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Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ. |
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Vinyl Asylum Welcome Licorice Pizza (LP) lovers! Setup guides and Vinyl FAQ. |
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In Reply to: Thorens TD 150: cartridge + setup posted by Jerome Sabbagh on May 2, 2006 at 09:16:57:
Jerome -Analog/Vinyl is not unlike a first PC experience, as far as
trying to fathom the whole deal, repeatedly re-reading the documentation. manuals, primers etc. at some point you simply have to just dive in and start doing it and get the whole learning/understanding and functionality deal rolling.While there is indeed a world of complexity involved with this stuff, which no doubt is daunting to anyone without any background
familiarity or personal exposure.The actual basic stuff such as mounting and setting up a cartridge
so you can actually start spinning Vinyl, is far less complex or difficult than most anyone would assume, if your read the relevant parts of the Vinyl Asylum FAQ, perhaps print out the relevant parts, mounting a cartridge, calibrating/zeroing in the neutral balance of the arm and cartridge it's wearing, and then setting the cartridges correct overhang, azimuth and alignment and then just do these things carefully, deliberately and one step at a time, re-check what you've done, and then move on to the next stage, you will end up being surprised and delighted to find out what you did actually works just fine, and it was or is in fact not complicated, involved or difficult in the least, just somewhat tedious and perhaps a bit frustrating first time around, but the vast majority of the time, you put a record on, cue it up and drop the arm and you've got music and it's kind of a V8 Moment (Slapping your forehead " I could have had a V8 !") except it's ("Wow this is way cool !")Like FDR said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself !"
Get yourself the basic essential tools, my recommendations would be a Turntable Basics Mirror tool ($20) which allows an easy cartridge set the Azimuth, overhang and alignment.
A Shure($20) SFG (stylus force gauge) balance/scale to set your VTF vertical tracking force, the weight the tonearm/cartridge exerts upon the record.
An inexpensive small hardware store type level (bubble type) to allow you to have the table/platter level so the rest of the adjustments are meaningful. The place or places you get the SFG balance and Turntable basics mirror etc. also sell these levels.
and whatever tools are necessary for the cartridge hardware, small Phillip's, Sm. standard screw driver, a hemostat or two and or a very small long nose needle nose pliers.
And at least an AQ (Audio Quest carbon Fiber brush)($20) if you can swing it a Hunt CF brush($20) is also essential/extremely useful as well.
Carefully remove the stylus assembly from the cartridge first and then proceed (you will have ample opportunities to tweak and or break
cantilevers in the future, but at this point it's best to pass on that)Don't drink big mugs of Coffee, you'll need steady hands and whatever dexterity (BTW Manual Dexterity is not a Puerto Rican guy ;-)
If you cop a plea/wimp out and have a dealer do this stuff, you'll
be missing out big time, it'll take you a long time to understand some
of the essential basics needed to build upon, and you'll be robbing yourself of a big part of the experience as well.If a dealer does your cartridge installation/set up it's a virtual
certainty it's not going to be as precise as your set up will be because it's usually a "Wham bam thank you ma'am, close enough for government work" deal, where most all of us are going to really take our time to get it right, BTW if you just mount the cartridge without
setting the overhang/Azimuth and alignment and then static balance zero the tonearm set the calibration disc to zero and then set the counter wt. to the 2 gm setting, you'll almost certainly have a working making music deal going, but doing it properly is going to result in long stylus and record life and better sound.If you get confused or stuck and have re-read the relevant FAQ/primer just post your problem or question 24/7 and you'll gt advise and assistance.
BTW your first two cartridge selections are excellent, the AT 95E and AT 110E are also good ones to consider as well as being dirt cheap, if your Linn basic arm is one with removable head shells ?
Not a bad idea to get an additional head shell and one of the inexpensive AT's if you can afford it, always great to have an alternative cartridge to experiment with, hear the differences and worst case scenario an instant back up.Kind regards FredJ
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Follow Ups
- Re: Thorens TD 150: cartridge + setup (Long and Tedious) - Fred J 05/2/0611:01:56 05/2/06 (2)
- Thanks a lot! - Jerome Sabbagh 09:28:08 05/6/06 (1)
- Happy to help. - Fred J 10:27:03 05/6/06 (0)
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