Questions re Pioneer PLX-1000 set-up

Then this would be true to any turntable, right?

 

Cause it’s trendy! LOL?

I guess it’s a smooth surface to better isolate the LP...? Yeah... that’s the ticket...

Actually I’m upgrading to the Funk Firm this month anyway.

 

If you are stacking different mats, the one on top tends to sit better if the bottom one is upside down, giving the one on top a flat surface to sit on without the label detent.

 

Yes, especially so if you intend to change your VTF, either to "experiment" with different values or insert a new cart.
Given how cheap the Chinese gauges are (mine cost less than 10 euros and came with a battery), I'd say they're an essential tool.

 

I get your point. It may be a pointless question. Even if someone answers "yes, it's accurate, I set it to 1.8g and the gauge confirms it", I'll never know if the marks didn't rotate a bit during the set process. Fair enough.

I'm afraid that if we go further in this investigation we may get skeptical on the cheap Chinese gauge's accuracy and feel the need for a meta-gauge to measure the gauge itself and so on...

 

My gauge came with a weight to evaluate its accuracy, and I would assume most do. If you don't trust the weight, you can always use a coin. The gauge can be calibrated if there's an issue.

 

Good morning everyone,

I have an Ortofon SH-4 with an Ortofon 2M Blue mounted on it. I'm using the 54mm stylus-headshell end alignment. It doesn't match Baerwald as you know. If I try the Baerwald protractor from Vinyl Enginen, in the inner null point the cartridge is slightly twisted clockwise with the 54mm alignmente.

I tried pushing the cartridge all the way to the front of the headshell, it then measured (by eye with a regular ruler) 56,5mm. I checked it to the Vinyl Engine protractor and it seems (by eye again) to be at least very close to Baerwald alignment. I couldn't see the twist I saw with the 54mm alignment.

This new alignment fixed some IGD I was experiencing with a couple of records.

In the meantime, I ordered a Jelco HS25. It arrived today. I'm going to use it with another cartridge I'm about to order. I want some advanced stylus shape and the Jelco is going to help me with azimuth. The stock headshell seems to stand horizontally to the platter but the Ortofon SH-4 seems to be a little lower in the left side so a bit twisted counterclockwise looking from the front. I suppose this is not a problem with the 2M Blue being elliptical but may be a problem with the fine line or shibata I'm planning to order, so the azimuth adjustment might be useful.

 

You may not be aware that there's often a little bit of play available in the headshell azimuth - there is in mine.

So you may be able to twist the headshell to the right, as you tighten the collar and so usefully level out the 'lower on the left' that you can see. Probably worth a try...

 

Yes I've been doing that. However, it's not enough in my experience to perfectly level it. It is still slightly unleveled. But as I said, so slightly that in an elliptical stylus may not make any difference.

It's interesting that people in the SL1200G thread are reporting doing the same.

 

Certainly worth having azimuth alignment. Also I found that the Bastin / Polaris protractor gives same stylus position as the 54mm alignment. There is an overhang gauge which can be ordered from Shapeways.com -
Pioneer PLX-1000 Overhang Gauge by LesE on Shapeways

 

Will it fit? The link says this:

This is modelled after the original gauge that was supplied with the Pioneer PL-530 turntable. This gauge should also be usable for other Pioneer turntables where the distance from the base of the headshell connector to the tip of the stylus measures 49 mm.

 

Sorry linked to wrong gauge. Have amended post. The PLX1000 version does work checked against Bastin setting.

 

This was also linked to the other thread, may be useful:

Pioneer PLX-1000 Custom Designed Tonearm Cartridge Stylus Alignment Protractor | eBay

 

Here's a PDF of my Baerwald arc protractor for SL-1200 / PLX-1000 or any other turntable with a pivot to spindle distance of 215mm: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5dnk6qfnv1sefj6/Baerwald IEC for SL-1200 PLX-1000 etc.pdf?dl=1

I recommend printing this on some thick, glossy photopaper as it has less tendency to shrink or expand and the needle glides more easily on it.

After printing it, use a ruler with metric measurements to ensure the bounding box is exactly 80mm wide and 160mm tall.

To use it, cut out around the bounding box and use an exacto knife to carefully cut out the square around the spindle hole (I set it on a piece of scrap cardboard or wood when cutting).

Before starting, you can get the cartridge into a position close to the right alignment on a headshell such as the HS-20, 25, etc., or the Zupreme from LPGear by putting it out near the end and slightly angled to the left when viewing it from the front.

Here's a quick pic I just took of my Ortofon 2M Bronze mounted on an LPGear Zupreme headshell and aligned using the protractor in the PDF for my PLX-1000. Note that if you were mounting on an SL-1200 (or the other Technics variants), the cartridge would be 2mm back on the headshell with the screws closer to the center of the slots.



Using the protractor

1. Place it on the turntable (I have a small piece of rubber that I carefully jam between the rim of the turntable and the plinth to prevent the turntable from turning).
2. Move the protractor until the stylus tip touches the arc near the outside of the protractor. Don't worry about where on the arc you touch it (the points inside the grids are for something else in step 4 below).
3. Being careful not to move the protractor, move the stylus towards the inner part of the arc and see if it still touches the arc. If it doesn't quite reach the arc, the cartridge needs to move forward in the headshell about half the distance between the stylus tip and the arc. If it falls beyond the arc (overshoots the arc away from the arm's pivtor), the cartridge needs to move back in the headshell by about half the overshoot distance.
4. Once you have the stylus tip tracing the arc at both inner and outer points, carefully place your stylus tip on the point in the outer grid (or inner, you choice). Using a magnifying glass, smartphone zoom with light app (I find the app on my Galaxy S7 works great for this), etc., carefully check to see if the CANTILEVER (formatting for emphasis) lines up with the lines on the grid. If it does and the stylus tip traces the arc, you're done! (I emphasized the cantilever because lining up the cartridge body is not enough, especially if your cantilever is not centered exactly)
5. If the cantilever does not line up, twist the cartridge until it does then recheck to make sure the stylus traces the arc.

