[Carlman]

Hey, I did say it was a good deck, didn't I?...

Yes, and it is.. and you are RIGHT!

It'll take low, medium and high (but not too high) compliance PUs and not  ...

I'm not sure what this means... "compliance" and "PU"  I don't have the manual in front of me.. is that the tracking or anti-skating and 'pickup' or ?

The OM-20 could be called 'shrill' but I thought it might need more break-in before calling it that.  I'm 80% sure I've got the table setup right.. (anti-skating and cart weight)  

I was loving the sound, though.  The imaging is still a bit vague but getting there.  It's crossed the line to where it's now critically listenable.  I'm very happy with it.  Thanks for the recommendations.

Goldring 1042 is coming...

-C

[Agrippa]

"I'm not sure what this means... "compliance" and "PU" I don't have the manual in front of me.. is that the tracking or anti-skating and 'pickup' or ?"

Sorry, I should have been clearer...  

Compliance you'll find on the cartridge spec pages/sheet.  Basically this tells you how "compliant" or flexible the cantilever (the sticky-outy bit which the needle sits on) is.  Low flexibility = low compliance and vice versa.  Medium compliance is 15-25, low and high is under or over this respectively.  The basic rule is that a low-mass arm works well with high-compliance cartridge, while a high-mass arm works best with a low-compliance cartridge.  A medium-mass arm (like yours) will work best with a medium compliance cartridge, but will also be fine with high and low compliance as long as we're not getting into extremes.

PU is simply the preferred British way of referring to a cartridge, or Pick-Up....

As far as setting up the arm and PU (here I go again) goes, don't worry too much about it.  Set the tracking weight to 0.1-0.2g below the manufacturer's specified maximum.  In 98 out of a 100 cases this will be optimal.  Don't worry at all about the anti-skating, as the arm is none too sensitive to that anyway.  Generally this is only crucial with very light arms and high-compliance PUs and chances are you'll do fine even without it.  Put it on anyway though, as it can't hurt (!), but at it's lowest level.  If that doesn't do the trick (which I VERY much doubt), then try increasing it.

"Shrill" was probably a little unkind and sure, breaking in will make it sound better. It'll always remain somewhat "thin" and not awfully musical when compared with better PUs in the same general class however.  The 1042 you've got coming is far, far better and you've got something to look forward to there.  It too will need a little breaking in, but will probably sound better out of the box, than the 20 does when at it's very best.  I think.  

Well, I'm happy that you're happy!    What you've got after the 1042 arrives is a great vinyl set-up and will last you a long time without any need for an upgrade (unless you catch the vinyl bug, in which case you're doomed...).  Frankly, you'll need to spend many times the price for a comparably enjoyable digital set-up and that extra green will buy a shitload of vinyl....

Anything else you need to know, I'm at your service Carl.  Enjoy the music and keep those discs spinning!

Agrippa

[Carlman]

Thanks for the explanations.. I was pretty sure about PU but not compliance...

The Goldring is officially on its way now.  Should get here just in time for me to go out of town to work for a few days.  Something to look forward to...

If anyone gets an RM4, don't be like me and thing the hash marks on the counter weight are in grams.  They are in mN and they convert that to 1g, 1 pond.  How many people know what a 'pond' is?

From the "Table of obsolete and unofficial metric units":
pond:
Represented as "p" for measuring force
 Equals the gravitational force of one gram of mass on earth at sea level.
 9.806 5 mN
 
So, what's an mN?  A Newton Metre, a measurement of torque.  How does weight convert to a torque spec?

(from NPL site)
Force is defined as the rate of change of momentum. For an unchanging mass, this is equivalent to mass x acceleration.

Thus 1 N = 1 kg·m·s-2 (that s to the minus 2nd power, not -2)

(my deduction with old Algebra skills)
Furtherthus, kg = m·s-2/N

So,
kg = mass of the cartridge is 5g
m = metre  (how far traveled?)
s = second

In any case, a friend and I figured that a 2g tracking weight should be about 20mN's.  I can go as heavy as 30 mN's.

Any clues on this one?  I've never heard of using mN's or Pond's for tracking force.

-C

[Tonto Yoder]

If anyone gets an RM4, don't be like me and thing the hash marks on the counter weight are in grams.  They are in mN and they convert that to 1g, 1 pond.  How many people know what a 'pond' is?

THAT explains it!!  When you said you were tracking at 5 grams, I couldn't believe it (esp. when you said the stylus didn't seem to be fully in the groove) since the OM20 wants to track at 1.5 grams (which the specs list as 15 mN)
http://www.ortofon.com/html/body_magnetic_technical_data.html?varenr=0132131

[Agrippa]

"If anyone gets an RM4, don't be like me and thing the hash marks on the counter weight are in grams. They are in mN and they convert that to 1g, 1 pond."

Eh?  It's been a while, but I was sure my own counterweight on the 6.9 had a scale in grams, from 0 to 3, with decimals inbetween....  I could be wrong though.

Still, if it goes from 0 to 30, just think grams and divide by 10 and you're home free.  Still strange though....  

The main thing is that you've figured it out and anyway, as the scale goes to 3g max, there was never any chance of damaging anything.  Not surprised the PU wasn't sounding all that great at 0.5-0.8g pressure....  

Agrippa

[Carlman]

I feel kind of stupid because in the instructions it says the stock cart should be set to 18 mN.

I listened again last night... I feel like I'm having an affair.  Even with the OM-20 still mounted, spinning at the correct weight now ... I can't believe how perfect it sounds when everything is right.  It's like all the criteria I use to evaluate a CD player is there.  Other things are there too, like scratchy sounds and pops, poor recordings still sound poor... but, the ability to image, recreate the recording space, and 'wholeness' of the sounds are so impressive and nice it makes listening to my cd player a little fatiguing.  

There is a tinny-ness that I hope to remedy with the new cart.  When that happens, the affair turns into something bigger.

The records spun last night that were particularly good:
Sting: Dream of the Blue Turtles
Coltrane: Blue Note
Grover Washington Jr.: Then and Now

All of these were just amazing from beginning to end.

-C

[BikeWNC]

Hey Carl,

Congrats on your new table.  Hope to hear it sometime.  In reading through this thread I didn't notice any mention of VTA when you set up your cartridge.  In the last few days as I set up the Technics 1200 I have learned quite a bit about how VTA affects the overall sound.  Since the 1200 has on the fly VTA adjustment I can play with that setting while a record is playing.  I've gone from a closed in muddy sound to overly bright and sibilant.  I'm really amazed at what small adjustments to VTA can do to the final result.  I would think that anytime the VTF is adjusted the VTA is also changed and may need to be reassessed.  Have fun!

Andy

[Maale]

Does anyone have any expirience with a Marantz turntable? I own a model 6100, planning to change the arm for a SME 3009.

[BikeWNC]

I have the Marantz 6300.  I have not made any changes to the TT and I'm not sure what the SME arm would do for it or if it would fit without modification.

Andy