LarryC
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----------------On 11/6/2003 10:46:31 AM tillmbil wrote:So your problems were simple Gary, I on the other hand am going nuts. WHat did Larry do to your TT to make it work? Maybe my VTL or what ever that is is off. Maybe my needle doesn't track straight, how do I check this now that weight is correct?----------------
Bill,
Gary and I did four things, admittedly forgot a couple of others:
1. We used his very handy "overhang gauge" to set the stylus at the right distance from the tone arm pivot.
2. We used my Shure gauge to set the weight to 1.7 gms.
3. We used his Shure cartridge alignment strip to exactly line up the cantilever (not the cartridge body!) correctly
4. We dialed the anti-skating up to 1.7 gms.
Of these, I think two are especially important: the correct weight, and aligning the cartridge cantilever. Of these, an incorrect weight is more likely to cause your problems.
Do you think you set the weight OK? If your cartridge is supposed to be set at over 1.5 gms., you need to set half the correct amount on the Shure gauge's little slider and then set the needle in the "Times 2" groove, not "Times 1". Please forgive me if you already know all this.
I think cartridge/cantilever alignment is very important for best sound -- things can get tinny fast if it's angled away. We stooped down, and, looking from in front of the cart with a magnifying glass, looked to see if the cantilever was running in exactly the same direction as the lines on the strip. We had to look 3-4 times and twist the cart VERY slightly in the headshell each time until it lined up.
The two things we're attending to after the session:
1. Vertical tracking angle (VTA): this is whether the cartridge seems to be level when looking at it from the side (some carts' rear ends need to be up or down a little). Gary thought it was close tho' it's hard to tell. A cross-check is to see if the tone arm either slopes up or down from the headshell to the pivot -- as I understand it, it's best if it's level.
2. "Azimuth" -- whether the cartridge tips to the side when seen from the front. Easiest to put a small, thin mirror on your TT platter and look at it from the front. Gary and I haven't done this yet.
Finally, be SURE to level your turntable with a small level.
I still wonder if your cartridge is defective.
From what you describe, I would look at these possibilities:
1. The weight is not correct
2. Your turntable is not level from side to side or front to back; a strong tilt could cause the tone arm to press strongly on one side of the groove or skip grooves.
3. Your anti-skating is too strong.
I'm more doubtful about the VTA or even alignment causing what you describe.
I hope other forum members chip in if I've gone astray. My experience is limited to a relatively few items I've bought over the years.
And, I apologize if I told you things you really know very well.
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Cartridge not yet broken in, perhaps? This sounds like what I've been through a number of times, with new stuff. You've got a couple of e-mails.
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Rudy,
Aside from the hiss, if you can listen around it, can you tell any sonic superiority from using either the balanced or the unbalanced leads? Thanks --
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Bill,
I think Maron's right -- it sounds like tracking (or tracing) distortion. I think you said in another thread you had set the weight correctly. But, do you think that you set the anti-skating correctly? And, did you LEVEL your turntable? Get one of those 6" long levels at a hardware store, and level it BOTH from side to side and from front to rear. Either wrong anti-skating or a tilted turntable could do what you're describing. What cartridge?
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----------------On 10/26/2003 7:55:04 AM tillmbil wrote:I do not have a way to measure the pressure, so I have ordered the Shure pressure gauge. When you say "onocuous",should have payed attention to how you spelled that", do you mean not necessary? I hope thats waht you meant because it draws the needle off the record, and I definitely have ti set up according to the directions.I did not at any time knock the stylus into anything. I adjusted the weight and it played a few songs fine, but when trying later it became staticky. Like the had dust on it. If I adjust the weight until it plays more normal it still has some static to it still. Is that what a needle going bad sounds like?In all of these the anti tracking weight has not been attached.How do I look at a needle to see if something is wrong?----------------
Bill,
I'm glad a Shure gauge is on the way. While nearly all tonearms have anti-skating doo-dads, manufacturers don't seem to think it's very critical, and frankly I can't tell a lot of difference under many circumstances. It's to neutralize the tendency of a tonearm to "skate" inward (because of the sideward bend in the arm just before the headshell) by a gentle outward force. Because it is gentle, as well as impossible to come up with an exact anti-skating force for every record, you don't see a lot of emphasis on getting it "exact." However, it should be applied.
