Listening to my RP1 with headphones (distortion)

[admin_exported]

Hi guys,

I'm new to vinyl and having problems with my set up.

I have a Rega RP1 turntable into a Rega Fono Mini preamp into a Denon PMA-255UK amp.

At the moment I just listen to music on headphones (Sennheiser HD 280 pro) plugged into the headphone socket of the amp.

I'm not expecting mega audiophile quality sound, but I'm pretty sure my set up isn't sounding quite as it should do. I listen mainly to rock and pop and on the louder tracks I notice some distortion, particularly on the vocals.

I'm pretty sure it's not a problem with the vinyl as I got it with new vinyl as well.

I'm guessing it might be the headphones not being suitable, or requiring a headphone amp between them and the Denon ?

Or a problem with cartridge alignment?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Lost Angeles]

Try a different set of headphones or the headphones with another source to prove it's not them. I presume you have no speakers.

 

[mitch65]

I would look at your cartridge alignment/tracking, so easy to get this wrong and would certainly cause the distortion you are experiencing.

 

[Anonymous]

Lost angeles, I have some bookshelf speakers which I tried. Hard to tell if the distortion was there as one speaker wasn't working properly. I'll seek out another pair of headphones and try that, good idea.

 

[Anonymous]

mitch65, thanks for the tips. By 'tracking' do you mean matching the tracking weight of the cartridge (in my case 1.75 with the Ortofon) with the slider on the turntable, moving that to 1.75 as well?

No idea how to check cartridge alignment but I guess I can find out online. Any recommended books on turntable set-up? it seems like quite a tech subject for a beginner and it would be good to do it properly. Thanks!

 

[mitch65]

mitch65, thanks for the tips. By 'tracking' do you mean matching the tracking weight of the cartridge (in my case 1.75 with the Ortofon) with the slider on the turntable, moving that to 1.75 as well?

No idea how to check cartridge alignment but I guess I can find out online. Any recommended books on turntable set-up? it seems like quite a tech subject for a beginner and it would be good to do it properly. Thanks!

The slider should be about half the tracking weight, give or take. You should have had an alignment card with the turntable which goes over the spindle .

 

[Anonymous]

Hi mitch65,

Are you sure the slider should be half of the tracking weight? In the literature that accompanied the turntable, it says the slider should match the tracking weight. On my stock Ortofon cartridge the tracking weight is 1.75g, so slider should be 1.75 or 0.9?

Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

So I've done a bit more experimenting. Here's what I've found out:

80s pressing of Bowie Hunky Dory sounds great through my system, as does 80s pressing of Beatles Let It Be

A 1970s first pressing of Stones Exile On Main Street stereo and a 1970s first press Dylan Blond on Blonde mono I'm hearing some distortion.

I've noticed that these older pressings play louder than more recent stuff and cause some distortion

Could it be that the signal is too loud for the aux input on my integrated amp with these older records?

I've tried to pairs of headphones now and bookshelf speakers. I'm not quite 100% but I think I can report that there is distortion with all of them with the same offending 'louder mix' records.

Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[mitch65]

Some people even suggest you set the anti skate to 0 but current wisdom is not to use the same amount of anti skate as this tends to be too much. You can always adjust til you are happy.

 

[nopiano]

I would second Mitch's point about using about 50% of the Rega recommended anti-skate in practice. I've used much listening and a couple of test records, and both point to the standard setting being too much of a good thing.

If your distortion is more on the left channel than right, then that's definitely the cause - too much anti-skate. If both channels distort the same, then look elsewhere (though it is highly unlikely to be an overloaded Aux input, as these are usually bomb-proof).