This works for my very well. I also adjust azimuth, VTA/SRA but I've found that nothing dials in the sound of fine-line, microline, shibata styli quite like aligning the cartridge like this. There will always be some degree of angular distortion with a pivoting arm, but these alignments really do minimize the distortion. As you can see if you download the protractor, the average for this alignment is 0.42% with the peaks reaching 0.64%. If you play around with any online alignment calculators, you discover that just a slight misalignment can boost those numbers to 1.5-2% distortion.

If you don't have one of these headshells, aligning to the 52mm stylus-tip to headshell washer approach in the Pioneer manual results in an average distortion of 0.53 with the maximum up to 0.9% but that's out near the opening grooves where it's less important, so it's not so bad, but take the time to dial in your alignment.

 

Thank you Stefan!

 

If you square it to the headshell it won't be aligned? (I couldn't print the protractor yet, just downloaded it).

 

Squaring the cartridge in the headshell will only work for two conditions:
- the distance between the stylus tip and the back of the headshell washer is exactly 54mm for a PLX1000.
- the cantilever is centered and straight.

For the cartridges that I've mounted on Technics headshells, the stock Pioneer headshell or an Ortofon SH-4, I use a digital caliper to measure the distance of 54mm and eyeball the cantilever to make sure it looks straight.

The offset angle of the cantilever when lined up "squared to the headshell" is actually 22°. So to achieve the Baerwald alignment in for example the arc protractor I posted above, the angle is actually 23.67°. In other words, the cantilever needs to be 1.67° towards the center spindle from the "squared to the headshell" position.

 

One other important point, when aligning the cantilever to a protractor, always turn your antiskate to zero. Otherwise, the antiskate mechanism will pull on the cartridge towards the outside of the rim and skew the cantilever slightly.

 

That's not quite what I do as I lower VTF during alignment & reducing bias to zero sometimes makes the stylus move slightly whereas it's important for it to remain static during the alignment process.

I place the stylus on a smooth surface on the platter (in my case the Dr Feickert protractor but a small mirror or a CD will do) & reduce anti skate until the stylus stays absolutely still.

 

That should be fine but even if the stylus isn't moving, there could still be a slight tension on it from the antiskate causing the cantilever to be slightly off center. Will it be enough to make a difference? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Antiskate is meant to counteract the stylus in the groove being pushed towards the center of the rotating LP but if the stylus isn't actually in a groove on a rotating LP there is no force to counteract (which is why setting antiskate using a blank record side is incorrect if the stylus isn't actually in a rotating groove!) so any force at all on the stylus from the antiskate has noting to counterbalance it.

 

I find with many arms that they have a natural tendency to swing if no anti skate is applied but cartridge alignment needs to ensure the stylus tip exactly hits the correct arc, null points etc without being dragged slightly. Once alignment is complete, I set both VTF & bias to the correct settings.

 

Yesterday my 2M Black arrived. I mounted it to a Jelco HS25 and tried to align it to Baerwald the best as I could. I set tracking force and anti-skate both to 1.5 and zero VTA with the stock rubber mat. Maybe it's slightly pointing down, I'll try the slip mat behind it tonight.

Anyway, I think I did a good job. The sound is much more clear and detailed than with the Blue without sounding top bright. Cymbals sound excellent. I noticed no distortion, sibilance or IGD so far. Maybe I can still fine tune it in the next days but sounds perfect as it is.

I haven't noticed more noise from dirt or groove damage as many people report with the Black, however I noticed that that vinyl groove sound (needle in empty groove) is louder.

 

Congratulations! One bit of advice I can give you on the Black (as well as most cartridges) is that it won't sound perfect on all records. It tends to be sensitive to setup and people all over the internet say his (Ortofon even states on their web site to make sure you use it on machines with adjustable VTA/SRA). However, don't get caught in the trap of constantly trying to readjust it whenever you come across an LP on which it doesn't track right (especially sibilants). Sometimes the distortion is cut right into the LP and often with used records, the distortion is the result of the LP having been played on crap equipment or gear that wasn't properly set up. The 2M Black will give you back everything in the groove, good or bad. I spent a long time with mine trying to constantly fix this kind of stuff through realignement and I always blamed the cartridge! This greatly diminishes your enjoyment of the hobby. Since you have turntable with detachable headshell, when you have some extra cash, pick up a cartridge with a microline stylus such as an AT440MLb VM540ML, etc., as these tend to track through the bad stuff better than the Ortofon and they sound almost as good as the 2M Black (some actually prefer them).

 

In the future I'm thinking about buying a Bronze needle. I can swap it easily and it's a fine line stylus, and it would be cheaper than buying a whole new cartridge. However, I'm not sure if keep changing the stylus in the cartridge won't cause some damage in the long run (attach, take off, attach again etc).

For now, I have two elliptical, the 2M Blue and a Nagaoka MP-110, both mounted in different headshells, that I can use if I feel the need.

 

I think you'll find the Bronze is very close in sound to the Black, but more forgiving of records in less than great shape.