One of the weaknesses of headshells is that they connect electrically to the tone arm at tiny points rather than the relatively large surface of the sleeved pins on the cartridge. I put a very small dab of silver connection cream on the tip of each headshell electrical point to increase the surface and therefore the efffectiveness of the connection. An easy tweak that works.
Headshell Hygiene and SME Standard Stupidity
I recently mounted a re-tipped Soundsmith SMMC1 on one of my better headshells. My initial reaction was ugh - something is really wrong with this cart, no bass, no magic, no interest. I checked all my settings and geometry and it was spot-on so I resigned myself to letting it break-in a bit and see if everything righted itself. Two days later and no miracle occurred. So I was going to call Peter Ledermann for help.
Then I gave the underside of the headshell a good look and saw the wires were crossed and touching. These leads are not sleeved but have some kind of micro-coating?! Once I combed them straight as possible a re-play was ear-opening. Everything I wanted and expected was there to hear and I could breathe easy with a fine sounding cartridge.
A quick look through the other five carts I have mounted revealed some suspicious hook-ups there as well. Before and after listens revealed easy improvements were made although none as drastic.
I asked myself, why is it so easy to mess this up and so difficult to make it perfect?? The answer is that the SME Standard is backward! For five of six carts the left and right channels were reversed from the pins on the headshell. So, the left channel leads had to cross over the right channel leads to reach the correct pins, based purely on color match. WTF!
I now plan on reversing the channel connections on all my headshells (exchanging blue and green, red and white) so that there will be no crossing needed. I will also reverse the connectors to my phono-pre to maintain channel correctness. Opinions please.
Then I gave the underside of the headshell a good look and saw the wires were crossed and touching. These leads are not sleeved but have some kind of micro-coating?! Once I combed them straight as possible a re-play was ear-opening. Everything I wanted and expected was there to hear and I could breathe easy with a fine sounding cartridge.
A quick look through the other five carts I have mounted revealed some suspicious hook-ups there as well. Before and after listens revealed easy improvements were made although none as drastic.
I asked myself, why is it so easy to mess this up and so difficult to make it perfect?? The answer is that the SME Standard is backward! For five of six carts the left and right channels were reversed from the pins on the headshell. So, the left channel leads had to cross over the right channel leads to reach the correct pins, based purely on color match. WTF!
I now plan on reversing the channel connections on all my headshells (exchanging blue and green, red and white) so that there will be no crossing needed. I will also reverse the connectors to my phono-pre to maintain channel correctness. Opinions please.
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