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I clean my stylus with methylated spirit probably every 4 sides - if you look at the diamond with a magnifying glass you should be able to see the gunk. Next thing is the tracking force (the force that stylus presses on the record needs to be matched to the cartridge specs). There's also low compliance/high compliance match with a tonearm. Then there's a setup of the tonearm - the angle of the stylus (tonearm) relative to the record (VTA - vertical tracking angle) and azimuth (if you have that control on the tonearm). The record could have been destroyed (so the sound is destorted). Then everything else in the chain. Your mm will have capacitance settings but that would only influence the EQ of the sound (I think). You don't need gain for MM - if you had gain turned on that would cause distortion. There's also the stuff downstream - but I'd think that your problem is in the cartridge/tonearm domain.
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mwollny
Hi!
Hoping for some advice/knowledge from the hive mind.....
I'm new to vinyl, got setup over Christmas and have started listening.
I'm not "audiophile", just starting out.
Most of the time we love the sound, but have noticed some aspect of recording at the top end are more "present" than their digital counterparts. Occasionally on busy/loud bits of tracks, the top end can get quite distorted (e.g. snares, kazoo, choral cresendos etc).
Any ideas if this is normal/expected when starting out, and any suggestions on how I might dial it in?
Anything I might be missing in terms of basics for setup and maintainance?
Technics SL-7 > Spartan 5 > Audio Pro A10 (pair)
Go easy on me as I'm new at this!
Cartridge is the original 202 with new tonar stylus fitted by previous owner.