I have an Audio Note IQ3 cartridge and for the most part, I'm loving it. It's on a VPI Classic turntable with JMW 1.5" arm, feeding a Graham Slee Accession phono preamp. The cart was an upgrade from an AT150MLX which served me very well for years, and it does indeed sound better. There's a "realism" that's there with the IQ3 that the AT doesn't quite have. It's also about as "silent in the groove" as I've ever heard in any cartridge. The only thing, and I mean only, is that it does appear to track sibilants a bit less as well as my AT cart did. I’ve experimented with many adjustments, but I still get a bit more mistracking on hot “SSSSS” sounds with some of those sounds. The MOFI Bob Dylan 45 RPM pressings particularly highlight this. I’ve tried adjusting VTF, anti-skate and VTA. I haven’t messed with the tonearm damping fluid in the VPI – perhaps add/remove some? I've received some feedback saying the VPI Dual pivot assembly could help by steadying the arm. I actually do see it "dance" as it tracks the hotter "S" sounds. Is that feasible? Is this something I should just live with or is there any other adjustments that I can try?
I had the same problem with my IQ3: I was aligning the cartridge body to the parallel lines either side of the null points on the tonearm protractor, when I should have been concentrating on the actual Cantilever. Body and cantilever can be slightly out. Mine’s sounding very nice now. Does this help?
I have an Aries 3 with 10.5i tonearm. Always had issues with hot sssss, years, until I got the dual pivot. Get it you'll like it. Also adjust the azimuth . Bill
I re-checked the setup and noticed that the overhang was a tad too far forward, and I aligned to the cantilever instead of the cartridge body, although it was very, very close. This helped a bit. Azimuth appears dead on to me and moving it either way didn't seem to make any difference. I'm still getting breakup of the SSS sounds on those Dylan LP's, perhaps they're simply cut too hot, but I did notice a slight improvement on some other LP's. The SSS's still sound hot, but they don't break up as much. I may look into the dual pivot that @billb51 suggests and see if I can tighten it up a little more. Thanks!
One more thing is I use an alignment gauge purchased from Mint lp ,Yup is the name of the person that makes them. Makes a big difference if your using the vpi protractor. Bill
Question about the CD 4.1x; in all the internal pics I've seen, the 6X5 rectifier is nowhere to be found. Is this a relatively new addition, and all the pictures out there are older versions? Anyone have a pic with the rectifier?
Audio Note (UK): Darko Greguras on the importance of the CD transport in making digital sources sound like music. Part 2. - Jeff's Place belt drive transport!
That was utterly fascinating thanks for the link! I love that Jeff just introduced and let Darko take it from there. I wonder how many years before belt drive is a real product for AN? I've loved the sound of CEC transports on the few occasions I've heard them so I am not surprised by these findings. All that said my main takeaway from the article was Daniel Q looks like he would be super fun to party with!
I think you will find the scheduled release will be next year for the transports. It will of course depend on the ongoing effects of the Covid situation. Peter's continuing impression of the sound of the developing cd transport in conjunction with the new DAC implementation is that it has tremendous potential for the cd format.
Got it yesterday and installed it last night. I'm simply amazed. Still a tad hot on those Dylan LP's but the overall sound of everything is better, as if the system just breathes better. I really think I'm finally getting the most out of this Audio Note IQ3 cartridge. Thanks for the tip!
Glad to hear it worked out for you. One more thing to try is lower the vta, it should get rid of it. I always felt the 10.5i tonearm is not a good design.
One more thing, you may know but I'll still mention. The screw on the dual pivot you use to fine tune the azimuth. You will be amazed what a difference it makes when the azimuth is dialed in. The stylus force also changes as the adjust azimuth so keep checking. The magic is in there but it takes time to find it. Have fun.
A couple questions for longer vinyl veterans than me. Most of my LP collection is regular gram vinyl but almost all new vinyl is 180g. Fine no problem sounds great - just like my old regular vinyl. But I notice on a couple of these 180g that I was getting a "scraping" noise between tracks and my first thought is the cartridge rubbing against the record? I was going to raise the arm to compensate but that's a pain in the butt. And during the song you can't hear any of this. It's just an unusual sound. It is there only on some 180g records - I would say 5-10% of mine. My other question is - are record clamps recommended for AN Turntables - they would seem to be antithetical to the AN approach but I thought I'd ask.
Could be that the TT3 just can pick up those noises better? Second is that lots of new 180g are not that greatly pressed. Even the better pressing plants like Pallas sometimes (although very rarely) fail to deliver noise free records. This might be useless if yours is perfectly set-up, but: Check that your TT3 is absolutely on a level surface, the plinth is level and then that the belt drives in the center of the platter on all sides making it true level as well. In mine the spirit level showed very slight tilt on the plinth and the belt was running a bit low on the platter, likely not even on each side (didn't check before disassembling the set-up). I re-started from the scratch, taking the TT3 off the rack, and levelling the rack meticulously. Then set the plinth back (without the subchassis and the platter) and checked that the plint itself is level too, using two 25cm long spirit levels, one left-right and one for back-front. (the round bubble levels aren't really suitable for checking the plinth, they are not very accurate and you need longer sample area IMO) Then added back the subchassis and the platter and the belt and fiddled with the suspensions till the belt was driving true center on the platter an all three sides. For me it took ages (as one needed to remove the belt and platter on each adjustment, replace them, rotate the platter few rounds to see where the belt sets etc.) Then finally I measured (with steel ruler) that the distance from top of the plinth to top of the platter was same on all three sides to confirm the set-up. Set as perfect as I could, the sound improved to previous set up and the overall noise and especially the noise between tracks dimished a lot. I wish I had done the tight tolerance set-up earlier, but better late than never Edit: I did on my first runs a mistake to use the spirit levels on the platter when setting the suspension, thinking that if the 25cm spirit level is set diagonally on the platter it would not alter the measurements. Luckily Martin from Audio Note corrected me from doing this as even as ligthweight the aluminium spirit level is, it'll always change the balance enough to botch the results. He instructed on doing the platter levelling by getting the belt to drive in the center of the platter on all three sides (after the rack and plinth are absolutely level) and that'll do it.
Advocating the simple approach: play back the offending section while eyeballing the cartridge. I have an IQ3, and years ago had a Goldring with the same body. I always felt (but do not know this to be true) that that the body rides especially low to the record vs. other designs. But I think reasonably correctly set up, the cartridge body won't scrape. And while I've heard similar alarming sounds, it has always been between songs.
I think it's fine - it's just a couple of the LPs are warped more than I would expect from a new LP. Still playable but could use a flattening.