joessportster Posted July 24, 2005 Share Posted July 24, 2005 I have had my basis 1400 with rb 300 and incognito wire upgrade with grado referance sonata for 6 months now and have loved it. I took a few minutes to adjust some things i thought looked a little out of adjustment. first i bought a mini digital scale to check tracking force it was at 0.7 grahms, grado suggests 1.5 grahms, so i set it to 1.5. Next the arm had a slight lean back lower at the base and higher at the cartridge. i set an old lp on the platter and loosened up the hex that secures the arm to the baseand i simply raised the whole assembly till the arm looked level tightened everything back down. put on some dire straits making movies and love over gold, (this is quickly becoming 2 of my favorite albums) and the differance in sound is crazy. I thought the talk about set up, level, vta, track weight was all a lot of hype. Now i know i was wrong initial impressions are much deeper and tighter bass, better high end,soundstage, and imageing are also better. This seems a little crazy i can only guess that albums have much more music in the grooves than i was picking up. I assume the stylus is getting deeper and making better contact in the groove now on all sides. all this change just by eyeballing level on the arm and adjusting the weight. Anyone know of tools available for a more accurate set up. Or do the tools pertain to a specific table cart setup. time to try pink floyd dark side and see what ive been missing Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Songer Posted July 24, 2005 Share Posted July 24, 2005 YOU THOUGHT IT WAS ALL A BUNCH OF HYPE? Now THAT'S funny! Welcome to the world of LP records! By the way, there is not much that can wreck a record quicker than TOO LIGHT a tracking force--the stylus bounces around in the groove and beats it to DEATH--you are MUCH safer tracking at too MUCH weight than with too little. Now you need a set-up record so that you can really dial it in!! CONGRATULATIONS!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joessportster Posted July 24, 2005 Author Share Posted July 24, 2005 where might a person find this set up record, and i cant say i experienced any problems with the stylus bouncing around on the albums maybe i was at least heavy enough to keep from that, at least nothing audiable was showing it to bounce around, i have a stereo test record that talks about vta etc... is this what you are referring to. Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Songer Posted July 24, 2005 Share Posted July 24, 2005 I've been using this one for the past 7-8 years: http://www.vinylengine.com/hifinewstestrecord.shtml Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LarryC Posted July 24, 2005 Share Posted July 24, 2005 ---------------- http://www.xs4all.nl/~rabruil/ttadjust.html ---------------- This document, under "Lateral Tracking Error" says to align the cartridge body with the parallel tangent lines. Other authorities such as high-end tonearm manufacturers Graham and Basis say to align the cartridge cantilever with the lines, and they provide alignment tools to do just that. This outfit says the same thing under its cart alignment paragraphs. Shure includes an alignment tool with their cartridges that lets you align either the body or the cantilever. There are advantages to aligning the body instead -- it's much easier (unless the body is "crook" like Benz's) to see and do, and most cantilevers are properly aligned in the cartridge body. Moreover, aligning the cantilever takes a magnifier and patience. Incidentally, the best illuminated magnifier I've found was sold by my local Ace Hardware for $7. Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted July 25, 2005 Share Posted July 25, 2005 Just to reiterate what others have said here - LP is not CD - setup is both critical and in the hands of the user. If you dont spend the time to set it up properly - and then take the time to check it and make adjustments you are better off with a CD player. Every table/arm/cartridge combo has its own quirks and peculiarities. My current rig is so different from the previous one I had to forget everything I thought I knew to get it setup correctly. Whilst I am now confident that I have this setup nailed I just ordered a new cartridge to play with a whole new bunch of variables. Sounds nutty - but there is a reason for it - which I will go through in intimate detail once I have completed the experiment. As a final thought - try running that Grado at 1.8 once you have tested it at 1.5 and see how it sounds. As others have said higher tracking weights sometimes improve the sound even when you go over the manufacturer's recommended weights. It may be worse - it may be better - there is only one way to find out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joessportster Posted July 25, 2005 Author Share Posted July 25, 2005 thanks to all so far on this i will try tweaking the weight and see where that takes me i have a test record that covers most of what the ones mentioned here seem to but some of the stuff is greek to me right now, the table seems to be set up pretty good now according to what i can understand on the record, i will have to find ssome reading to figure some more of this stuff out, one thing in particular i am wondering is how i am supposed to know what flutter is supposed to sound like?????? anyway thanks for all the help Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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