It is CRITICAL to level your turntable!! A tilt to the right or the left will apply a lot more sideways force to the needle than antiskating ever will. You should probably get a short (6") level if you don't have one, to use on the TT plate. Possibly that is/was part of your problem. Which way was your tonearm skating, to the center or the edge?
It is not good to apply more weight to try to get it to play. How do you set your weight now? I don't think you can guess at it by feel.
I don't have a good guess as to why it would play well for a while and then become staticky (sp?) and skate away. Do you see dust piling up? Can you still see that very small point in the groove if you look closely from the side, or is it obscured by a dust ball? Things I know that can go wrong are a missing or deformed diamond tip (it takes a microscope to see deforming) or a bent cantilever, which you can often see by turning the cartridge over and looking straight down at it -- is it a straight line, and centered?
I feel a cartridge is bad if it has a very exaggerated, peaky treble or midrange, or exaggerates record scratch or even chatters in the groove. That sounds like what you were describing. I usually feel it's really wearing the record at that point.
At some point, you may need to take it back and hope that it will be replaced without fuss. If it never sounded or worked right from the start, you should emphasize that.
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Gary wrote:
Actually, I'm hoping he helps me set up my Garrott in a couple weeks. Hint, hint.
Sure! I'd like to see and hear a Garrott. NeedleDoc liked them, and they seem to be familiar with quite a few brands.
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----------------On 10/25/2003 8:33:25 AM tillmbil wrote:Having TT trouble. Craig if you are out there can you PM me with a phone number.Here goes. I set up my MMF-7 last night and after following all the directions the needle still did not seem to have enough weight to it. Then when I put the anti tracking weight on it made the needle skip. To excited to wait, I took the weight off, gave the needle just a tad more weight and listnend to about 5 songs. Left for dinner and when I got back to listen ther was all this static. I cannot seem to get it to go away.Question? Can you kill a brand new neddle by setting the weight too heavy with only a few songs played?DO you have to use the anti tracking weight. Every time I put it on the needle doesn't touch the record enough. I have adjusted the the arm weight by about 6 grams and the sound comes back but I still hear all this static.----------------
I hope you didn't knock the stylus tip off the cartridge cantilever. I did that once with a new cart, was lucky when the cartridge manufacturer or distributor replaced it without charging for "retipping." I assume you meant anti-skating, which is generally innocuous in my rather limited experience. How did you measure the stylus pressure? Shure gauge? Now, you may have way too much if it's at 6 grams. Can you go back to square one by setting the specified stylus pressure (if you can measure it)?
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On 10/22/2003 5:06:46 PM marksdad wrote:
ok, i have heard of the sorbathane material, or feet, wnere can it be bought?-----
I didn't see sorbothane mentioned here specifically, but www.needledoctor.com sells several kinds of isolation feet (click on "accessories," then "isolation feet") AND a wall-mount turntable rack for $125 (go to catalog, click on "racks and stands," then "wall brackets").
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Can your decor stand a wall-mount stand, such as a Target? Someone in the "Feedback" thread under Technical Questions successfully used such a stand to solve his problem, and it certainly worked for me as well. Another thread dealing with the same subject had a pic of the Target, but I cannot find it at the moment.
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Look at the thread, "Will my speakers get better with more use?" It's found on page 3 of the 2-Channel forum thread listings.
Several on that thread said there is break-in; hurdy_gurdyman posted an interesting direct comparison between broken-in and the same model of un-broken-in speakers. FWIW, my opinion only, I think break-in is real, probably within 40-50 hours of use.
