Dynavector 20XL

I've never heard of a cartridge making noise because it is not broken in. My DV 20xl never made any noises.

Did you set the gain to high on the BAT phono board? I don't think lower gain would cause the noise you describe, though.

Also, the DV needs a lower resistive loading than the default 47k Ohm, but, again, not having the ideal loading shouldn't cause the noise you describe.

I have a 20XL and used to hear this type of noise in the louder passages of records. I adjusted the anti-skating and it seems to have gone away. Give it a try.

Thanks for the responses. I will try the antiskate adjustment.

The noise is persistent even when I change phono preamps, so I know it's not the phono stage.

Hi, K, it might be an azimuth problem. I've had some distortion (not really "static" though) show up with a DV-20XL when the azimuth was off. Resetting azimuth solved the problem.

You shouldn't be hearing anything harsh with that new 20XL. It sounds pretty darn good right out of the box. (I found that there was a subtle improvement with break-in.) If the harshness continues even after carefully checking alignment/antiskate there's either a problem with the cartridge or somewhere in the chain between the cartridge and the phono stage. You could try swapping the previous cartridge back onto the tonearm to see if the problem persists.

Tom