Help please... Avid Acutus SP Reference, SME V and EMT JSD VM

[andy2020]

2019 was a bit of an unplanned hifi upgrade journey - Overall I am very happy with where I've got to with the exception of vinyl playback... The Acutus and SME have gone back to their respective manufacturers for full services and the EMT Cartridge is brand new.

Some records play great and others (including brand new mofi) seem to jump skip and generally play awful. Testing these records on my mates Clear Audio set-up proves the vinyl records are great. I've been round the set up several times and even bought Analogue Magik to help me with the set up (everything worked fine before going for services) the only change being a cartridge upgrade (from MC-2 MC Cartridge).

Advice much appreciated

 

[Nemal1]

Hi, without hopefully stating the obvious, it seems your tracking weight may be too light or the bias adjustment is off as well. I use the same turntable albeit with a different arm and cartridge (Triplanar SE and Koetsu Wajima) without issue.
Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[andy2020]

Hi, without hopefully stating the obvious, it seems your tracking weight may be too light or the bias adjustment is off as well. I use the same turntable albeit with a different arm and cartridge (Triplanar SE and Koetsu Wajima) without issue.
Hope this helps and good luck.

Thanks Nemal1 for your response. Tracking weight is as per EMT's spec (2.4gm) I have gone a bit higher to 2.65 to see if that helped but didn't). On the same the process is to set the bias to the same as the tracking weight - I've done that and also experimented with going higher/lower :-(

 

[Nemal1]

Hi, are your measurements based on the SME tracking force dials or have you checked manually as well?
The problem seems to be a tonearm/cartridge issue not turntable related, but out of interest did you check the speed with a strobe?

 

[andy2020]

Hi, I use scales for tracking weight.
Speed could be something though as Analog Magik shows the speed fluttering (I don’t have a strobe)

 

[Nemal1]

You can download a strobe app free, and if you look online there’s cheap strobes for sale. It will possibly point you in the right direction incurring just a little additional cost for the time being.
i still think it’s an arm/cartridge thing, but best to eliminate the potential faults one at a time.

 

[Solypsa]

Which effective mass "inlay" did you choose to use?

 

[andy2020]

I have tried all three and neither stopped the issue

 

[Solypsa]

I know this will sound silly, but have you adjusted (or observed) the cueing mechanism to make sure it doesn't contact the arm at all when needle dropped into the groove? Sometimes when the new cart is different height vs old one this needs done...

 

[andy2020]

Hi Solypsa, that’s one thing I hadn’t thought of! I will check as soon as I get home!
Thank you.

 

[dcc]

The SME V is a tapered design. Are you sure that the arm tube does not touch the platter at some point? If this is the case, you need to add a small cartridge spacer you can purchase from SME.

 

[oldvinyl]

With the Avid clamp properly tightened, records should be very flat on the platter. If the back of SME arm is too low, it can get bumped by the record. That will show up as skipping. Depending on cartridge weight, you may need to use the heavier counterweight from SME.

Also - try balancing the arm with cartridge installed and arm dial set to zero. When the arm is balanced, move the counterweight so that you get have of the desired tracking force from the arm, then add in the rest from the round dial on the arm. In other words, divide the tracking force between the weight and the dial.

 

[andy2020]

Update:
I took the Acutus and SME V arm up to Avid (Conrad had very kindly offered to take a look for me). I’d set up everything correctly, but Conrad discovered that the arm was pulling in to the centre when balanced - a fault with the arm (even though it had just had the full service including rewire).
Anyway SME took it back and fixed it.

Whilst at Avid Conrad gave me and my Audiophile buddy the opportunity to hear the difference between the SP Reference power supply and the Mono upgrade. Whilst I still can’t get my head around how it makes a difference, it made a stunning, jaw dropping difference. Antonio Forcione was suddenly playing in the room - we several A/B blind tests with no volume/input switching, just PSU changes...

The big issue now for me now is that my system is now somewhat lacking!

Big thank you to Conrad and the Avid team for doing such a great service to the Acutus and going ‘over and beyond’ to help me out.

 

[andy2020]

With the Avid clamp properly tightened, records should be very flat on the platter. If the back of SME arm is too low, it can get bumped by the record. That will show up as skipping. Depending on cartridge weight, you may need to use the heavier counterweight from SME.

Also - try balancing the arm with cartridge installed and arm dial set to zero. When the arm is balanced, move the counterweight so that you get have of the desired tracking force from the arm, then add in the rest from the round dial on the arm. In other words, divide the tracking force between the weight and the dial.

Thank you oldvinyl... not heard of splitting the tracking weight like this - I’ll do some more research and try - thank you.

 

[Nemal1]

Glad you resolved things. Conrad is very helpful and I’m considering the mono supply myself. It’s just getting it upstairs haha!

 

[analogsa]

even though it had just had the full service including rewire

I bet it was the rewiring that produced the issue.