First off I'm using the MM input due to the 2.12v cart. output, Second the back of the cart. is not color coded like some, but I sure I got that part right. If not wouldn't all records have the same issue?, Third I do have some floor rugs and am using some comforters hung on the wall over a garage door and insulated window shades but no actual room treatments like bass traps etc. A thought though--- would a weak motor cause changes to the platter speed have anything to do with this problem? I have been having to start the platter by hand because the motor doesn't seem to have the torque to spin it up but seems to stay steady after that?
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The cart. is new with only 100-150 hours on it and I used a Pro-ject cart. alignment tool and spent several hours aligning it and getting the azimuth set and used a digital stylus force gauge to set it at 1.3 grams. I just finished playing Fleetwood Mac's Heroes are Hard to Find and there it was , yet earlier this morning I played Billy Joels I am an Innocent Man and it almost sounded 3d with the finger snap 3 ft in front of his voice? I'm not 100% sure what the gain is on the McIntosh C-100 is but it is about 10 yrs old and the 1st owner just used the MC input.
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Cleeds- the Pro-ject does use a mirror as part of the alignment process.hdm that sounds more likely as czarivey stated it must be a mismatch between cart.and phono stage of the C-100 as nothing else has had any real effect on the problem. Moving to a fairly high end system has shone me that even albums are recorded at different volume levels as are CDs and that the ones that are recorded at those lower levels seem to be the ones that have more of those issues. I want to thank everyone who has chimed in to help and don't stop if you have any other ideas. It may take awhile to find a new phono stage ( under $2000 ) suggestions will be acepted and looked at
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Once again I want to thank everyone who has chimed in to help fix this problem! Looks like I will have a lot of work ahead of me to find the real issue. I have already double and triple checked the head shell wiring to verify that they are correct (they are), so on to re-alignment, overhang, vta,etc. before investing in a separate phono stage. I did try reversing the speaker cables just as an experiment (didn't help). Hopefully one of these suggestions will be the one that works!
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I just finished a 2 1/2 hr re-alingment of the cart. and did make a few changes to overhang (maybe 1 mm less) addressed azimuth and played with the vta (moving up and down to find the best sound which came when I raised it till the voice of Eric Clapton became sharp then dropped it down till it sounded normal, best I could do?) lewm I switched both speaker cables which tended to muddy up the mids imho. almarg in checking the anti-skate (AQ PT-6) my understanding may be off but I thought you adjusted it to where the tone arm moved backwards then adjusted back toward no forward or backward movement? At present it is set at .5 so that raising and lowering it doesn't move in or out. Now all the adjustments I have made have made a difference in the vocals of most records but some seem beyond help. I feel that room treatments and maybe a different phono stage may improve it more and that will take more time to address than this tread will stand. But I am still open to more input and will happily do what I can to try anything that might help.
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cleeds - the alignment itself didn't take 2 1/2 hrs but making adjustments to the vta is a change an listen to see if it is better or worse then doing that over an over until you find what you feel is the best . almarg - maybe I don't have the PT-6 it might be a PT-5 because there is no dial to adjust vta only a set screw to tighten after manually raising or lower the tone arm by feel, I wish there was a calibrated dial it would have been so much easier. I though it was the PT-6 because of some other differences in the vinylengine.com library to the PT-5. The overhang is 18mm as it is for a 9" tone arm which is what the ProJect shows it to be also. The mirror on the Pro-Ject is for adjusting azimuth. Your method of setting anti-skate sounds similar to what I stated except you use cantilever deflection instead to tonearm drift. Your way may be more accurate so it's something I can try.
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audioman- being in a HI-FI deprived area (rural Okla.) I would have to gone to Dallas, Houston, Denver you get the picture, just to check out any HI-FI stores (unless you count BestBuy). So I bought something that I had heard in the past that sounded good. Now I did go to RMAF in 2017 to hear the Raidho speakers (XT-2 and D-1.2). Wish it was like the 70's with a audio store on every other corner (I lived in Tulsa most of my life). Maybe one of these days I can change it up a bit? Plus all these are used so I didn't pay full price even though it still was a lot of money for me.
