[jimdgoulding]

Gotta have a protractor.  It will show you two null points on a grid with lines across the sweep of a record where your cartridge should be squared up with a the line, not your headshell.  You will adjust your cartridge body to and fro in your headshell and turn it clockwise or counter clockwise until you are squared up at those points.  Once you've tighted it up securely in your headshell, the next thing is to adjust the height of your arm at the pivot so the stylus is traceing the record grooves properly.  You'll need a magnifying glass for that.  Examine your stylus tip as best you can with the glass before trying any of this to give you an idea if it should be perpendicular with the record or tilted slightly.  Feel free to ask questions as you go.

[drphoto]

Thanks, Jim. Still lovin' the woolies BTW!!

[jimdgoulding]

Thank you, man, and good listening.  Let us know how you progress. 

[Ericus Rex]

One thing though, you have to use a protractor designed for your arms effective length.  Otherwise, the radius arc and two null points won't be in the 'right' spot.  I think vinylengine.com has protractors where you plug in the arm's effective length and it does the conversion for you.

Yep, azimuth is how vertical the stylus is when viewed from the front of the cartridge.  If it's angled you won't get everything out of the groove.  Should be exactly perpendicular with record.  The angle of the stylus from the side is VTA and that's a point of experimentation.  If your arm's height can be adjusted, start out with it parallel to record (when stylus is in record groove) and adjust from their by ear.  You can go tail end up or down.  Your choice!

Once your VTF gauge is in and you get the alignment and overhang set right let us know if there is a difference.

[Wayner]

If you give me the distance from platter spindle center to tonearm pivot center, I can give you the required overhang to get either the Loefgren A or B curves.

Wayner 

[jimdgoulding]

Now your cookin with gas.

[drphoto]

I downloaded a Thorens specific protractor from vinylengine.

Haven't had time to fiddle with it yet.

Any thoughts about why I have the dreaded 60hz hum since installing the Grado? Would installing a ground wire solve the problem? Dunno why the deck doesn't have one. Power cord is 2 prong, so it doesn't appear they are trying to ground it that way.

[Wayner]

Forget the Thorens protractor. Few TT makers at that time (and some even today) don't fully understand cartridge alignment, or if they do, don't incorporate it into their design well.

Your table probably is grounded thru one of the interconnect shields, a trick used by several folks, including Rega, AR and others.

Wayner 

[bunnyma357]

Don't know if this might apply, but I found it after Googling "Grado Hum"

"By the way, if you have a TV (or other large RF generating device) NEAR the turntable (not sure of the exact proximity but fairly close like within 4 feet or so) and it's turned ON while the record plays the Grado gives off a noticeable INCREASE in the level of hum."

I seem to recall reading that proximity to transformers can also be an issue, so you might try physically isolating the TT from other gear.


Jim C

[drew54]

1)  As a happy grado owner, it pains me that you have this hum.  Pls check to make sure there is no separate ground connector on your deck that you can connect to your preamp.  Without a proper ground, I would think the hum would make records unlistenable.

2) digital vs lp? 
remember that most everything recorded 1980 - present was recorded on digital equipment.  I prefer the sound of CD to LP for anything that was digitally recorded- Why would I want the original bits converted and pressed into a record? 

prior to 1980, we had all analog recordings (there may be some digital prior, but not much).  These LPs often sound better than the CD remasters- which in many cases were not treated with the same eq as the LPs.  So for me, most of the magic in LPs goes back to when much of the best music was recorded, say 1959 - 1976.

3) the unsaid bugaboo:  Probably half my records and half my CDs sound like crap.  I think its one of Holt's laws- the better the performance, the worse the recording.  Its why we spend so much critical listening time with female vocalists and small combos.

[Wayner]

I downloaded the service manual and the user manual for the 165. The service manual has some hum notes. The chassis ground is carried by the right audio shield (as well as the right audio shield) and with some cartridges, produce a ground loop. This may be the source of your hum. It also suggests removing the chassis ground from the right audio shield and running a separate ground (duh).

Of course there are no tonearm specifications in the user's manual, so you are at the mercy of the cartridge alignment tool, supplied for your turntable, that I'll bet you don't have. Not that that is the end of the world, but I can understand why people steer away from Thorens. Their manuals suck.

