Hello, pretty new to turntables and home audio in general. I’m an electrician by trade and a tinkerer by nature, so I’m familiar with tech troubleshooting and have some experience with electronics. I’m still learning to dial in my turntable actually (got me one of them fancy mirror alignment/overhang gauges… thoughts?) but couldn’t help but dive into the deep end while I’m still learning to swim.
So my old turntable came with a Shure V15 type IV cartridge installed, and the left channel plays at very low volume—so low it seems not to play at all. When I investigated with the receiver balance control I found that L does play, but with a thin frequency range (mostly mids and low treb I think). Maybe the EQ effect is just due to the low signal level failing to push the preamp?
The first thing I did to try and fix it was swap out the head shell, and the turntable plays fine with a new cartridge. But the Shure cartridge is so friggin cool! So I found a found a cheapo stylus to replace the old Shure one for testing (NOS and the like are available but expensive…only going there if I get it working). Not surprisingly, it wasn’t the needle.
The head shell seems to be the one that came with the turntable (Sanyo TP-1010) , and looks comparable to the quality of the whole unit—low prosumer grade, good features with subpar materials. I noticed that the leads looked cheap, and I saw some oxidization on the pins of the cartridge and shell, so I fixed that. Cleaned the pins of the cartridge with deoxit red, and mounted it in a new head shell with new, lower gauge wires and gold connectors (only planned to swap the leads, but this stuff is so inexpensive it seemed easier to just eliminate another variable with a new shell).
Tried the thing again and…….. no difference. New stylus, new leads, new headshell, clean pins; this feels like the point where I sharpie NFG on the cartridge and move on. But it’s so cool! I’m posting here as a Hail Mary as I sip my morning Adderall—is there anything I haven’t thought of? It seems like I’ve tried everything short of cracking the plastic open, but it wouldn’t be the first time I overlooked an obvious solution because I was focusing in the wrong direction (did I mention my ADHD?). I figured I could try reversing the leads to further confirm that it is the cartridge itself, but I can’t imagine how that would help me fix it.
Do me a favor and tell me the silly greenhorn mistake I’m making, will you?
So my old turntable came with a Shure V15 type IV cartridge installed, and the left channel plays at very low volume—so low it seems not to play at all. When I investigated with the receiver balance control I found that L does play, but with a thin frequency range (mostly mids and low treb I think). Maybe the EQ effect is just due to the low signal level failing to push the preamp?
The first thing I did to try and fix it was swap out the head shell, and the turntable plays fine with a new cartridge. But the Shure cartridge is so friggin cool! So I found a found a cheapo stylus to replace the old Shure one for testing (NOS and the like are available but expensive…only going there if I get it working). Not surprisingly, it wasn’t the needle.
The head shell seems to be the one that came with the turntable (Sanyo TP-1010) , and looks comparable to the quality of the whole unit—low prosumer grade, good features with subpar materials. I noticed that the leads looked cheap, and I saw some oxidization on the pins of the cartridge and shell, so I fixed that. Cleaned the pins of the cartridge with deoxit red, and mounted it in a new head shell with new, lower gauge wires and gold connectors (only planned to swap the leads, but this stuff is so inexpensive it seemed easier to just eliminate another variable with a new shell).
Tried the thing again and…….. no difference. New stylus, new leads, new headshell, clean pins; this feels like the point where I sharpie NFG on the cartridge and move on. But it’s so cool! I’m posting here as a Hail Mary as I sip my morning Adderall—is there anything I haven’t thought of? It seems like I’ve tried everything short of cracking the plastic open, but it wouldn’t be the first time I overlooked an obvious solution because I was focusing in the wrong direction (did I mention my ADHD?). I figured I could try reversing the leads to further confirm that it is the cartridge itself, but I can’t imagine how that would help me fix it.
Do me a favor and tell me the silly greenhorn mistake I’m making, will you?
