@lewm I am using a Dynavector XX2 MKII cartridge. It is 0.28mV output and only 6 ohms impedance.
VPI JMW 9 wire problem
I just bought a used VPI Aries Scout with the JMW 9 tonearm. It sounded great and everything was working fine until I decided I had to try and optimize antiskate. Perhaps I misunderstood how that was supposed to work because when I rotated the plug to try to add more twist to the wire the wires seemed to slip in the connector and now I don't have my right channel and there is hum.
I'm afraid I may have pulled a wire loose inside the connector or even worse inside the tonearm and I can't find any information about whether this is something I can fix, or if I need to have somebody else to repair it, and who that somebody else might be.
Any suggestions? I live near Seattle if there is anybody local that might help.
Showing 3 responses by pinwa
@wlutke Yes, I figured out how to unscrew the connector and I didn't see anything obvious inside. I'm not quite sure how to reorientate the pins so that they are correct when I reassemble it. Also, I don't know if it is safe to use a multimeter to test connectivity while the cartridge is still attached? Does a digital multimeter put out enough voltage/current to damage the cartridge if I use it to measure resistance to try and figure out where the problem is? |
Thanks to @wlutke and @lewm for giving me the confidence to measure the resistance without worrying about damaging the cartridge, and a small brainstorm I had that I could simply measure resistance from an RCA cable attached to the turntable, I was able to figure out what was going on and fix it without needing to send it out for repairs. What happened is the plastic thing that holds the pins that connect to the tonearm cables got rotated inside the connector so that grounds were connecting to the hot RCA pins and vice versa. For some reason there is nothing preventing that round plastic thing with the pins from rotating inside of the housing. When I unplugged it to put a twist in the wires to increase anti-skate the whole thing rotated screwing up the connections. I realigned it and it seems to be working properly now. I assume something must be missing from my connector to prevent that rotation because VPI's instructions for adjusting anti-skate explicitly call for unplugging that connector and rotate it to change the tension on the wires. But in my setup all that did was rotate the pins inside the housing so it was connected incorrectly when it was plugged back in. Now I just need to figure out if there is some sort of add on part that I can get to adjust anti-skate because I need more outer force to prevent distortion in the right channel and I already had tracking force up to 2.2 grams. |