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John,
Serial Nos. 1A836 and 1A837. Yes, very interesting, but as you can tell from my comments, not necessarily positive. After I discovered them, I got in touch with an engineer, Jim Hunter, in Hope; he found notes in their files that, in July 1961, a modification of "four (?) multi-tapered blocks" was installed in the bass horn mouth. I believe he talked with Paul K about it, but apparently got no further info. My notes indicate that Hunter said the mod was in production for two to three years, from 1961-1963, so I guess mine weren't experimental one-offs after all.
As purely my own surmise, I wondered if Klipsch may have been trying to deal with the sonic afteraffects of having to change bass drivers after E-V discontinued the Alnico 15WKs. I recall that a local dealer (and I myself) didn't think the new woofers sounded as good as the old ones. I'd certainly be interested in authoritative views on this.
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Great!! Maybe it has different specs for balanced and unbalanced inputs (do you have to turn your volume control further up?). Congratulations!
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Can you try substituting an amp with less gain/sensitivity (ie, a numerically higher input voltage rating) than 1 v. for 125/225 watts out? E.g., 1.5 v. or more for 100-125 watts, or 1.0 for 25-50 watts? I suspect you have too much amp gain for the Belles.
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Rudy,
Very good. Good luck! What is your amp's sensitivity, BTW?
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Rudy,
After having dealt with such noise issues with Klipschorns for many years, I feel quite sure you are hearing the noise from the part of the preamp circuitry after the volume control. The fact that it goes way down if the preamp is off (and probably if you use a mute switch) makes that really likely. The next "test" is to see whether the noise rises or falls when you turn the volume control up or down. I'll bet it doesn't, but that it stays constant with volume control position unless you turn it way up. I guess I think that most amps are extremely quiet, though SS is probably a little quieter -- it's almost irrelevant, since the preamp noise overwhelmes it anyway, or so my experience has been.
I suspect the key is that your amplifier is quite "sensitive," as most are, on the order of 0.5 to 1.0 volts in for 100 watts out, or the equivalent. I formerly had an amp that required 0.675 v. in for 25 watts out, which is equivalent (I think) to 1.35 v. in for 100 watts out, and it was reasonably quiet. I can NOT use a 0.5 v/100 w. amp in my system!
The issue of phono stage noise was discussed earlier. As in all pre-volume control stages, the ratio between the signal and noise appears to be constant. In my system, phono stage noise is not an issue IF I have a cartridge with adequate output.
The problem may also supposed to be related to preamp gain -- a recent Stereophile or TAS review compared two preamps, one with over 20 db linestage gain and the other only 15 db or maybe less. They remarked on the relative quietness of the latter in combo with the amp they were using.
So, my guess is that you have a preamp-amp-Klipsch/high efficiency mismatch. While I doubt that tubes vs. SS holds much of a key, one of the great advantage of Scott (and Fisher or EICO) integrated amps is that amp-preamp matching issues are addressed internally, and they apparently are very quiet at the speaker. Besides, tubes really DO sound better!
My $0.02.
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This is a drawing I made nearly to scale of a cross-section of the woofer horn throat. The 5-sided inserts shown in cross-section run the length of the 13"X3" slot.
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Gil and others:
I hope I was successful in attaching a .jpg of a cross-section diagram of the throat area of my 1962 Klipschorns. Basically, five-sided longitudinal wedges about 1/2" thick and 4" long are solidly attached (nails and glue, I think) immediately above and below the 13" X 3" opening to the woofer horn, on the other side of the woofer. Some have thought this was an experiment by Klipsch, apparently deemed inconsequential enough to ship the speakers out as regular production items.
This has intrigued me ever since discovering it. I became the third owner of the horns around 1980; however, like the previous owner, I was not fully satisfied with how they sounded. "Updating" with new drivers and crossover in the early 1980s made it much worse. The bass section did not seem to integrate sonically with the midrange/tweeter.
