DCC Archive sota comet

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Unknown, Nov 14, 2001.

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  1. Unknown

    Unknown Guest Thread Starter

    steve, i purchased a used sota comet turntable probably over 6 months ago by now. im no expert on anything but id like to say that i love music and i've never really paid much attention to how well music was engineered and recorded until about a year ago. im pretty much satisfied with the comet i have, it came with a grado black cartridge which ive seen is a rather inexpensive one. when i hooked it up there was a lot of hum, a lot. after i fooled around with it i got the hum to a bare minumum. i was wondering if you've ever had any time to use a sota comet and what cartridge you would recommend? i was thinking of tryin one of the moving magnet ortofon's? also wondering what you thought of sota in general and ortofon? thanks, todd
     
  2. Unknown

    Unknown Guest Thread Starter

    I'm not Steve, but I think I can help, so I'll throw this out there.

    Grados use an unshielded cartridge (or at least they did). This is arguably a bad thing, cause TTs with unshielded motors (Rega, AR, e.g.) will cause hum to be picked up through the cartridge. So Grado can point the finger at Rega or AR and vice-versa. BTW, I have no idea about the motor on a SOTA.

    I have used Grado MMs on my Linn exclusively since I bought it. I recently had hummmmmm problems and it took me a while to get to the bottom of it.

    The symptoms:

    Some hum noticeable at 9 o'clock on the preamp, getting louder as the volume is increased.

    Hum starts in the left chanel, IIRC, with the tonearm in its resting position. As I moved it over the platter it got considerably worse and became equally loud in both channels.

    Now, the first instinct is to say the cartridge is picking up hum from the motor. That would explain why it got louder when I moved the cart over the platter. I also took a sheet of mumetal, set it on top of the platter, and noticed that it reduced the hum. Aha!

    So I cut up a sheet of mumetal and glued it on the underside of my top plate. This was a real pain and looks sloppy. (It was hard to cut metal with anything resembling precision with the tools I had.) I finished it and put the table back together.

    The hum was still there. If I had put a little more thought into my diagnosis, I would have realized the hum occured with the table unplugged. Strike 1.

    I checked my ground connection and it was pretty flakey. I stuck on a new piece of wire, grounded to the preamp, and it helped, but was not a total fix.

    So finally, I see a big honkin' wall wart a few feet below the 'table. This is used by my ART DI/O, which is functioning as a DAC at the moment. The culprit! Unplug it (or move it further away) and the hum is gone.

    It seems like the mumetal should have helped, right? I'm no master of electronics engineering, but I know some materials can pick up hum beneath the top plate and carry it above. I know this is a problem with the motor shaft on old ARs. So I'm hypothesizing that the platter and platter shaft were acting as an antenna in this case. That would also explain why putting the mumetal on top of the platter fixed it, while putting it on the underside of the platter did nothing.

    Good luck!
     
  3. Unknown

    Unknown Guest Thread Starter

    thanks, patrick. i just wanted to add that i damn near got so wrapped up in the sound quality of an album at one point that i think it became more important to me than the music itself. thats not good at all, and defeats the purpose. i can appreciate where people come from with it though i will say. and its nice to hear the music in the best way you possibly can, but i think some people can just get way out of hand with it. i buy many albums on a weekly basis and enjoy doing so. because of this though i dont have the best stereo system i could have though. sacrifices. i dont have the magical ear for it anyhow though, but ive definately noticed a change in listening to music and i dont want it to consume me. i just want to enjoy it, not fight with it. a guy where i work i guess id have to say got me into this ear for sound quality about a year ago. we discus albums frequently. and ive noticed that he talks more about how well an album sounds then how good the music is. i just dont understand that. i know its some peoples lives though, their careers and thats cool. im not trying to change anyones mind, just giving someone, somewhere, maybe something to think about next time they put the needle down. thanks for reading anyhow, todd.
     
  4. Unknown

    Unknown Guest Thread Starter

    I left off something fairly obvious:

    Check all the connections on the back of the cart.
     
  5. J Epstein

    J Epstein Member

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    parabola:

    When someone asks if I'm an audiophile, I tell them, no, I'm a music lover.

    Software is definitely the first priority, everything else is just a means to an end.

    -j

    [ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: J Epstein ]
     
  6. Gary

    Gary Nauga Gort! Staff

    Location:
    Toronto
    I am with you, J Epstein! I tell them I am a music lover, too!

    Then I tell them that Steve Hoffman is also a music lover. I say "You can tell by the high quality CDs that are released by DCC - sounds the way the artist intended it to be, not "modernized" to sound like those harsh remasters that are everywhere".

    And I don't even froth at the mouth!
    ;)
     
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