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Inner Groove Distortion- Turntable problem?

80sonvinyl said:
Hahaha. That sentence of mine pretty much sums up the hobby a lot of the time I think :)

True true. However if it was a cartridge problem surely all my records would sound bad?
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what do you have to lose, 30 minutes of your time? think of it this way, practice aligning and setting up cartridges is a plus. And I would suggest trying a totally different cartridge, as in a different brand.
 
Grenadeslio said:
what do you have to lose, 30 minutes of your time? think of it this way, practice aligning and setting up cartridges is a plus. And I would suggest trying a totally different cartridge, as in a different brand.
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And a decent headshell does not cost that much.
 
If you want to experiment with other carts, get more headshells.

If you want to try a different cart that requires no alignment get an Ortofon Concorde body and stick an OM40 stylus on it. Thakker in Europe can probably sell you this combo.
 
Speaking of hot cuts, just threw on my 1983 copy of Blue Monday. Some harshness towards the end (Hooky's bass mostly) but it does look fairly used and was probably very popular among DJs.
 
Grenadeslio said:
what do you have to lose, 30 minutes of your time? think of it this way, practice aligning and setting up cartridges is a plus. And I would suggest trying a totally different cartridge, as in a different brand.
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My 95E is a €30 cartridge (thought that was expensive at the time lol) so I'm not sure if there's even any point. The whole thing will probably sound atrocious and mask any distortion anyway.
I seem to remember that I was getting similar problems with my Ortofon 2M red that came with the TT. (That's now sold).
 
patient_ot said:
If you want to experiment with other carts, get more headshells.

If you want to try a different cart that requires no alignment get an Ortofon Concorde body and stick an OM40 stylus on it. Thakker in Europe can probably sell you this combo.
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I don't see how putting a cartridge on that can't be adjusted will help at all. They are not automatically aligned. The distance from the collar to the tip of the stylus has to be correct for a certain table.
 
Bigbeard said:
Not necessarily. Playback is, as you have noted the sum of a lot of various factors. The AT95 series is what I would call a clarity cartridge system with a clean, modern sound. This may reveal problems that other cartridge systems smooth over.

When I ran AT95 it was very sensible to antiskating errors. It was a pain because I only had a dangly weight on that turntable so I could never adjust it accurately enough to get a whole side of distortion-free playback. I basically had to decide on which part of the record I wanted distortion.

I think getting a different cartridge in a headshell will enable you to decide what is the most likely cause. You can often buy these on auction sites for 30-40 bucks.
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I have ran antiskate up and down with no change.
 
Thunderbox said:
I don't see how putting a cartridge on that can't be adjusted will help at all. They are not automatically aligned. The distance from the collar to the tip of the stylus has to be correct for a certain table.
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They are designed around proprietary Technics alignment and are perfectly aligned, assuming you didn't get a dud. KABUSA has been marketing these combos for years, and I guarantee he knows more about the 1200 family of turntables than anyone on this forum.

I guess you didn't know that.
 
I'd imagine because the distortion was probably on the records themselves, either due to poor mastering or wear. Hopefully, anyway.
However even on a good record, adjusting antiskating never seems to make much difference- what should I be hearing?
 
patient_ot said:
They are designed around proprietary Technics alignment and are perfectly aligned, assuming you didn't get a dud. KABUSA has been marketing these combos for years, and I guarantee he knows more about the 1200 family of turntables than anyone on this forum.

I guess you didn't know that.
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I presume the likes of the Ortofon Concorde wouldn't be as good as the ML due to them being designed for DJs? If they were, I'd get one because hands down, alignment is my biggest peeve about this hobby. I can do it with the technics gauge, but not a protractor...due to the bloody curved shape of the 2M series and the VM series. I used to use the pencil lead trick, but I feel this could be quite inaccurate. I have no time for aligning the cantilever with a mirror protractor, dont even mention that. Some people just haven't the patience!
 
The simple fact is the cartridge is really only aligned in 2 places on a record. The rest of the time it isn't aligned properly. The longer the arm the less the misalignment is. This problem is not an alignment problem in my mind.
 
Yes @80sonvinyl it's strange that your anti skating makes no change at all in sound. something is fishy

setting AS too high should make left channel stronger(distorted if you go too far) and the right channel weaker,
setting AS too low should make right channel stronger(distorted if you go too far) and the left channel weaker

hence why it's important to find the right AS balance


I'm not shure if it' affects IGD, but it's something you should fix anyway
 
I'll give a listen to my main vinyl spinner through headphones soon. IGD is almost nonexistent now, but I remember liatening to vinyl with another system and finding the surface noise so bothersome, let alone the IGD. Curious how this system will do.
 
Final_Baton said:
Yes @80sonvinyl it's strange that your anti skating makes no change at all in sound. something is fishy

setting AS too high should make left channel stronger(distorted if you go too far) and the right channel weaker,
setting AS too low should make right channel stronger(distorted if you go too far) and the left channel weaker

hence why it's important to find the right AS balance


I'm not sure if it' affects IGD, but it's something you should fix anyway
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Nope, nothing happens. The sound, to my ears, is exactly the same no matter where the AS is at. Any particular types of records that are better for testing this, or should I hear a difference even on quiet cut records?
 
To be fair, I rarely hear a difference adjusting AS either. Maybe a few times I've noticed the difference between no AS and some (there have been times where I accidentally left the AS at 0 and then realized it by some iffiness in the sound) but otherwise I find it hard to do AS by ear.
 
80sonvinyl said:
I presume the likes of the Ortofon Concorde wouldn't be as good as the ML due to them being designed for DJs? If they were, I'd get one because hands down, alignment is my biggest peeve about this hobby. I can do it with the technics gauge, but not a protractor...due to the bloody curved shape of the 2M series and the VM series. I used to use the pencil lead trick, but I feel this could be quite inaccurate. I have no time for aligning the cantilever with a mirror protractor, dont even mention that. Some people just haven't the patience!
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There are hifi Concorde and DJ Concordes. The one I suggested has an FG 5/70 stylus profile.

It's the perfect cart for those not keen on alignment.
 
patient_ot said:
There are hifi Concorde and DJ Concordes. The one I suggested has an FG 5/70 stylus profile.

It's the perfect cart for those not keen on alignment.
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Ok thanks. Will definitely keep that in mind for when it's time to replace. What's your opinion on this anti skating stuff?
 
80sonvinyl said:
Ok thanks. Will definitely keep that in mind for when it's time to replace. What's your opinion on this anti skating stuff?
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I use the Peter L. method to set anti-skate, which you can learn about on YouTube.

All anti-skate settings are a compromise because skating force varies across the record.

As for hearing one channel louder than the other due to anti-skate settings, typically you have to crank up the anti-skate settings quite high to do that, and even then, you may not be able to notice a difference just listening. The difference can be viewed in a program like Audacity though, if you record the output of your preamp or rec out to a computer based audio interface.

Typically I will just use the Peter L. method to set AS and call it a day. Test records for anti-skate and so on don't give consistent results and will usually encourage the user to jack up AS too high. This results in uneven stylus wear which is bad.

Note that I am not dismissing test records altogether. Then can be useful for certain things, just not AS IME. I would encourage you to forget about test LPs because they won't fix the problems you are having.
 
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