I am at the end of my rope, please help

Audioraider, if you swapped the arm wiring at the cartridge clips and the problem moved, its the cartridge.

However now we have 3 cartridges that all seem to have the same problem, so its getting less likely that the cartridge is to blame. I also doubt setup, and I also doubt that moving the 'table will do anything.

Right now I suspect that the problem is very close to the cartridge. It could be that the arm wiring is damaged right be the cartridge clips (although I am struggling with how that would work) but the other thing that is worrying me is that you might have DC at the input of one channel of your preamp, so that any cartridge you put on there gets damaged. The only problem with that idea is that if that were the case, swapping the channels would introduce the 'damage' to the other channel of the cartridge and it seems like that has not happened.

Since there are all dead ends, I suspect that there is a procedural error that is confusing things, like a channel that was swapped with the other but for some reason really was not, even though you were sure it was- some sort of thing that you are convinced of and so you can't see it.

If it were me at this point I would start from square 1:

swap the interconnect cables at the inputs of the amps and see if the problem moves

if no => amps, if yes => preamp

if preamp then swap inputs to the preamp (phono input since CD seems OK).

if problem moves then its the arm

if stays put then its the preamp

If arm, swap channels on the cartridge. if problem moves its the cartridge, if not its the arm.

Now I would do this and take notes, being certain that at each step you *change only one thing*. So this means you can't touch the volume or balance controls. Sorry to lay it out like this, but I can see why you are at the end of your rope...

Ralph, note that in the first paragraph of his post of 12/11 Audioraider indicated that the new cartridge had not ever been connected to the phono stage, yet still measured identically to the previous cartridge (with the Fozgometer, I assume).

And the Fozgometer itself can apparently be ruled out as the cause of the measured imbalances since the imbalance followed the channel swap that was performed with the cartridge connections. And also because of the consistency that was observed between the measurements on the first two cartridges and the listening results.

It is indeed baffling. Perhaps another rope should be obtained, and spliced onto the first one....

Best regards,
-- Al

Ralph, I would add to your list the experimental reversal of cartridge phase on one channel-- no matter what the ohmmeter says. Incorrect relative phase will definitely shift the image to one side.

Also, has each tonearm wire been checked with an ohmmeter to confirm that there are no leaks between the wires or from any wire to ground?

Good point David. I had that demonstrated in spades at the recent RMAF. The complaint in the system was that the image was off to one side and it was being blamed on the amps. What was really going on was that the speaker was out of phase in one channel. As soon as that was corrected, the image was exactly centered.

I don't know if this would be a contributing factor on not.In the 70s to 80s,I did some recording from LP's to tape,it didn't matter what system or combination of gear,the right channel always read higher than the left,if memory is correct . When I tried to match them up with the VU meters,I ended up with a imbalance between left and right channels.