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Why are the vocals on some records hidden behind the music on my system?

Help! I am new to this forum, but have been into audio for over 45 years and have never had this problem before. I was lucky enough to come into some money and decided to use some of it to up grade my system for the first time in almost 30 yrs. The system consists of McIntosh MC-402, McIntosh C-100, McIntosh MCD-500, VPI HW19 MKIII, Soundsmith Aida, Furutech Ag-12 phono cable, Furutech silver head shell wires, Furutech interconnects and Furutech speaker cables (yes I like Furutech) and Raidho XT-3 speakers. Now on some albums the vocals are buried behind the music and you have a really hard time hearing the singer? Not all albums are voiced in this manner but enough that it is bothersome. I have a large dedicated man room (24 x 27) with minimum treatment. CDs sound just fine so I feel that it is with the phono preamp in the C-100? I have moved the speakers 100s of times and have them at 5' 8" apart and 8' 1" to the focal point and the soundstage is good and the vocals are better, but you still have to really listen hard to hear certain vocals on some albums. Most of my albums are 30 to 50 years old and have been cleaned with a sonic cleaner (best thing ever imho). Even some of my new heavy vinyl has this problem.
scooby2do

Showing 2 responses by hdm

hdm
1,072 posts
 
czarivey nailed it as far as I'm concerned.

Assuming everything is connected properly and the MM input is functional, gain is approximately 35 dB on the MM input which is considerably light for a 2.1 mV cartridge, which would probably be optimized with around 44-45 dB of gain.

On the other hand, 68 dB on the MC side is way too high, and more suited to very low output MC's, certainly below .25 mV and more likely to be effective with .1 to .2 mV cartridges.

Get a new cartridge, get a new phono stage, or modify the gain on the existing phono stage.

Most records would probably sound like they were being played through a wet blanket.
hdm
1,072 posts
 
Kudos to Williewonka for pointing out the precision setup which is required for that stylus. I had one on a rebodied Denon 103R here and it is indeed a bit*h to setup; it is by far the most demanding stylus out there to set up IMO and extremely small setup errors or deviations can result in very poor sound quality from it, unlike many other line contacts (Peter's standard line contact among them) and micro ridges. Everything is absolutely critical with that stylus: VTA/SRA, alignment, VTF and azimuth.

Effischer is also correct about VTF as directly noted above and one thing that is not often realized is that unipivots with underslung counterweights like the VPI arm will tend to over-read VTF unless it is read EXACTLY at record height, which is why VPI in the past often recommended VTF at the highest recommended manufacturer setting or even slightly above.

So Scooby, if you are using a typical digital stylus force gauge with a platform that might be even 2-3 mm above actual record height, which is not much, the read you would get with that gauge would potentially be .2 to .3 grams HIGHER than the actual VTF.

So if you were using a fairly standard Canrong type gauge on your VPI and setting VTF at 1.3 , your actual VTF was probably closer to 1.1 which could have resulted in mistracking, poor sound quality etc. If you're using that kind of gauge and are set at 1.8, you're real VTF is probably closer to 1.6.

The article from TNT Audio linked to below discusses the mis-read; it is generally inconsequential with many arms, but with the VPI (or as I said earlier any unipivot with an underslung counterweight) it is a very big deal that can cause a lot of people grief.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/in_balance_e.html
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