cart.

It's not really like that anymore, thank goodness.

But you are correct in the 1970s and 1980s that is exactly how it was. It's just not that way now.
ahochan OP
10 posts
 
Thanks for all the tips. I'll be patient and wait for the protractor to arrive, and try it out on my own. Here's hoping the instructions are of better quality than the Pro-ject manual :)

I have also considered getting the dealer to help me set up, and I might try that if I don't get the results I want. I'm not quite sure exactly _how_ good I should expect though, all I know is that the same table and riaa stage (pro-ject tube box ii se) sounded very good in the shop.

One concern I have is that I don't have all of my reference records on vinyl yet, and some of them I have only been able to get second hand, so I don't really know if they have the potential to sound as good as the cd's.
hevac1
812 posts
 
Welcome to the world of vinyl. New and us old timers here feel your pain and frustration. Purchase a Mint LP and most of your pain will ease, but not all. This is the way of vinyl and the Force.
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