Help! I can't get rid of distortion!

[Jkaput]

Hi there folks,
I have a Sansui 2000x hooked up to a Rotel RP 3000. Both are new to me, but in great shape cosmetically. I recently replaced the stylus on a nagatron catridge (from 1985) with one from audio technica and after multiple balance and alignments (using the protractor on vinylengine), no dice. It looks totally aligned to my eye. A side note is that set to the recommended weight, it skips easily, but its in a cabinent of an old house). It does decrease when I increase the weight on the tonearm, but outside of that, i'm stumped. Thinking it could be related to the catridge, I bought a new Ortofon 2m Red for it thinking it may be a bad cart, but is there something i'm missing here? Digital inputs have no distortion at all.

I'm new, but pretty dedicated to this. Is there something i'm missing? What would cause this distoration.

A desciption of the distortion...some music sounds fine, but voices are quiet scratchy. It would appear parts with higher frequencies are distorted, but that may not be accurate. What i'm saying is it isn't a total mess, but it is pretty unlistenable and causes fast fatigue.

Did I make a mistake in ordering the Ortofon - am I wasting my money based on missing a step here?


thanks - I really want to enjoy this damn thing!

 

[galactus2]

Several things come into play, and I've experienced just about all of them with TTs.

Just a few things, and I"m sure others will chime in, too.

1. Examine the cart and stylus carefully, preferably using a magnifying glass, while it sits on the cartridge protractor. If you don't have a sturdy protractor, tons of places have them, including Amazon and Turntable Lab. My Pro-Ject TT came with a cardboard one. Are they kidding, and are they that cheap?? Pretty worthless.

2. While examining the cart and stylus for alignment on the protractor, make sure the cantilever of the stylus is straight, too. Again, use a magnifying glass if possible. On the protractors that are straight, there's only two spots on it where the stylus is perpendicular, and I believe they're called the null points. Others will correct me if I'm wrong.

3. Consult the maker of the cart to verify what the recommended tracking force is. A little bit heavier is better than a little bit lighter, believe it or not. But by all means, keep the tracking force within the maker's specs.

4. I don't know your gear at all, but if the TT has anti-skating, check that to see if it's close to the tracking force. Some say to vary it, but conventional TT experience seems to be to keep it close to the force.

5. Does your TT have a vertical alignment adjustment? Not all of them do, but if it's a tad off skew, the cart won't be properly aligned, no matter what your eyes tell you.

6. TTs are finicky items, and IMO, require a lot of fuss. If you have someone that's experienced with them, a second set of eyes and ears will help tremendously.

I"m sure others will chime in, and hopefully others that actually know your gear. I'm just offering some generic ideas, based on the fact that I've experienced exactly what you're mentioning. Not all things about TTs are as obvious as we'd like them to be.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

Also, welcome to AK! I know exactly where NoHo is, as I'm from Western Mass., too.

 

[BamaBilly]

If you’ve checked and double checked your alignment my guess is the problem isn’t the cart/stylus. Could be anything though, from tomearm wires to your phono section.

 

[patient_ot]

The 2M Red kinda sucks. Not the best tracker/tracer and has a sibilant, nasty edge to it.

Setting the TT up in a house with old bouncy wood floors isn't the best either. Best thing you can do is get a shelf anchored to the wall, and put the TT on that.

 

[Jkaput]

The 2M Red kinda sucks. Not the best tracker/tracer and has a sibilant, nasty edge to it.

Setting the TT up in a house with old bouncy wood floors isn't the best either. Best thing you can do is get a shelf anchored to the wall, and put the TT on that.

I bought it (it hasn't shipped so I can cancel it) based on the fact that it was under a hundred and had a lot of good reviews. What do you suggest?

 

[Thunderbox]

It sounds like you are experiencing sibilance. Try a different cartridge just to see if it is that. Some cartridges have sibilance as mentioned about the 2M Red. I am sure if you asked someone in your area, experienced with TTs would be glad to help you get this sorted.

 

[Jkaput]

Thanks Galactus!!! That was good advise and I appreciate it!

 

[doctor fuse]

Good advice above.

A few more suggestions:

It's a new stylus, but make sure it doesn't have some gunk or dust caked on to it. Sometimes it's not visible to the naked eye, and it stubbornly refuses to come off with a simple brushing.

You can use a little alcohol on a brush once in a while (not a great habit with bonded styluses, not so bad with nude). Or use a small piece of Blu Tac. And there are many commercial products for this purpose. Stylus care is part of good vinyl playback, unfortunately.

