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Turntable gurus, please halp!


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Hi all, 

 

Looking for some guidance from experienced turntable maestros. 

 

I've got a Pro-ject The Classic turntable which I've run various carts on: Ortofon 2m Blue, Black, Nagaoka MP-110 settling with a Nagaoka MP-200 and a Goldring E3 as a spare a year ago. I've had Regas before this and got good results with aligning via arc protractors obtained from another forum. From memory Stevenson worked well. 

 

My problem with the Pro-Ject is I'm having a devil of a time resolving what I assume to be IGD but could well be something else. Both the Nagaoka MP-200 and Goldring E3 show up quite a bit of distortion from mid to end of record side. I notice this mainly in vocals, especially in loud chorus sections on rock albums or loud guitar solos or saxophone solos for example. Not every record. An example of this might be Talking Heads "Remain In Light" record. The wailing guitar solo on The Great Curve at end of side A ends up very distorted, slightly worse on right channel. 

 

My tone arm is parallel to the playing surface, azimuth is dead perpendicular but I've experimented a tiny bit to see if that helped or hindered but got nowhere with that. The Pro-Ject comes with a two point alignment card, and I've got the Ortofon alignment card as well. Both the Nag and Goldring cantilevers are not perfectly straight with the cartridge body so I'm careful to align cantilever at the null points rather than by relying on  cartridge body at null points. But I've also aligned by cartridge body just to see, still same issue. 

 

What is perplexing me is I'm certain I'm near perfectly aligned say with the Ortofon alignment card but I still hear IGD on half my records and very noticeable as mentioned above with peak sections of loud solos or vocals etc. So this weekend I just experimented endlessly with angles and lengths on the tone arm head and just played inner groove to see if any variation worked. Couldnt get rid of the problem!

 

I've experimented with tracking weight, didn't help. I'm fairly lost on how anti skate works on this thing too with the weight hanging on the nylon wire. 3 settings I can see and I've tried them all and with no anti skate at all. Couldn't detect much difference but I might revisit that. 

 

Am I correct in thinking (hoping) the Pro-Ject and Ortofon alignment cards are pretty useless? Would I have more success trying to source an arc protractor online for say Lofgren, Stevenson etc? I'm assuming the Ortofon and Pro-Ject cards are Baerwald? 

 

I don't hear peak distortion or any real distortion from start of record to midway. And if the two last tracks are pretty quiet I can get away without hearing much IGD at all. 

 

Pro-Ject is going directly into phono stage of my Marantz PM8005 then into Monitor Audio RX8s. I've eliminated speakers as issue as problem is present via headphones. 

 

Pretty frustrating, very keen to hear opinions 

 

Appreciate it

 

 

Edited by dles1972
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The ProJect and Rega cards supplied with their turntables are what they consider correct alignment for the arm - this should be accurate enough.

The fact you mention it does it across several cartridges and that you have tried several alignment tools....

I would take the turntable to a local HiFi store and pay them to align it...

Take your problem records along with you and once they have set it up for you, have a listen.

That way you can both check them on yours and also check your records on one of their turntables to ensure it is not groove damage on the record.

 

You could also try a different phono stage, just in case it is partly due to the Marantz built in one.

 

It is a nice turntable, and you have some nice cartridges...

 

Good Luck sorting it out ?

 

FB_IMG_1576392894400.jpg.e26a03b7ef7c82d2d44acf7700a74097.jpg

 

Edited by Douglas HiFi
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You seem to be saying you have it perfectly aligned, and you probably do, it isn't hard to get it close enough to eliminate IGD. Different alignments won't make enough difference to be the cause, but I'd suggest Stevenson until you find the problem.  It is best for IGD minimisation.

 

I would suggest taking a step back and figure how to eliminate other possibilities. Since the problem  started, have you ever heard IGD on a brand new record?  Also, since then, have you tried playing a record with the worst IGD, on someone elses known good turntable?  Just trying to eliminate damaged records as a possibility.

 

Another possibility is something interfering with the arm's motion.  The antiskate mechanism, arm wiring, and even bearings could potentially cause problems.  Other things like lack of clearance from the arm lift platform can at times do strange things

Edited by aussievintage
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12 minutes ago, Douglas HiFi said:

The ProJect and Rega cards supplied with their turntables are what they consider correct alignment for the arm - this should be accurate enough.

The fact you mention it does it across several cartridges and that you have tried several alignment tools....

I would take the turntable to a local HiFi store and pay them to align it...

Take your problem records along with you and once they have set it up for you, have a listen.

That way you can both check them on yours and also check your records on one of their turntables to ensure it is not groove damage on the record.

 

You could also try a different phono stage, just in case it is partly due to the Marantz built in one.

 

It is a nice turntable, and you have some nice cartridges...

 

Good Luck sorting it out ?

 

FB_IMG_1576392894400.jpg.e26a03b7ef7c82d2d44acf7700a74097.jpg

 

Yeah good idea, probably easier to leave it with pros and see what they come up with then test a few of my worse records. Thanks

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4 minutes ago, aussievintage said:

 

You seem to be saying you have it perfectly aligned, and you probably do, it isn't hard to get it close enough to eliminate IGD. Different alignments won't make enough difference to be the cause, but I'd suggest Stevenson until you find the problem.  It is best for IGD minimisation.

 

I would suggest taking a step back and figure how to eliminate other possibilities. Since the problem  started, have you ever heard IGD on a brand new record?  Also, since then, have you tried playing a record with the worst IGD, or someone elses known good turntable?  Just trying to eliminate damaged records as a possibility.

 

Another possibility is something interfering with the arm's motion.  The antiskate mechanism, arm wiring, and even bearings could potentially cause problems.  Other things like lack of clearance from the arm lift platform can at times do strange things

All good logical ideas. There is at least a few new records that are distorting. But then that is also trusting that modern pressings are mastered correctly which is probably a can of worms too. In the 70s and 80s bands would try to put their quieter tracks near inner groove but these days most albums seem to be uniformly loud in the digital age. I've done a fair bit of equipment flipping so it's hard to know when the issue became apparent. It could have been there earlier and I've only zeroed in on noticing it recently. The cheap Goldring E3 sounded so good that I ended up selling the Nagaoka MP-200 so I may need to grab another different cart to eliminate a fault in the Goldring E3. Having said that, the Nagaoka MP-200 was having some IGD issues too but I probably wasn't as focussed on it then. I think you make a good point trying those records out on another table to eliminate old record damage or poor mastering first 

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  • 9 months later...

Sorry to resurrect an old topic, but I also have a classic TT with mp200 and am unhappy with inner groove distortion. Did you sort it out? Any tips?
 

cheers!
 

PS I find adjusting the vta on the classic a royal PITA! Any suggestions on how to adjust slightly without resetting every time you touch the damn thing?!?

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