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Why does my system sound so shrill and distorted?

My system has been sounding very shrill and in some situations it will have a little distortion in the higher dynamic range with vocals and horns. I have used the feickert protractor to align my cartridge and have tried all three of the different geometries with not much change. Any ideas?

My set up,

Wilson Benesch Full Circle turntable with ACT TWO tonearm 9gm effective mass

Grado Reference Platinum cartridge 20cu compliance, I have a Sound Smith Carmen on the way.

Grado PH-1 Phono pre, Musical Fidelity M1 phono pre on the way

Manley Stingray II, pretty much always run in triode mode

Sonus Faber Liuto Monitors

cables are all Cardas Quadlink's

Thanks,
Thomas
ohnofiasco

Showing 1 response by tanathen78

tanathen78
25 posts
 
Make sure the arm and cartridge mounting hardware is not loose at all. The loose hardware can give you some resonant distortion that will have you adjusting tracking force and antiskate for hours. I doubt that would be the whole problem but it can contribute. This going to seem like a dumb question but are the records clean ? Also, when you are making your adjustment try not to do it on an album that has 6+ cuts on each side, greatest hits albums and compilations are generally a little more compressed. If those are the types of albums you listen to often disregard that. As far as the vta goes I'm using a reference sonata and I seem to get the best results with the arm just below parallel to the platter so the cartridge is tipped slightly back. I track at best around 1.75g.

Regards, Bill
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