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Underwhelming Project debut carbon evo with Acrylic platter

H

hodgkijay

New Member
My semi automatic Technics DL202 w/ AT95VM cartridge stopped working a month or so ago and took the opportunity to upgrade. Or so I thought. I purchased a new Project Debut Carbon and expected better things however I would say moving to this turntable has been a lateral shift rather than an upgrade based purely on sound dynamics.

I'm underwhelmed especially to anything Metal/Punk/Thrash (90% of my listening). I know the Ortofon red isn't the greatest cartridge however I did believe the entire system would be better (sound quality wise) than the Technics turntable. For slower music (say Folk, slower Rock, Ska) it sounds good. However the dynamic range of the sound seems to get lost when playing faster rock music. Now I don't believe it is the mix of these records as some songs sound great and others not so much on the same record.

Is there something I can do to improve the sound dynamics to fast rock music? Does the stylus need to bed in more? Does my amp lack capacity for this type of music (onkyo a-8027)?

Appreciate the help.
 
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Can you swap cartridges? Turntables just spin the disk and hold the stylus in the groove, ideally.

You may need a mat though -- the whole point of the rubber mat is to give friction so the disk doesn't slide and to dampen vibrations (after all, the stylus is dancing all over tracking the groove, that's what makes a turntable work). A hard acrylic platter with no damping may be allowing the disk to vibrate and cancel out some signal.
 
Thanks. I’m not new to spinning records but I am to hifi equipment, what it can do and how to go about it so I appreciate your comment.

The project acrylic platter is supposed to be used without a mat as far as I have read. But will put a felt mat down to see it that potentially helps.
 
Acrylic is way too hard and slippery. Lotta general knowledge about vinyl has been lost in the last 40 years, alas.
 
How does it sound on headphones from the same amp ? If it sounds better then you are probably running out of steam with just 36w for hard hitting music, especially if your speaker impedance is low.
Did you use the same amp with the old tt and were satisfied with the sound ? or you started using it with the new tt only ?
If you were satisfied with this amp then I would say invest in a standalone phono preamp with good headroom. The new ART Precision Pre or Schiit Mani (new version) would be my budget recommendations followed by Cambridge Audio Solo for mid-range or higher options.
 
Unfortunately the Carbon arm is more crap that the Red cart, actually the Red on a decent arm sounds not to bad & quite decent with the Blue or OM20 stylus. I did one of my 12'' kit arms with a special adapter for his Project a few months ago & he decided in the end he did not need to upgrade the cart.

Cheers
 
Looks like going from a direct drive Technics DL-202 to the Project Carbon belt drive you lost some horsepower that you need for your music. It's the table not the cartridge, might be worth getting the DL-202 repaired or find a similar Technics substitute and send the Project packing.
 
triode said:
How does it sound on headphones from the same amp ? If it sounds better then you are probably running out of steam with just 36w for hard hitting music, especially if your speaker impedance is low.
Did you use the same amp with the old tt and were satisfied with the sound ? or you started using it with the new tt only ?
If you were satisfied with this amp then I would say invest in a standalone phono preamp with good headroom. The new ART Precision Pre or Schiit Mani (new version) would be my budget recommendations followed by Cambridge Audio Solo for mid-range or higher options.
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Thanks.
What sort of wattage should I be looking for in an amp?
I have 2x 4 ohm speakers. With this amp does that mean im running the 2 speakers at 2 ohms only with the Amp stating it puts out 4 ohms minimum?
What do you mean by headroom when you refer to a standalone phono preamp?
Cheers.
 
tabarddn51 said:
Unfortunately the Carbon arm is more crap that the Red cart, actually the Red on a decent arm sounds not to bad & quite decent with the Blue or OM20 stylus. I did one of my 12'' kit arms with a special adapter for his Project a few months ago & he decided in the end he did not need to upgrade the cart.

Cheers
Click to expand...
Hmmm so why is the carbon arm rubbish? I would have thought stiff and light would be a plus in this arena? Obviously not however this is definitely the first I have heard of this.
Is it a relatively easy swap out in terms of the arm? Any recommendations?
 
