I just finished a 2 1/2 hr re-alingment of the cart. and did make a few changes to overhang (maybe 1 mm less) addressed azimuth and played with the vta (moving up and down to find the best sound which came when I raised it till the voice of Eric Clapton became sharp then dropped it down till it sounded normal, best I could do?) lewm I switched both speaker cables which tended to muddy up the mids imho. almarg in checking the anti-skate (AQ PT-6) my understanding may be off but I thought you adjusted it to where the tone arm moved backwards then adjusted back toward no forward or backward movement? At present it is set at .5 so that raising and lowering it doesn't move in or out. Now all the adjustments I have made have made a difference in the vocals of most records but some seem beyond help. I feel that room treatments and maybe a different phono stage may improve it more and that will take more time to address than this tread will stand. But I am still open to more input and will happily do what I can to try anything that might help.
Why are the vocals on some records hidden behind the music on my system?
Help! I am new to this forum, but have been into audio for over 45 years and have never had this problem before. I was lucky enough to come into some money and decided to use some of it to up grade my system for the first time in almost 30 yrs. The system consists of McIntosh MC-402, McIntosh C-100, McIntosh MCD-500, VPI HW19 MKIII, Soundsmith Aida, Furutech Ag-12 phono cable, Furutech silver head shell wires, Furutech interconnects and Furutech speaker cables (yes I like Furutech) and Raidho XT-3 speakers. Now on some albums the vocals are buried behind the music and you have a really hard time hearing the singer? Not all albums are voiced in this manner but enough that it is bothersome. I have a large dedicated man room (24 x 27) with minimum treatment. CDs sound just fine so I feel that it is with the phono preamp in the C-100? I have moved the speakers 100s of times and have them at 5' 8" apart and 8' 1" to the focal point and the soundstage is good and the vocals are better, but you still have to really listen hard to hear certain vocals on some albums. Most of my albums are 30 to 50 years old and have been cleaned with a sonic cleaner (best thing ever imho). Even some of my new heavy vinyl has this problem.
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scooby2do I just finished a 2 1/2 hr re-alingment of the cart.Unless you are working with a microscope, an alignment should not take two hours or more. How did you perform the alignment? Did you align the cartridge, or did you align the stylus/cantilever? If the former, it’s extremely likely that your alignment is off, ime. That’s why I recommended a gauge that uses a mirror for overhang and tangency. |
almarg in checking the anti-skate (AQ PT-6) my understanding may be off but I thought you adjusted it to where the tone arm moved backwards then adjusted back toward no forward or backward movement? At present it is set at .5 so that raising and lowering it doesn’t move in or out.First, I took a look at the manual for the AQ PT-6 tonearm, at vinylengine.com, and if I understand your response correctly you are **correctly** ignoring the instructions it provides about setting anti-skating. It states that the anti-skating dial should be set to the same number as the VTF dial, which is a statement I’ve seen in the instructions for a number of tonearms in the past but which results in a ridiculously excessive amount of anti-skating force IMO. In any event, following is the procedure I use and recommend for setting anti-skating, at least in the case of cartridges having medium to high compliance. (I don’t have significant experience with low compliance cartridges, and this procedure may be less useful in those cases since cantilever deflection will probably have less sensitivity to variation of anti-skating force): 1)Observe the cartridge from the front while it is in the groove of a low volume passage of a rotating record, and positioned somewhere in the middle of the record. 2)Adjust anti-skating until deflection of the cantilever to one side (left or right) becomes barely perceptible, relative to its position when the stylus is lifted off of the record. Note the setting. 3)Adjust anti-skating until deflection of the cantilever to the other side (left or right) becomes barely perceptible, relative to its position when the stylus is lifted off of the record. Note the setting. 4)Set anti-skating to the mid-point between those settings. 5)Verify that no perceptible left or right deflection of the cantilever occurs near the beginning and near the end of the record. Good luck. Regards, -- Al |
cleeds - the alignment itself didn't take 2 1/2 hrs but making adjustments to the vta is a change an listen to see if it is better or worse then doing that over an over until you find what you feel is the best . almarg - maybe I don't have the PT-6 it might be a PT-5 because there is no dial to adjust vta only a set screw to tighten after manually raising or lower the tone arm by feel, I wish there was a calibrated dial it would have been so much easier. I though it was the PT-6 because of some other differences in the vinylengine.com library to the PT-5. The overhang is 18mm as it is for a 9" tone arm which is what the ProJect shows it to be also. The mirror on the Pro-Ject is for adjusting azimuth. Your method of setting anti-skate sounds similar to what I stated except you use cantilever deflection instead to tonearm drift. Your way may be more accurate so it's something I can try. |
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