Now you are going to have to take a ruler and measure from the center of the spindle to where you think the center of the main tonearm pivot is. As an example, my Sony PS-X5 measures about 7 15/16". take that times 25.4 and you get (7.9375 x 25.4) = 201.6125. Thinking I had a little error, the tonearm's design is 200mm from pivot to spindle. I know that is right, cause I have the specifications.

So If you can give me that measurement, we can get on with this.

 

Kind of like the illustration above. The place to measure is where the illustration above shows 8.465 or 215.00. (this is for a different table)

Wayner 

[Wayner]

Your lucky day, I just found the spec. It's suppose to be 215.6mm. That would be slightly shy of 8.5". If you could measure that, just to make sure, we are getting some where.

Also go to the vinylengine and download the "stupid protractors" and use the bottom one (70.29/116.6). Download and print this as accurate as possible, measure the 180mm line (7 1/16 + a hair more(7.086)). http://www.vinylengine.com/cartridge-alignment-protractors.shtml

If your pivot to spindle is right, your overhang should be 18.251mm. That means you total length will be (215.6 + 18.251) = 233.851mm 3.851 mm more then what is recommended by Thorens.

I think my job is done here.

Wayner 

[simoon]

As far as setup, I honestly don't know. I put the new cart in as square to the headshell as I could by eye. Looks level front to back.

Correct alignment is SO critical. It's like you're trying to evaluate a Porsche that needs a tuneup and a wheel alignment.

As others have said, get an alignment protractor. Most turntable manufacturers at at that time came with an 'overhang' setting, but this only aligned the cartridge at one point in it's arc. But even that is better than "putting the new cart in as square to the headshell as I could by eye".

[drphoto]

Wayne, I surely appreciate your help. I'm stuck at the hospital most of this week, but when I get some free time after the holiday, I'll try to follow up on this.

I'm leaning toward getting a Rega P3-24 w/ a factory installed cart. at this point and just be done w/ it.

But then again, I've read some reviews that say Clearaudio's entry level table (the Emotion?) is a killer deck, though at the high end of the entry level price range.

[mchuckp]

I got into vinyl just over a year ago.  I have a pretty modest set up.  A Rega P1 w/ glass platter upgrade and Ortofon 2M Blue cart.  I also invested in Nitty Gritty record cleaning machine.  Nothing like the ol' lady teasing you about washing your records.

From my first spin of vinyl, I really liked the sound that I heard.  Just something about the tone that really caught me.  After about a month or two, I decided to upgrade the Stock Ortofon cart and WOW!  Night and day.  Since then I have not changed a thing in my set up and many of times I've debated upgrading my table.  To date, I've yet to go this route. 

As someone said earlier, half their CD and record collection sucks.  Honestly, I feel that 90% of my CD collection sucks and probably half my vinyl.  I have some amazing recordings in digital and analog formats and think they both have their merits.  As much as I like vinyl, I gotta admit that even after 1 year I've already cut way back on vinyl listening particular after getting the Squeezebox Touch that runs into my Wyred4Sound DAC-1.  Great sound AND convenient.  I usually go long spurts without listening to vinyl and then get a bug up my butt and then within a minute of listening I ask myself why I don't listen to analog more often as I'm floored when playing my better recordings.  But then the next day, I'm back to digital.

Hopefully someday I'll invest more into my vinyl set up as I am wondering how much better can it be.  But right now, having a hard time rationalizing it.

Interested in your thoughts on the P3/24 if you go that route.  Been debating staying in the Rega family if I upgrade and wondering if the P3/24 is as far up the chain that I need to go to be happy.  You mention that you think the soundstage is too small.  I think my stage is HUGE.  When I listen to Dark Side of the Moon (Mobile Fidelity) it is just MASSIVE.  Curious if the Rega does get you closer to where you want to be.

[JackD201]

Wayne, I surely appreciate your help. I'm stuck at the hospital most of this week, but when I get some free time after the holiday, I'll try to follow up on this.

I'm leaning toward getting a Rega P3-24 w/ a factory installed cart. at this point and just be done w/ it.

But then again, I've read some reviews that say Clearaudio's entry level table (the Emotion?) is a killer deck, though at the high end of the entry level price range.

