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Turntable sibilance

Okay turntable Yodas, what is the primary cause of sibilance in vinyl replay? Obviously some records are badly cut & it's in the grooves, but I seem to have an inordinate amount of it.

I have a Shelter 501 mk 11 cartridge on a Rega RB 250 arm on a Nottingham Analogue Studios Horizon table. Running vtf at 1.8, but changing it in either direction makes negligible difference. Excuse my ignorance, but how do you change the vta on these arms, & might that be the issue? Setup was done by reputable hi fi store, spirit level says table is flat. The green sliding horizontal tracking adjuster doesn't seem to much either.

Any suggestions would be received gratefully.
houseofhits
houseofhits OP
11 posts
 
Re the Reference 1, that's definitely not the problem. I've only had it for two weeks, the problem was the same with the Dynavector SSP/101 I was using before that.

Cartridge break in isn't it, the cartridge was actually bought used from someone on Audiogon. I had the stylus checked recently at a good hi fi store & they concluded it looked pretty good. I suspect VTA. As one of the other posters mentioned, because I have a Nottingham turntable the VTA is adjustable, so I'll try that.
houseofhits OP
11 posts
 
Hey Viridian, I'm in Australia, no nickels. But I'll try the blutack, or find a five gram coin or washer.
kjweisner's avatar
kjweisner
293 posts
 
"Kj...vtf maybe...antiskate...no way."

I agree if indeed it's truly a sibilance issue--and really meant to suggest that what sounds like sibilance might also be some distortion from mistracking. The challenge we all have is diagnosis based on descriptions vs. first-hand review. Probably I should have been clearer on that point--and indeed I doubt that's it. My suggestion about single channel listening should also help rule that out--sometimes finding cure is a process of elimination.
dougdeacon
3,338 posts
 
It could also be phono stage overload or peaking, which is very common and produces exactly this sort of distortion. I've heard it in many phono stages. Atmasphere has posted repeatedly on this, offering better technical explanations than I could.

Only way to test that is to insert a different (i.e., "better") phono stage and see if the sibilance changes.
markpao
519 posts
 
Having had the same problem with that cartridge a while ago (mounted on a VPI arm), I have to agree with adding weight to the headshell. That did it for me. I ended up with a Cartridge Man Isolator. Ugly as hell, but did the trick.
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