I sent the top section to Klipsch around 1984; they said they found nothing wrong, but modified the tops and flush-mounted the tweeter. They were definitely better but still not how I thought they should sound. After extensive equipment changes over the years including an AK-3 update, and more recently going to a tube amp (Joule-Electra) and installing the AK-4 tweeter/MR/crossovers a few months ago, I feel it finally sounds pretty good but still wonder what the effect is of those woofer throat "enhancements". Those I've talked with think it would be impossible to remove them without a lot of damage.
Any thoughts? I hope the jpg attached; if it didn't, I'll try to find out how to do it.
Thanks!!
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Tony, I sent you an e-mail. Thanks --
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On 9/30/2003 12:36:40 PM garymd wrote:
I also had a nice visit with Larry Clare at lunch today... Sarah Vaughn was in the room with us this afternoon.
Thanks for the audition Larry. This was my first real khorn experience and I'm looking forward to a follow-up visit.
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And thank you, Gary. You're giving me a great start in learning about other than classical music! Incidentally, I have the Smithsonian Classic Jazz LP album, haven't got into it much so far. The cassette tape with Sarah Vaughn adds a few sampler minutes of the Monteverdi Vespers.
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Sarah Vaughn, "The Lonely Hours," Roulette/Classic Records;
Monteverdi "Vespers of 1610," Boston Baroque, Telarc 2-CD
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On 9/24/2003 9:05:10 PM garymd wrote:
Either the speed is really off or that disk I printed from Craig's site doesn't work for me. All I get is a blurred line, both on the 33 1/3 and 45. Maybe Larry will let me borrow his strobe next week when we get together.
Can anyone tell me how to adjust the speed on a thorens 165? I haven't opened it up yet but can I assume there is an adjustment to the belt somewhere inside? Thanks for any help.
BTW - I made another lp killing at the library today. Someone dropped off a stack of mint lps including 4 James Taylor albums, 1 I've been searching for for quite a while (Mud Slide Slim). All in mint condition including the covers. The JTs might be reissues because they all have the nice Warner Bros plastic inserts (not sure they came with the originals). Also, ALL THE DAM HOLES ARE TOO SMALL! In the stack was also some Buffalo Springfield, Bread, The Byrds and, get this, a pretty nice copy of "The Partridge Family Album." I know I'll catch some slack for that but I had to get it. There were 17 in all. A good score for the day.
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Gary,
I'll be glad to loan you the disk, but I thought it and Craig's were equally easy to read.
The blurring makes me wonder -- is there a strong enough AC light on the strobe, especially in your sunny listening room? Do you have a fluorescent lamp, to maybe bring it out better?
I'd also wondered if it didn't have a speed irregularity, when you described it as "slow" earlier -- a variable speed is much easier to hear than a slow steady speed, and sometimes is mistaken for slow.
I think you should see the strobe effect of lines standing still (accurate speed) or drifting forward (fast) or backward (slow). I'd be surprised if it were that far off. Also, when/if you do see the steady lines, are they stable, or do they vary or drift at different rates, suggesting an unsteady speed? Does the motor seem to rotate smoothly and quietly?
I can't understand why the spindle is too large for that many LPs -- I had the problem in the past for a small number of London records, but it was definitely not the norm and wasn't the case for the library records I bought.
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Search for "Feedback" on the forum. A wall-mounted rack such as Target's worked well for me and the person who started that thread.
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Forgive me for being simple-minded (hey, it's my speed), but did you unplug the headphone jack?
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Craig, that's really a nice one, and super-convenient. FWIW, it reassuringly gives exactly the same results as my old Dual metal disk.
setting up turntable
in 2-Channel Home Audio
Posted
There is a "Beginner's Guide to Cartridge Setup" at www.audiophilia.com/features/cartridge_setup.htm --
It notes that the cantilever should be aligned rather than the cartridge body (second paragraph under "Alignment"). Some alignment tools are focused on aligning the body and don't make it easy to align the cantilever.