I'm slowly figuring out how best to listen to a newly acquired but old Rega Planar 3, that has a new Audio Technica AT95 cartidge and stylus. It has been very well maintained and upgraded and has the old 'S' shaped R200 arm (alhtough very nicely re-wired).
I originally linked this straight to a Denon 4310 AVR's phono stage,but quickly realised i needed a dedicate phono stage so added a 'Firebottle' (2nd hand from same place i got the turntable).
Evetything has been progressing well and it's been quite eye opening realising just how bad some records have been recorded, but equally there are some absolutely fantastic recordings and i'm enjoying the experience immensely.
However a small problem has surfaced, nothing major but on a few new or excellent condition records (Rumours, Barbra Streisand 'Guilty' and Terence Trent D'Arby debut album) there is definitely some distortion when the singer sings an 'S' at a certain pitch on certain tracks (worse when Babs sings it).
Ass i'm gradually learning and improving things i have managed to get the sound of a well recorded LP to be very appealing to my ears and i feel it's about as good as i can get without having to buy a load more expensive stuff (which you just know will happen anyway!) so i'm happy, but this little distortion problem is a niggle that perhaps can be sorted.
As Barbra Streisand sounds absolutely fantastic until this one track with the 'S' problem (it's happens on 'The Love Inside' track when she sings 'inSide') i can't see it being the headphones or speakers, or the amp/phono stage so i'm guessing it's the cartridge ??
Can anyone confirm this for me and,if you think that sounds the answer, then what cartridge would you recommend ? as mentioned it's a new cartridge and i'm loathe to spend too much more on another, although a bit of research suggests just over £100 would buy me one that has had praise on forums (Nagaoka MP110).
Thoughts ???
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