CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Jeremy112]

I got this little table yesterday, the guy said the sound is not great, well he was right. You have to turn the stereo up half way to even hear anything.

I am fearing the cartridge is bad, and what makes that suck, is that it from the research I've done online, is that its a $200 cartridge that came with the table. A Pickering XSV/3003

The original D3000 stylus was busted on it, so I figured thats why it had bad sound... So I put on a Pickering D350 on the XSV/3003 and the sound is still bad.

I can't take the cartridge and put it on another table because its a P-mount, and I don't have an adapter or other turntable here that takes that mounting style.

Would there be anything besides the cartridge that could cause this? Physically aside from scratches on the dust cover, the table looks brand new and works perfect otherwise. I can hear the stylus picking up the sound no problem off the LP itself, but it does not get transmitted to the receiver very well at all..

Any theories? :-S

[Boilermaker]

I'm not familiar with any of the equipment here, but assuming that you have a lack of gain, there are two possible causes:

1 - You are hooking it up to a high level input instead of a "phono" input on your receiver.
2 - The cartridges you are using are moving coil instead of moving magnet style.


Bob

[Jeremy112]

[Boilermaker]

I would have not figured it was #2, as most all mc cartridges are fairly expensive and you would know it if you had it. MC cartridges have about 1/10th the output of MM types and your receiver would lack enough gain. Do you have another TT you can test your phono input on?

[Jeremy112]

Infact I have several, and all of those work fine on both the inputs. One of the inputs has a cartridge load selector on it, but that did not improve the sound quality.

I as well would not have figured #2 since its a P mount, but the price of the cartridge is up there. I so far have not found anything on whether its moving magnetic or moving coil. Its identical to the standard mount cartridges, just without that mount. I would like to try it on a different table I know works, but again, cannot mount it.

Also, this is unrelated to the SL-J2, but I have another TT here that when listening to it the sound sounds.... like your in a tin can,the frequencies are all there, but just sound a bit off. I have speculated several other times that the stylus is just worn out, since it does not sound as good as some of the other cartridges/styli I have.

Don't know for sure, but I do have the non SL-J2 hooked into my AVR 5805 via the phono input. I can't say its the receiver, since all other sources that I am inputting into it via analog or digital (CD/Cassette/DVD/Blu Ray/etc...) all sound fine

the turntable in question is a Pioneer PL-600 from 1979/1980 (there is a mid 80s cheapo plastic POS that is commonly mistaken as the real PL-600, pioneer got stupid around then and decided to make a bunch of knock off versions of their better models). The table needs service anyway since the tonearm cue belt is worn, and they just came in yesterday, plus the ground wire cannot be hooked up to any receiver or it will have feedback coming through the audio, the exact opposite of what its supposed to do I know... I bought this table because its literally in new condition and has everythnig factory on it all the way down to the cartridge and stylus, which the cartridge and stylus is extremely rare, I have not seen it on ebay. It's probably not the best sounding one in the world, but its better than most I've heard that Pioneer made

[macgyver655]

I'll pull the service manual in a little bit and see if it has your answers.

[Jeremy112]

[macgyver655]

[Jeremy112]

[Jeremy112]

Or a nice luxman PD-277, but Pricey

[RayN999]

The PL-600 isn't bad but I still prefer my PL-560 with the Grado Silver

You might want to try to locate an Audio-Technica P-mount adapter, it'll let you test those cartridges on your PL-600.

[macgyver655]

Looks like it should be an MM cartridge, 2.5mv output. What else do you want to know?

[Jeremy112]