Kirk100 Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 (edited) Sorted ignore me Edited July 19 by Kirk100 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyr Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 Aah, sad. 39 minutes ago, Kirk100 said: I bought a Clearaudio Concept turntable, silly me 2 weeks after purchase snapped the cantilever so I replaced it with a Goldring Ethos. What cart was on the TT, first up? And why did you choose an 'Ethos'? 39 minutes ago, Kirk100 said: Setting this turntable up again has caused no end of trouble :(. Because of it's magnetic tonearm set up getting an accurate weight is close on impossible. Setting the antiskate where it should be according the Clearaudio causes the stylus to rip across the lead in of the record. Last but not least is the surface noise I am getting! So I set the antiskate to where it doesn't want to skate across the lead in, that problem is solved. I added a little extra weight that has killed off some of the surface noise. However records that had a few little pop and clicks in quiet parts are now filled with constant noise. So far a have probably 60 hours on the cartridge. My suspicion is the stylus is riding too high in the groove. I have read that the Goldring Ethos is very sensitive to alignment. I had a professional check alignment for me and he has aligned it to Ortofon standard. I don't have anything here other than the basic protractors etc. Anyone have any suggestions? Should I just start making some micro adjustments and see if I can get this any better? Should I get some more hours on the stylus? I suggest you need to ask the 'professional' you hired, to explain what he did. For instance: is the "Ortofon standard" just the cart alignment (ie. Baerwald / Loefgren / Stephenson / "Ortofon") or does it include VTA, VTF & anti-skate? 60 hours is enough, I suggest, to get the cart into a 'run in' state. You seem to have done a number of adjustments - to no avail ... so you need to get the expert back in. And this time ... ask him questions about everything he is doing - so you know what is happening. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcusD Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 Never heard of the “Ortofon standard”, not sure why the magnetic bearing is causing you problems with the tracking weight, set the tracking weight with the counter weight. You could have added too much of everything or too little Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
audiofeline Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 4 hours ago, Kirk100 said: Sorted ignore me Pleased to hear that it's sorted. And I can work out your original problem from the quotes in the second post. It would be good to add how you fixed the problem, so that anyone searching for a similar problem with the turntable will benefit from your experience. Even if it was due to a simple error, I've been caught chasing my tail because I missed the obvious in many cases! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk100 Posted July 23 Author Share Posted July 23 On 20/7/2024 at 12:00 AM, audiofeline said: Pleased to hear that it's sorted. And I can work out your original problem from the quotes in the second post. It would be good to add how you fixed the problem, so that anyone searching for a similar problem with the turntable will benefit from your experience. Even if it was due to a simple error, I've been caught chasing my tail because I missed the obvious in many cases! Good point! It was a combo of a couple things, that led me to over think. Firstly I know enough to be dangerous so I went back to the drawing board and did a little more research. Obviously I needed a bit more education if I didn’t spot that “ortofon standard” wasn’t a thing haha. I also own a puffin phono stage. This little thing has way too many settings so I went back to standard settings while I tested. The clearaudio concepts tonearm is a bit tricky, each adjustment affects the next. I'd been playing with the antiskate, which quite dramatically affects both VTA and stylus pressure. Then adjusting VTA affects antiskate and so on. I started with adjusting the VTA to level and using a technique I saw on a YouTube video shimmed up the tone arm with business cards. I removed the business cards one at a time until I was happy with what I was hearing. This reduced the pops clicks and general surface noise I guess by 25%. (Yes I did try adding but the cartridge sounded better the lower it got). Checked weight again, and set the antiskate on the couple records that seemed to have a lot of trouble tracking the lead in. Checked weight again and adjusted. Adjusting weight on this tonearm is also tricky as it gets heavier as it gets towards the centre of the platter. I was having an issue where is it was at its maximum recommended weight towards the centre of the platter I was getting tracking issues on the lead in. So this was a balancing act or compromise. Lastly I set the phono stage by ear. As for why did I choose the Golding ethos. I couldn’t find another clearaudio mc in stock anywhere. The reviews of the ethos were impressive and I found a new one at $600 under retail. One thing I am noticing, and maybe it will disappear once the cart has more hours on it is the cart will make a noise that I can only best describe as two glasses clinking. It’s about the volume of a static pop. Almost like it’s plucking something in the groove. It occasionally makes the same noise when placing it down on a stationary record. Anyway thanks everyone for their replies! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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