Turntable & Tonearm Set ups and Repairs

Since I have owned my turntable for at least 8 years I decided it was time to make sure the cartridge was still tracking properly.

I was lucky enough to find online a specialist in servicing turntables in my area. This happened to be Secret Chord Analogue in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.

The owner, Stephen Price, was more than happy to take on that task. That involved using the Fozgometer that helps to set the azimuth of the cartridge electronically.

The result was amazing and showed what I was missing out on. The soundstage had widened and voices had more presence and heft.

All in all I’m very pleased with the result. On top of that I decided to purchase one of Stephen’s Record Restore bottles. The content removes all contaminants from the grooves of your vinyl records and removes static charges as well.

Thanks!

As I have a table with dished platter and clamping and use a moving coil cartridge with a Fritz Geiger Signature 2 stylus profile, precise set up particularly in the areas of SRA and azimuth are critical. Very pleased with result.

I met Mark from Secret Chord Analogue recently at the Sydney HiFi Show and listened to one of his presentations on turntables. I spoke to him about a home tune-up and booked it in.
I have an Acoustic Signature WOW XXL turntable with a T1000 tone arm and a Soundsmith Carmen cartridge. It is a great turntable but recently it seemed louder from the left channel and the soundstage was a bit hollow.
Mark tuned up with an array of boxes and before he started with the technical stuff we played some music and he confirmed my suspicions.
The first step was to examine the stylus under a microscope and to clean the tip. The stylus was in pretty good condition but had a number of very fine minute and stubborn dog hairs. The next steps were to get all the distances right, check the speed and set the tracking forces, check the wow and flutter and all were set to manufacturers specifications. With another gizmo we discovered the turntable was ever so slightly out of level and we fixed this with some shims. Then with the use of some reference recordings detailed measurements were taken for the azimuth, anti-skating ,and VTF.
All this process took about 4 hours and Mark was meticulous in wanting to get it just right. Near enough was not good enough and he was able to achieve near mirror image readings for both the L and R channels.
The end result is a miraculous improvement in sound. The channel separation is now where it should be, the bass is deeper, the sound stage is fuller and the vocals just shimmer. We finished off the afternoon with a cold beer and played some favourite tracks and enjoyed the marvelous sound that was now coming from the system.
This tune-up has given new life to my turntable and I highly recommend this process to anyone who wants to get the very best performance out of their investment.