audiophile help needed in CT

At Goodwin's, ask for Paul. He will probably be the most responsive. Jim, the turntable guy, is a great guy.

Thanks for posting more info. Before traipsing all the way to Goodwins (or even across town), have you:

- cleaned the stylus properly?
- cleaned the record properly?
- adjusted tracking weight?
- adjusted anti-skate?

You said tracking weight and anti-skate are correctly set up. By what criteria? If they were just adjusted to some numeric value with a scale, they're only in the ballpark (at best). The only way to fine tune VTF, A/S and several other parameters is to adjust while listening to familiar music. As a rule, reducing tracking force and/or A/S will tend to bring out more detail and clarity (provided you don't go too far and incur mistracking). Every cartridge is unique, so adjusting to some recommended value without listening is only an approximation.

No technician can do this fine tweaking in a shop. A cartridge will perform differently in a shop than in your home. A cartridge will sound different in your system and room. A cartridge's performance changes with the weather and the seasons, particularly in a highly variable climate like ours in Connecticut.

Unless you're willing to pay for regular home visits by a technician, maximizing the performance of any good vinyl rig requires effective maintenance and frequent adjustments by the user.

Hello fellow CT'ers, I am from Clinton, about 15 mins from Deep River on the CT shore (previously from Balbrae in Bloomfield DougDeacon) I do have a high powered scope and could certainly check your stylus and set-up. Take-Five in New Haven could also offer you professional service and they are very good and have been around forever. Feel free to contact me.
Deep River/Essex is a lovely little New England boating community.

Cool to find out so many of us know about Deep River, after years of shmoozing indirectly on the internet. Take Five was my recommendation also, Zenblaster. It's an easy hop from Deep River. But I also take Doug's point about doing a little homework first, altho I don't find my vinyl rig needing such regular maintenance as Doug suggests. I tend to set it and forget it.

I grew up in New Haven and never even saw much of CT east of New Haven until I started dating my wife and became a member of her family in DR, in the late 1970s. Sometimes I fantasize about retiring there, but I admit to being hooked on the "bright lights" of the DC area; I like being able to hear high quality live music any day of the week within 15 minutes drive from my house. (20 minutes to Kennedy Center.) One of my best friends from high school lives in Clinton, Zen.

To the OP, you may have known my mother-in-law, Rita Samuels. She was Comptroller of the town even into her early 90s. A remarkable woman. My father in law was THE dentist in Deep River and an avid sailor.

ZenBlaster, I guess we're almost ex-neighbors. We moved to Bloomfield just last year. Looked at Balbrae but landed on a hilltop just below Talcott Mtn. It's scenic... also windy and frigid in the winter.

It can't match Lew's town for bright lights and culture, but it sure is low stress. The nearest "store" is Wade's Farm Stand (best native corn in the state, and their fields are right outside my back door). My daily commute is all of 5 miles on country roads. Traffic jams consist of deer, turkeys, fox, wildcat (once) and the occasional bear.

I have a long time buddy in Guilford, not far from Clinton and Deep River. Connecticut's small... everybody knows somebody from every town in the state.