Well. My adventures with the KAB superduperdeluxe SL1200 MK II continue. Confession: I really suck at turntable setup. Actually, I may not be that bad at this but I'm definitely at the bottom of the learning curve. It turned out I had a couple of issues with my tonearm (that my eyes still can't find on the old one; evidently the gimbal was out of alignment, and the arm tube had a small crease in it), and it was in need of replacement. Also the Denon 103R cart I was trying to use had a damaged cantilever. So off it will go to Soundsmith at some point... maybe. I "got a deal" on it, figures.
This is my third "real" TT, and it's the best I've heard in quite some time now and definitely the best I've ever owned since the upgrades. The fluid for the arm damping mechanism is a trip. It's kind of the consistency of epoxy before it hardens. Evidently it stays that way and doesn't evaporate. Anybody know what it is? It came in a syringe, and I used half of the syringe's contents to fill the damping reservoir halfway as instructed. And I need to call or email Kevin because it seems that when trying to set the VTF the fluid damping may be complicating things. But since it's a holiday I'll run it by you guys first...
When following the directions for setting the VTF, everything was fine until I put the viscous fluid into the reservoir. Then I tried to re-set it, and there still didn't seem to be enough mass to get a good read into the music (it barely made sound) with the recommended tracking force. I dialed down the main counterweight, and it wasn't enough so I taped the 3-gram spacer weight that is supposed to be sandwiched in between the cart (if desired) and the headshell on top of the headshell (pictured, as to not affect the tonearm height...?), backed off the counterweight to the middle or so and viola, I had music!
So I have no idea how to actually fine-tune the VTF at this point; setting the recommended (
edit: for the Red1) 1.5 grams for anti-skate and tracking force seems to me to be a very spurious method at this point, as the
"reach a point where the tonearm just begins to lift off of the arm rest. STOP turning the counterweight--this is the zero position" technique doesn't seem to apply anymore with the fluid damping. I tried my handy-dandy Ortofon tracking force scale and it seems a bit suspect as well, as the pivot has a bit of friction and it likes to stick. So basically I have been reduced to trying to find the sweet spot by ear, which leads me to believe that I'm probably not getting the anti-skate right, for one thing at least. Any suggestions would be welcome...
On the "flip side", the Grado Red1 is breaking in nicely, and seems to improve upon every listen. It sounds better through the LCD2 better than it does with the PS1000, which was too "Grado-ie" of a combo. Matching headphones to cartridges is very interesting. I put in a new DL103 that I had on deck and as expected it was an improvement. Also as I expected, I preferred the PS1K to the LCD with the Denon cart. I will continue to explore the Grado and Denon sounds, but I have a feeling that the Dynavector 10X5 may hit the sweet spot in my system ultimately so that one is next to try before I put more $ into the Denons/Grados.
I've already posted about the various upgrades for Grado's Gold1, and Soundsmith has some very interesting possibilities for the Denon 103R.
I will probably pick up another M5G headshell at some point, as I was thinking of changing it out for the Grado because it has the 4-gram screw-on weight, but that will affect the height of the the tonearm. Since the Red1 is already taller than the DL103, I will use the spacer weight with the DL103 as I have been reading that the already-heavy DL103 benefits from the extra weight, along with adding the additional counterweight at the end of the arm. So now that I think about it the sandwich weight will probably be a better solution for the Denon because of cartridge/arm height issues.
In the pics above, the DL103 is without any extra weights anywhere, and the sandwich weight is taped to the top of the Red1 headshell so I'm about to switch things around a bit. The DL103 is still a clear improvement over the Grado, although the Grado is not bad at all. With the Denon, there's more texture and depth to the bass and the soundstage is greatly improved.
Overall, the fluid damping alone changed the sound of this TT completely and I feel that I am finally on the right track with my vinyl listening. As mentioned, any comments will be appreciated.
