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Help me understand tonearm/cartridge compatibility, please!

Hi everyone,

Once again I'm seeking to educate myself on turntable set-up issues with the help your vast experience.  I only recently came to understand the importance of cartridge loading, and I think I have a decent handle on that.  However, I have been having issues with some new cartridges that I've tried, and my guess is that it is due to cartridge compliance, something I don't have a full grasp of yet.  The following results have held with two different phono stages:

I have a Marantz TT-15s1.  It comes with a tonearm designed by Clearaudio for Marantz and a Clearaudio Virtuoso cartridge.  After I broke the stylus no on the cart I decided to explore some other carts.  I have gotten a wide variety of results, and I am guessing that compliance is the issue.  The Clearaudio cart that comes with the table has a compliance of 15.  

1.  Denon DL 103r (compliance 5)- very thin sound, almost like someone turned down the bass and turned up the treble on a tone control.   

2.  Denon DL 110 (compliance 8)- excellent sound at very moderate volumes - deep sound stage, clear vocals, quick transients.  However, raising the volume to even average levels results in significant high frequency distortion, enough to make things unlistenable. 

3.  Grado Reference Sonata 1 (compliance 20) - this seems to work fine, without distortion.  Frankly, I like the sound of the DL 110 better, but the distortion has let me to stick with the Grado.

So, I am assuming that the compliance of the two Denons is too low for my tonearm and that I should stick to a cart closer to 15+?  

Any thoughts would be appreciated.  Thanks, and happy holidays!
Scott 
smrex13

Showing 2 responses by almarg

almarg's avatar
almarg
8,673 posts
 
Hi Scott,

Would I be correct in assuming that you have been running the DL-110, which is rated at 1.6 mv output under the standard test conditions, into the MM input of the Heed, and that you’ve set the Vincent to MM mode when using it with the DL-110? If not, the added gain resulting from using the phono stages in LOMC mode with the DL-110 could very conceivably account for the distortion you’ve described. Especially given the high sensitivity (= a low sensitivity number, 150 mv in this case) of your Naim integrated amp.

Best regards,
-- Al

almarg's avatar
almarg
8,673 posts
 
Scott, well, this is indeed puzzling.  Given your last post, it seems clear that the possibility that some part of the electronic signal path is being overloaded when the Denon cartridges are used can be ruled out.  And given the good info Fleib has provided about compliance, my suspicion is that arm/cartridge compatibility is not the issue, or at least the major issue.  But in response to your initial request for info on that subject, you'll probably find this writeup to be helpful.

I'll second the suggestion of trying headphones, if that is practical, especially if you are certain that the distortion that occurs at higher volume levels with the Denons vanishes at low volume levels.  Obviously the only way the cartridge's performance could be volume-sensitive (for a given passage of a given recording) is if acoustic feedback from the speakers is occurring to a significant degree.  You might also visually check to see if the woofers are visibly "pumping" when that distortion occurs.

What could account for the thin sound and lack of bass with the DL-103r is a phase reversal in one channel.  In other words if the white and blue cartridge connections are interchanged, OR if red and green are interchanged.  Or if a corresponding miswire exists internally within the cartridge.  A phase reversal in one channel would also result in imaging that is vague, diffuse, and hard to localize.

Also, what tracking forces are you using for each of the cartridges?

Finally, although chances are it is unrelated to the problems, how have you set anti-skating?  When the cartridge is viewed from the front, while the stylus is in the groove of a rotating record, is the cantilever pointed essentially straight ahead (assuming it points straight ahead when the stylus is lifted off of the record), or is it deflecting perceptibly to the left or the right?

Just some thoughts.  Good luck.

Regards,
-- Al
  
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