Hi all,
Recently I pulled out my dad's old Rega Planar 2, which had been sitting in the cupboard for many years, with a broken dynavector Karat 19A cartridge. So I bought a new Audio Technica AT91 for it today, and I also cleaned it up and 'refurbished' it.
However, when I try to play some records from it, the sound it terribly distorted (it sounds like a slightly out of tune radio frequency). I have run it through two amps to ensure that the fault is not with the amp (I have an old NAD and Yamaha, and yes I am using the phono input); moreover, this cheap plastic Kenwood turntable that we have lying around sounds better than the Rega's poor current performance.
I really want to get this working decently as soon as possible, so I shall give some information, and document my questions:
It has the original tonearm on it, the S-shaped silver one with the anti-skate mechanism. I have heard that the anti-skate mechanisms often go bad, and so I was wondering if it was maybe causing some kind of unwanted lateral force on the stylus, thus causing the distortion. Also, a trivial problem is that the motor takes a while to spin up to speed (in excess of 10 seconds). I cannot believe that the AT91 would be of such poor quality, as they are fairly popular, and I bought it new today, so I do not think it is dirty. I was very suspicious of the connections in the turntable perhaps (the RCA's etc). I think that the surface may have slowly oxidized over the years, although there are no visible signs. How can I go about cleaning all of the connections, from the cartridge all the way to the end of the RCA cables?
The last thing is setting up the balance, of which I am in now way experienced. This is how I have been doing it: I adjust the tonearm balance weight until an equilibrium is established (both sides weigh the same, so that is balances), and I then bring the weight slightly forward to get the stylus to touch the vinyl surface. At first the stylus was bouncing, due to the weight being too light, so then I made it come down a bit more to 'stick' to the surface.
Any suggestions?
Recently I pulled out my dad's old Rega Planar 2, which had been sitting in the cupboard for many years, with a broken dynavector Karat 19A cartridge. So I bought a new Audio Technica AT91 for it today, and I also cleaned it up and 'refurbished' it.
However, when I try to play some records from it, the sound it terribly distorted (it sounds like a slightly out of tune radio frequency). I have run it through two amps to ensure that the fault is not with the amp (I have an old NAD and Yamaha, and yes I am using the phono input); moreover, this cheap plastic Kenwood turntable that we have lying around sounds better than the Rega's poor current performance.
I really want to get this working decently as soon as possible, so I shall give some information, and document my questions:
It has the original tonearm on it, the S-shaped silver one with the anti-skate mechanism. I have heard that the anti-skate mechanisms often go bad, and so I was wondering if it was maybe causing some kind of unwanted lateral force on the stylus, thus causing the distortion. Also, a trivial problem is that the motor takes a while to spin up to speed (in excess of 10 seconds). I cannot believe that the AT91 would be of such poor quality, as they are fairly popular, and I bought it new today, so I do not think it is dirty. I was very suspicious of the connections in the turntable perhaps (the RCA's etc). I think that the surface may have slowly oxidized over the years, although there are no visible signs. How can I go about cleaning all of the connections, from the cartridge all the way to the end of the RCA cables?
The last thing is setting up the balance, of which I am in now way experienced. This is how I have been doing it: I adjust the tonearm balance weight until an equilibrium is established (both sides weigh the same, so that is balances), and I then bring the weight slightly forward to get the stylus to touch the vinyl surface. At first the stylus was bouncing, due to the weight being too light, so then I made it come down a bit more to 'stick' to the surface.
Any suggestions?
