Last night I changed the bruised and battered signal cable to spanking new Draka video cables (75 ohms, double shielded) as advised by sachu888 in one of his postings. DAC video cables were not available from the usual shop. I made a big mistake by choosing the thickest cable I could get. It became quite tough to route it properly in the small hole near the tag block where it meets the tonearm wires. Had to do quite a bit of jugglery to ensure that the new cables don't disturb the thin tonearm wires. Further, the only hole leading out of the plinth box became too narrow for the new cables. Especially when the newly fitted (thicker) power cable wanted to get out too.
Anyway, in the end I managed to squeeze in all the cables through the narrow hole, refitted the bottom plate of the plinth (looks like cork or it could also be MDF), and then finally re-fitted the platter. Mounted it back on the rack and checked for free rotation of the platter. There was a grating noise and I could see that the platter was rubbing the body. There was no gap between the platter and body. Took out the platter, fitted it back, but still no luck. Did the same exercise once more and came up with the same results. As it was getting rather late, I thought I will wrap up for the night. So I was cleaning up my mess, and lo and behold, there was this shiny steel ball on the sofa! I instantly realised that while turning the table to its side to access the bottom, the ball had slipped out from spindle hole. Luckily, I had shone a torch to this hole to check if there was at least some oil, and had seen the ball. Reshone the torch and the ball was missing.
Took out platter, put back the ball and now the platter rotated smoothly without rubbing the body. I had some heart stopping moments there and was beginning to wonder what I had screwed up (literally!).
Next up, I adjusted the tonearm as per the instruction in the user manual. This basically involves pushing the small counterweight at the front riding on the outrigger as far back as it will go, lock it, then move the large counterweight to produce a balance. After achieving the balance, loosen the front counterweight (small one) and move n number of notches (each notch being 0.5 gms) to compensate for the tracking force. Since the recommendation for the cartridge (M44-7) is 1.5 to 3 grams, I chose 2 gms.
Then came the antiskating weight adjustment. Firstly, I must say that I got only one weight and I honestly don't know if this is the 2 gms or the 4 gms weight. But for the purpose of my adjustment I bravely assumed that it was 4. Tied the antiskate to the notch for 2 gms and I started playing. It played well for the about 2 and half tracks. Midway into the third track, it skipped and re-played the same part of the song. When this happened twice, I got up and placed the stylus on the next track. The stylus did not track but just moved towards the periphery of the LP. Immediately I removed the antiskate and tried playing again on the same part of the song and I found that audio is coming only from left channel. Note that this is on the inner side of the record close to the spindle. On the outer tracks it played fine and one can hear both channels even without antiskate weight.
OK, time now for some questions:
1. is the tracking force of 2 gms adequate, considering the recommended range is 1.5 to 3 gms? I have seen someone recommending 4 gms for the same arm and cart (on lencoheaven).
2. what kind of wire is recommended to hang the antiskate weight? I used the only wire I could lay my hands on that was thin enough to thread into the tiny hole of the weight (steel wire that's not very malleable). I feel a thin nylon string will do just fine but I didn't have any at hand.
3. While playing, the mids have some sort of harmonics, like the vocals are constantly hitting the limits of playout system (even on a very soft volume setting). What could be the source of this distortion? One thing I can change immediately is the cartridge. Will try this tonight. Any other things I could possibly look at?
4. cartridge mounting distance was OK to within 1 mm so I didn't bother to tweak it. Should I go anal retentive and try the Baerwald geometry thingie?
Some observations:
1. the plinth is like a shoe box - top one fitting into the smaller bottom. Upper half of the box is particle board with teak or mahagony veneer. The particles are falling off. How I hate particle boards! Especially old particle boards.The lower half of the box is of softwood ply, also peeling off. I hate old, soft plywood too (talk of being fair and displaying equal malice towards plinth materials
).
2. the turntable is spring suspended. The springs will go as soon as the new plinth arrives.
3. will replace the new (thick) signal cable to something thinner.