2. analog
  3. 1330570540

Decent Bass & Mids, compressed highs on Analog


Challenged with the early phases of analog setup.

Received criticism for my system having very limited extension in the highs.

It's an integrated system: Aurum Acoustics CDP and Aurum mid and highs amps with 300B and 6SN7 tunes, solid state bass amps (all on the same chassis). The front end is a Technics SP10, Acos Lustre STA-801 arm and Dynavector 20X-L cartridge through Harmonic Technologies Silver phono cable to the onboard phono stage.

CDs have excellent presence, giving a balanced sound spectrum with good high frequency response and uncommonly three dimensional presentation.

The cantilever on the cartridge is not dead-center, and though I've tried to adjust for that by mounting at an angle to compensate, alignment is one possible flaw.

During our session we swapped in a different PC, and though the presentation shifted toward the upper frequencies and presentation opened up somewhat, the PC sounded quite colored to me. My standard PC is top of the line Furutech, and has given very even and coherent results with CDs.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

David
128x128cdk84
sarcher30
596 posts
 
Have you tried different load settings on your Phono section? Try setting the load to the highest setting-47kohms. If that is to bright come down some till it sounds right.
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,823 posts
 
IF your cart and stylus have inherent alignment issues, compensating may be difficult or perhaps even impossible for best results. High frequencies often suffer first/most.

Phono rigs only sound best when things are in as perfect alignment as possible, especially the high frequencies. That might be your main issue at this point.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
Time to retip.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
drrsutliff
834 posts
 
High frequency reponse will suffer first and to a greater extent from poor or incorrect alignment. Time for a new stylus or new cartridge. You will not get your desired improvements before this is done.
cdk84's avatar
cdk84 OP
70 posts
 
Hello All,

Thank you for your suggestions.

I've made very considerable progress in gaining very respectable sound from my Dynavector 20X-L cartridge with its off-center cantilever by using a caliper to center the cantilever in the headshell.

Treble is very much restored, bass extension and clarity are improved and the sound is much more engaging.

As a result, I'm willing to hypothesize that it's possible, if more difficult, to secure good sound from an off-center cantilever, provided the stylus' verticality has not been disturbed, too. Of Course this depends upon the stylus shape. Were the stylus a knife-edge design, this 'recalibration through repositioning' would be out of the question. Re-carving the grooves on an LP is not thought to lead to a 'musical' experience....

Very Best Wishes All Around,

David
More to discover