A cheap method of improving isolation, is putting the turntable on a heavy board which sits on 3 or 4 racquetball halves (or cut appropriate smaller holes in the board and put whole balls in these). It's a bit tricky to get a perfect cut when cutting them in half, and some say this is important, but they have worked well for me with even crude knife cuts. If this gives you improvement, you could then look into better isolation systems.

Cleaning your records is another important part of good vinyl playback. I use a Spin Clean, but I vacuum them dry with my wet dry shop vac. Otherwise you are just swishing the grime around in the grooves with the really dirty records. But try taking a record you don't care about, that is noisy, and wash it in the kitchen sink. Water (preferably distilled, but you can try it with tap), a drop of dish soap, and a capful of isopropyl alcohol makes a decent cleaning solution.

Clean the contacts on the turntable RCA jacks, and on the Sansui. Even just twisting them a couple of times can fix a bad contact fit. Have you tried another phono preamp, to rule out a bad phonostage in the Sansui? You might even try plugging it into an AUX or TAPE input, and crank the volume, and see if you still hear the sibilance and distortion. There will be no RIAA equalization, so this is just an idea.

And as someone mentioned above, check that your cantilever is straight in the cartridge body. I am surprised how often they are at an angle.

If yours is off-angle, realign to the cantilever, not to the body. Hopefully it is a cartridge where the cantilever is visible and not hidden while sitting on a record or protractor.

Good luck! Lots of free or cheap things to try, so you can figure out what the problems are.

 

[patient_ot]

I bought it (it hasn't shipped so I can cancel it) based on the fact that it was under a hundred and had a lot of good reviews. What do you suggest?

There aren't any carts under a $100 that will solve all your distortion issues. You'll need to budget more or just tolerate it.

 

[gkimeng]

You said that all of your equipment is new to you. What about your records?

If you are trying to play a collection of used records for the first time, my suggestion would be to try playing them on someone else's known good playback system. It's possible that the records themselves may be the source of your problem.

 

[Jkaput]

In response to the records, some of them are brand new, some of them are old, some are in great condition, some not so much. But there is def something amiss.

Here are some shots with the old stylus on (I broke the other one monkeying with it last night before bed. I have learned that lesson over, and over, and over...just go to bed dude). Maybe they'll give you some insight?

 

[triode]

Its impossible to tell from pictures but if your camera angles are right, that does look a little off.
Which protractor are you using exactly ? Use Conrad's arc protractor. The stylus should follow the arc on that protractor and the cartridge front edge should align with the lines.
That protractor also has scale check to make sure your printer is not scaling the distances up or down.
You will need accurate pivot-to-spindle distance though.
Also, check azimuth. Your azimuth doesn't look right to me.

 

[Jkaput]

Thanks for the response. I thought they might not be very useful...it was very hard to take them. I'm using the Stevenson protractor, and it has a scale check on it. Although it looks a bit off, its really just the deflection of the camera angle causing that look. The azimuth looks straight to the naked eye, but I don't have any gauges to check it.

The guy I got it from was insistent that it was setup correctly, but that the stylus and maybe cart were old and probably in need of replacement.

Tedious stuff.

 

[Ilikevinyl]

Make sure the cueing bar platform isn't hitting the underside of the tonearm when it's playing a record.

 

[Jkaput]

Heres a couple more for good measure.

Its also important to note that its related to s sort of sounds, and its worse towards the spindle. My reading on sibilance seems like that may be going on.

This is a stab, but might it be related to the fact that the receiver probably could use a re-cap?

The blues, jazz...they sound pretty good. Rock, not so much. Makes my ears tired. Switch it to digital (I was just listening to Freddie King) and it sounds good.

Could it be that cart is shot?

 

[Jkaput]

There aren't any carts under a $100 that will solve all your distortion issues. You'll need to budget more or just tolerate it.

I'm not looking to solve them all man. My expectations aren't really that high. I just don't want to have to turn it off after a couple records b/c my ears a buzzing and my head is starting to ache.

 

[mkane]

Your alignment needs some work. Get the shank to run in the same plane as those lines. Don't worry about the cartridge body. Sibilance is a product of alignment.

 

[mkane]

Pic 165744 says alignment is off.

 

[patient_ot]

Problem number one is op is using an old stylus, might be worn out.

 

[mkane]

might be.