Ante up and spring for the P5. It's a fuss free, dependable deck with a good arm (RB700). I have a good friend who went from a Clearaudio Solution/Satisfy to the P5.

P.S.

I owned the Emotion and sold it. It's fussy in that you have to clean the belt rather often. If you don't there's lots of rumble. I have a P5 now. Only hassle is switching from 33 1/3 to 45 and back. Without the optional speed controller, you have to remove the platter to switch pulley positions.

[orthobiz]

I recently picked up Buzzy Linhart's self-titled "Black" album from 1972. I saw him twice in the early seventies and he is a favorite of mine. It cost 3 bucks. Produced by Todd Rundgren.

Just TRY to find it on CD!

If you are looking for actual specific versions of the music you love, it may not be on CD and you will need a TT. So keep on trying!

Paul

[Stu Pitt]

Dr. Photo -

You really have to analyze what exactly it is you're looking for from an analog set up, aside from the whole retro/coolness/LP collecting/etc. stuff.

Just like everything else audio, different setups will give you different qualities.  Trade-offs apply here too.  Some image and soundstage better than others, some have better highs, mids, and/or bass.

The essence of vinyl is in just about every set-up though.  I started out a few years ago with my father's old Technics SL-BD2.  By audiophile standards, it was a piece of crap.  I installed a $25 or so Audio Technica P-Mount cartridge that I picked up at Circuit City just to verify that the turntable worked.  While this is a very low end example of analog playback, I could still get to the soul of the music and hear what it was trying to do.  Not in audiophile terms, but in music lover terms.  It was a lot more enjoyable than it had any right to be.

3 months later I had a Pro-Ject 1Xpression, which mopped the floor with it in every way.  Every upgrade I've made (basically my whole system except for the deck itself) has extracted more and more goodness.

Every part of the analog chain makes a very big difference, sometimes good and sometimes bad.  I've changed phono stages, cartridges, platters, mats, speed controllers, isolation, and so on.

The single most important thing in my experience is set up.  Just like speaker placement and room acoustics, no matter how good the components are, they'll never sound right if anything else is off.  A misaligned cart is doomed.  If there's a lot of external vibration getting into the deck, it'll destroy the end result.  If the cart's electrical figures don't match your preamp's, it'll sound like crap.

The best advice I can give anyone is to work with a knowledgable dealer.  They're very few and far between these days.  I'm very fortunate to have a dealer who is all about vinyl.  If you don't have one locally, there's always places like Music Direct, Acoustic Sounds, and The Needle Doctor.  I've dealt with Music Direct and Acoustic Sounds personally, and they're very knowledgable.  I'm pretty sure they could align a cart on a deck properly for you if you bought the stuff from them.

If you're going second hand, another option may be a local stereo repair shop.  Call and ask, you never know who you'll get.  When I got my old deck, there was a guy in the area who tuned them up for a very reasonable fee.  He had about 50 decks in his shop.  I wouldn't have known about him had a local dealer told me about him.  I was living in a different area then than I'm in now.

Just some food for thought.  Sorry if I'm rambling.

[drphoto]

Stu, I appreciate your taking time to respond along with everyone else.

I'm going to print out that sticky on setup and see what I can do with the old Thorens.

BTW: When I said I aligned the cart square to the headshell, that was going on the assumption that the offset angle of the head to the arm would give the proper alignment. But probably wrong!

cheers,

joe

[kenreau]

Ante up and spring for the P5. It's a fuss free, dependable deck with a good arm (RB700). I have a good friend who went from a Clearaudio Solution/Satisfy to the P5.

P.S.

I owned the Emotion and sold it. It's fussy in that you have to clean the belt rather often. If you don't there's lots of rumble. I have a P5 now. Only hassle is switching from 33 1/3 to 45 and back. Without the optional speed controller, you have to remove the platter to switch pulley positions.

Just a heads up for an apparenlty good deal on a preowned Rega Planar 25 w/ RB600 arm and Rega Elys cartridge for $775 at EchoAudio (echohifi.com).  Fwiw, I recall someone thinking this P25 model is the first significant audible model upgrade from the P3.
YMMV.

Kenreau