I have a Dual CS-5000 with an Ortofon X5-MC cartridge that I had retipped by Soundsmith with a ruby cantilever fitted with a nude contact line diamond.
When I first dropped the needle on a brand new high end pressing of ZZ Top's Rio Grande Mud, I could have wept. The turntable rumble was deafening. Simply put, it sounded awful.
I strongly suspect this has something to do with an area of hi-fi that has never interested me, and quite predictably blew up in my face. When people start talking about tonearm mass, I'll admit it, I kind of check out.
But, having spent $350 on the retip of a prized old discontinued high output moving coil cartridge that seems to have a reasonably good reputation, I'd really like to finally figure out what I did wrong (OK, what I did wrong was not doing my research).
I would be grateful if anybody could share some expertise and guidance and let me know what kind of turntable/tonearm would be the ideal fit for this modified cartridge. If I had to guess, what I've done here is put a Rolls Royce cartridge on a Chevy turntable and no amount of adjusting is going to make any difference.
Surely the root issue here is a fundamental mismatch between cartridge type and sensitivity made considerably worse by having installed a ruby cantilever fitted with a nude contact line diamond. I understand that azimuth is a key adjustment for this type of stylus.
And this is where I'll wrap it up. I did find a tonearm that has a dedicated and brilliantly engineered azimuth alignment adjustment, but it's $8000 for the tonearm alone.
That's about $7000 out of my price range and it doesn't even include a turntable.
Have I backed myself into a corner I cannot afford to buy my way out of?
I honestly thought I'd spent a good $350 on my favorite cartridge (I bent the hell out of the stock cantilever years ago) and turned it into a real tone monster. Instead, here I am three years later mired in regret and confusion.
I'd be grateful for any input, even if all I get is mockery and derision.
I'll attempt to attach a picture of the cartridge itself to add a little visual interest.
When I first dropped the needle on a brand new high end pressing of ZZ Top's Rio Grande Mud, I could have wept. The turntable rumble was deafening. Simply put, it sounded awful.
I strongly suspect this has something to do with an area of hi-fi that has never interested me, and quite predictably blew up in my face. When people start talking about tonearm mass, I'll admit it, I kind of check out.
But, having spent $350 on the retip of a prized old discontinued high output moving coil cartridge that seems to have a reasonably good reputation, I'd really like to finally figure out what I did wrong (OK, what I did wrong was not doing my research).
I would be grateful if anybody could share some expertise and guidance and let me know what kind of turntable/tonearm would be the ideal fit for this modified cartridge. If I had to guess, what I've done here is put a Rolls Royce cartridge on a Chevy turntable and no amount of adjusting is going to make any difference.
Surely the root issue here is a fundamental mismatch between cartridge type and sensitivity made considerably worse by having installed a ruby cantilever fitted with a nude contact line diamond. I understand that azimuth is a key adjustment for this type of stylus.
And this is where I'll wrap it up. I did find a tonearm that has a dedicated and brilliantly engineered azimuth alignment adjustment, but it's $8000 for the tonearm alone.
That's about $7000 out of my price range and it doesn't even include a turntable.
Have I backed myself into a corner I cannot afford to buy my way out of?
I honestly thought I'd spent a good $350 on my favorite cartridge (I bent the hell out of the stock cantilever years ago) and turned it into a real tone monster. Instead, here I am three years later mired in regret and confusion.
I'd be grateful for any input, even if all I get is mockery and derision.
I'll attempt to attach a picture of the cartridge itself to add a little visual interest.
