No deep bass or highs: VTF or VTA issue?

Ian,

Excellent advice from Dre. Just trying 1.80g isn't enough, since no two cartridges are exactly alike. You need to keep going lower until you loose bass/dynamics and/or reach the mistracking point, then start moving VTF back up in very small (.01-.02g) increments.

Mistracking sounds like:
- if slight - a trace of fuzziness on strong, high frequency notes
- if severe - short bursts of static-like noise, like high frequency “farts” (sorry!), provided that they’re in synch with dynamic peaks or strongly held notes and not in synch with LP revolutions (which would tend to indicate pressing flaws in the vinyl)

Ian,

I’m sorry I called you Floyd based on your forum tag.

Your gauge is one of the typical ones used and it should work well. To test the gauge (crudely) you can place a dime on the gauge. The dimes after 1965 should be in the ballpark of 2.268 grams. I checked 7 dimes plus had a friend check another 10 to 12 and we both came up with around 2.26-2.28 average with a very small number reading 2.29 and 2.24. So, somewhere in that range will give you a general idea if the scale is working properly. I suspect it's OK.

Mistracking can take on many forms depending on the type of music being played. So I don't take this thread off topic, I'll just state that mistracking is an artifact of the stylus not staying in contact with the groove wall. This results in audible breakup of the sound being reproduced. Sometimes it may favor one channel over the other. In other instances, it will mistrack in both channels during the same high velocity amplitude level (a function of anti-skate). In any event, gross mistracking will be clearly audible. If you want to hear what some types of mistracking sound like, take an old LP that you don't care about and lighten the tracking force on your arm until you begin to experience a distortion (fuzzy, humming, crackling sound) like presence added to your music that you know is not supposed to be there. This is not all encompassing of the types of audible mistracking by any means. There are probably a few threads on the forum that discuss this phenomena in more detail. Again, so I don't cloud your thread with a new issue, I'd suggest reviewing one of the threads already here on the forum.

A side bit of information for you: I played all three copies of Aja that I have and I hear the missing information (Cymbal decay) clearly. In fact, the decay is extended so much that it never completely goes away before the next cymbal strike during the opening of Deacon Blues.

Hope this helps,
Dre

Thanks again for the replies. I lowered the VTF to 1.75 and it's tracking fine. I may try it even lower for the education (especially now with the explanation you provided). Funny, it sounded real good (playing Aja again) but then I made the mistake of listening to the digital version again and it still sounded much airier.

I took a break for a while, but now I'm going to play around some more...

Just learned something else: when I read that VTF and VTA were interactive, I thought that meant that an adjustment to one may mean that a different value is required on the other. I didn't realize that adjusting the VTA would literally change VTF! I'm now tracking at 1.5 (well below the 1.8 spec) and still have bass.... should I keep going?

I tried a couple dimes on my gauge and I'm getting 2.300g.

OK, so now I've raised the VTA much higher (maybe even as high as it goes). I can clearly see the top of the cartridge is on an angle and doing this resulted in a VTF of 1.062g.

No mistracking as far as I can tell. Does this sound as whacked as I think it does?

Btw, in measuring the dimes again, I did get 2.262.