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New RCA cables. Sound is horrible.

Maybe also a closeup photo of the terminal side of the cartridge would help to diagnose the issue. Also, provide a closeup photo of the stylus tip.
Check to make sure that you connected the Left & Right RCA cable center conductors to the terminal strip as shown in the photo from the internet. The black wires are the grounds.

Screenshot 2026-01-26 174911.jpg
 
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Bingy said:
Well. Cut the Mogami W2965 down about 12 inches. Same size as the old OEM. Same sound. Dull and compressed. Uff. Now what?
Click to expand...

The process of elimination can be helpful in diagnosing a problem. Take the 12" cables and if it is practical make them the phono cables. I know it is short and requires moving things around but if you can connect that to your phono input on your amplifier, see if that makes any difference. The alternative is to use the old grungy cables that worked well and do it with them. Remember, shorter is better when it comes to cables. If 12" doesn't make a difference, then I think the problem you are experiencing is something is else.
 
So:
- you tried with two different receivers and with both, the sound is off
- you tried with your daughter's turntable (with a different cartridge) and the sound is also off (-> which cable did you use for this turntable ?)
- you tried two different cables (mogami + cheap amazon) and the sound is off

That leaves the speakers or the vinyl record.
 
Bingy said:
Another mistake. It wasn’t broke. So I don’t know why I tried to fix it. Sanyo TP600SA turntable. Got it for free. It’s been amazing and the sound was incredible. But I always had this weird issue with the original RCA cables. They were grimey and old.

I bought new cables from eBay (Mogami) and solder them in and now the sound is terrible. Very dull and flat. The Capacitance at 1kHz - 27.0 pF/Ft.

I should have left the old cables on. But now what? The old cables are cut up and unusable. I desoldered the new cables and tried to resolder again thinking it was a bad connection. It’s not. Same terrible sound.

Anyone have any advice??!
Click to expand...
Get a test record and measure.
 
Well. Was up all night and thinking it had to be the cartridge. I must have bumped it out of wack. All would be fixed this am when I re-aligned. Well. that was not to be either. The cartridge and head are aligned perfectly to the protracted angles. Can check that off the list. Below is the stylus.

IMG_0554.jpeg
 
dksp said:
So:
- you tried with two different receivers and with both, the sound is off
- you tried with your daughter's turntable (with a different cartridge) and the sound is also off (-> which cable did you use for this turntable ?)
- you tried two different cables (mogami + cheap amazon) and the sound is off

That leaves the speakers or the vinyl record.
Click to expand...

dksp said:
So:
- you tried with two different receivers and with both, the sound is off
- you tried with your daughter's turntable (with a different cartridge) and the sound is also off (-> which cable did you use for this turntable ?)
- you tried two different cables (mogami + cheap amazon) and the sound is off

That leaves the speakers or the vinyl record.
Click to expand...
Or my ears.

Your right. This doesn’t make sense. All I know is before the cable swap the sound from the TT and Receiver was incredible. After the cable swap either my ears are shot or something isn’t right.

Resoldered the new cable twice.
Soldered an Amazon cheap cable to test as well

Cartridge is aligned and stylus is new and seated correctly.

I may go back in as a last resort and just solder the tone arm cables directly to the new cable and bypass the soldering mounting bracket :

IMG_0549.jpeg
 
Does it sound better or different with headphones?

EDIT: Photo looks ok. Did you check continuity and resistance of each wire?
 
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Bingy said:
Or my ears.

Your right. This doesn’t make sense. All I know is before the cable swap the sound from the TT and Receiver was incredible. After the cable swap either my ears are shot or something isn’t right.

Resoldered the new cable twice.
Soldered an Amazon cheap cable to test as well

Cartridge is aligned and stylus is new and seated correctly.

I may go back in as a last resort and just solder the tone arm cables directly to the new cable and bypass the soldering mounting bracket :

View attachment 3685710
Click to expand...
the rca cable is maybe damaged where its out of shape under the clamp ..
on another note when i am diagnosing most issues i try one channel on its own then the other .
 
While I do firmly believe there is no magic to one wire over another, a deficient wire can indeed perform worse, and phono cables are very sensitive to this. Were the old wires coaxial or 2 conductor? More curious than anything.

Since you've already tried multiple cables, I'm inclined to think there was some collateral damage somewhere. Not having that bracket can stress the tonearm wires, and the white conductor looks kinked already. If anything i would swap in jacks at that location.
 
I tried to look at the input of the amp and there is a cap there C604 that reads 0.001 which is in uF. Meaning 1000 pF. Later one with 100 pF So what is the input C? If it is 100 pF you add cables+connectors to 27*5+25+10 getting total of 270 pF. A bit high.
 
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Hard to imagine a slightly elevated capacitance causing the dramatically poor sound the OP is describing. Or even a very elevated capacitance.
 
Bingy said:
Well. Was up all night and thinking it had to be the cartridge. I must have bumped it out of wack. All would be fixed this am when I re-aligned. Well. that was not to be either. The cartridge and head are aligned perfectly to the protracted angles. Can check that off the list. Below is the stylus.

View attachment 3685709
Click to expand...
Took all night to check the alignment??
 
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