Kit Carson said:
Looks like going from a direct drive Technics DL-202 to the Project Carbon belt drive you lost some horsepower that you need for your music. It's the table not the cartridge, might be worth getting the DL-202 repaired or find a similar Technics substitute and send the Project packing.
Click to expand...
Thanks man.
Can you elaborate on the horsepower comment? The record still spins at the same speed as it has always done. The technics TT is no better or worse than the new TT.
 
I have found the 2M Red to be VERY dynamic. However, this is on a medium-mass arm. It is a highish-compliance cartridge that supposedly favours low-mass arms but appears not to. A friend of mine used it on the EVO, which has a low-mass arm, and was not particularly impressed. He then tried it on two other turntables - a Harmon Kardon with low-mass arm and was again underwhelmed, and on a Sonab/Yamaha with medium-mass arm where he found it to be an amazing cartridge.

A cartridge swap on the EVO might be called for. You could try your AT-VM95 on it, but this cartridge is not high-compliance and so not designed for a low-mass arm. The Ortofon Super-OM10 might be worth trying, which is equivalent to the 2M Red but slightly higher compliance and has great dynamics - in fact, you can fit a Stylus 10 (or any OM stylus) to the 2M Red.
 
Update. I have put back the thin felt mat that came with the metal platter and it does have a subtle sound benefit. I prefer this over my thicker "Fat Wreck Chords" felt mat much to my disappointment.
I took some time last night to really drill into what I was expecting from my TT and what I am currently getting. The TT sounds great for guitar leads, single vocals, acoustic guitar strums however the sound gets lost when there is a lot of noise ie distorted guitars, vocals, drums, etc at once. As if the mid level sound isn't rich or clean. If that makes any sense. Funnily enough the louder I play this music the better it starts to sound meaning this is possibly an amp/speaker issue?

Appreciate everyone's responses.
 
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I have a new Evo with stock Sumiko cartridge and it sounds great. Hope you figure yours out.
I’d try a new cartridge as well.
 
Moving magnet cartridges don't produce the voltage a CD player or streaming DAC will, so the issue may just be that you need to turn the amp up some to compensate for the lower input.

I don't listen to anything like what you are describing, so I'm rather limited in advice on it.
 
hodgkijay said:
Thanks.
What sort of wattage should I be looking for in an amp?
I have 2x 4 ohm speakers. With this amp does that mean im running the 2 speakers at 2 ohms only with the Amp stating it puts out 4 ohms minimum?
What do you mean by headroom when you refer to a standalone phono preamp?
Cheers.
Click to expand...
By 2x4ohm you mean 1 speaker of 4 ohm on each channel, correct ? then no that's still 4 ohms, not 2 ohms. It would be 2 ohms if you had two 4ohm speakers in parallel on each channel, which would be absurd.
Headroom means the amount of input the amp or preamp can handle before distorting. Low headroom amps distort easily. Your symptoms you described on your second take seem to be like that. Maybe its just the phono section and your amp may be ok. that's why I suggested those external phono preamps. Try using the amp with a CD player and/or headphones as I said earlier and see if you experience the same issue.
 
triode said:
By 2x4ohm you mean 1 speaker of 4 ohm on each channel, correct ? then no that's still 4 ohms, not 2 ohms. It would be 2 ohms if you had two 4ohm speakers in parallel on each channel, which would be absurd.
Headroom means the amount of input the amp or preamp can handle before distorting. Low headroom amps distort easily. Your symptoms you described on your second take seem to be like that. Maybe its just the phono section and your amp may be ok. that's why I suggested those external phono preamps. Try using the amp with a CD player and/or headphones as I said earlier and see if you experience the same issue.
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Thanks for the advice. Tried going down the headphones route with no better audio quality where it counts. So that points to a need for an external phono amp?
On a side note how do I work out headroom of my amp?
 
I rarely read anything good about the Red. In fact on AK, I’ve read some truly horrible things about it. I’d start there
 
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The lower level Project tables are often reported as being pretty flawed in terms of sound quality. The Ortofon Red also gets pretty critical responses from people who have owned them. My advice would be to send the whole package back if you can, and run with the Technics for awhile longer till you can save a bit more and get a higher tier turntable, even if that means going to the pre-owned market like Audiogon or US Audiomart, or perhaps a B-Stock or open box.
 
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