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Well everybody guess what? After adjusting and re-adjusting just about everything that has been brought up until my head was spinning I found something that we all missed. At least not that I remember seeing and was one of the easiest to fix and that was the VTF. The Aida shows a range of 1.3 to 1.6 grams as the optimum settings. I was running it at 1.3, just for grins I decided to increase it to the max of 1.6 and played an album that sounded bad and the vocals had increased to the point that I could understand what he was singing over the music. So just for grins again I increased it a little bit more and got even more vocals I have stopped at 1.8 grams which is 1/2 gram more than where I started. Maybe it just takes more weight to get the stylus into the groove far enough to retrieve the sound? Sure making all the other adjustments didn't hurt either but that is what has made the most improvement so far. williwonka- your right my old eyes aren't what the use to be, so I have been using a 30x jewelers loupe to view vta and attempt to set anti-skate. Even with that it is hard to see any deflection of the cantilever but it is enough to see the angle of the stylus and get it at close to 90 degrees.
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williewonka- I think I see what you are getting at especially after read the info you took the time to post from soundsmith . I wasn't trying to adjust the vta/sra via vtf on purpose, but I guess that .2 grams extra might be enough to cause the cantilever to bend enough to do just that. And if that is the case then it would mean that the vta still is to high, right? So now the problem is how to actually find an accurate way to find 90 deg.for the tone arm and then make the up and down adjustments that will then fail in the vta. My thought is to find something that can be laid on tt that is known to be straight and then view the gap at both ends of the tonearm to this item when viewed from the bottom side (as long as the tone arm is a straight tube ) I have a laser level but I would have to build some kind of jig to mount it on to focus it on the plane along the pivot point of the tone arm. So I'll back the vtf back to 1.6 grams and start over again and hope for the best from there. I do acknowledge that the previous fix was more of a bandage instead of a real life fix. I'll let you know how this effort works out. Who knew HI-FIing was so hard (lol)
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well once again I fixated on the wrong point for setting vta. While trying to find 90 degrees using the tone arm (which showed no improvement) I figured out that it is the head shell that is to be used as the reference point! Now that did make quiet a difference in the sound. Kudos to willewonka for pointing out article for soundsmith because where I was and where I am now might be 1/4" lower and sounds way better (not to say fine tuning may or may not help?).I think my next move will be to look into a TT with a vtaotf tone arm because there is no doubt that vta has a great deal of difference in the sound. I have learned a whole lot of things during this forum and hope to learn even more , this is why I came here in the first place was to learn.Thanks for all the help and ideas I'm sure I would have given up long ago if not for all of you taking an interest in my problem.
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cleeds- read the article above provided by willewonka from soundsmith. It states that they think you should start with the tone arm is to be placed parallel to the record surface. Is that not 90 degrees? that is what I was referring to, but after finding what I considered parallel (90 degrees) I adjusted up and down to find that by setting the head shell mounting plate at close to 90 degrees (again parallel to the record) resulted in the best sound with the vocals out front. If you have a different method to find vta explain in more detail and I will be more than happy to try it out. In that same article it also states that their styli have a hidden facet that can be up +/- 4 degrees from 90 degrees so that sar is unreliable to use as a method of set up. Their words not mine, so how do you think I should proceed given this information. I have no problem attempting a different method if it can give me better results. Right now it's not bad but I do feel like it might be possible to attain better sound but chasing around in circles without some idea of which way to go and a way to get there does me no good. An observation I made today was using what I call the walk around test. After making a change and setting in the "sweet spot" for awhile I would get up and walk to different point in the room to see the effect in those locations. Sometimes it was better that the SS and other times it was not, but at some point it should sound good at all most all points. Now it may take some room treatments to make that happen , but it was just interesting to observe .
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willewonka- So after you set the pin to the height of the front you move it to the back and back and forth until they match (same height at both ends, then it should be level (i.e. parallel to the record) at which time you can make your up or down adjustments. Sounds easy enough, thanks for the tip, I'm sure I have stuff lying around to make something that simple. This is what I attempted to do and you are right doing it by eye balling it is not easy. I wish I had a way to add your micrometer adjustment feature (I have two that I haven't used for years)
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