Project Debut III Issues

[slashp]

Hello,

I'm completely new to vinyl and too young to know much about it...I recently purchased a Project Debut III and Pyle PPP-999 preamp to hook up to my Yamaha receiver.

I've also purchased several new albums which I've previously been playing on an old aiwa (with great success). I'm utterly disappointed with the sound quality of the Project Debut--it sounds like CRAP!

I've gotten my albums to play (no hissing or popping) but the sound quality is literally awful. There's static that sounds like a radio station going out of range which gets worse as the music gets louder.

I RTFM when I bought the thing and set it up to what I believe is correct. I would really like to get this working properly and would thoroughly appreciate any input you guys could provide.

Thanks,

-slashp

[kalypso]

Usually the debut is an excellent sounding table for its price and should be far better than any aiwa.

Assuming that the table's setup (tracking force, cart alignment, azimuth) is right, make sure that the ground wire is connected correctly either to the preamp or to the receiver's ground post.

Also make sure that a high-level input (cd, tuner, aux, tape in) of your receiver is used but not phono (if it has one), as long as you use the preamp. Otherwise you will overload the yamaha's phono input, what may cause terrible distortion.

regards, kalypso

[slashp]

kalypso,

Looks like I didn't understand the importance of the counterweight on the cartridge...after watching a few Youtube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MIK9WcSDtU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o9ArtrBa2Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgJ53im9ZL4

I was able to attain excellent quality !

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[kalypso]

I was able to attain excellent quality !

Great! Enjoy!

[GlassWolf]

kalypso,

Looks like I didn't understand the importance of the counterweight on the cartridge...after watching a few Youtube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MIK9WcSDtU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o9ArtrBa2Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgJ53im9ZL4
I was able to attain excellent quality !
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

hahaha If it's any consolation, I just bought a Pro-Ject RM 1.3 from someone that's about a month old because he was unsatisfied with it's "sound" compared to his old trusty iPod.

I got the TT in today, assembled it, and noticed I was missing both the anti-skate weight, and the cartridge pressure gauge, along with the foot-cone pads.
I e-mailed the seller, and was informed that "he didn't use those anyway, and had them in a box unpoened, but forgot to send them."

Needless to say, I'm waiting for them to arrive in the mail now before I even spin the table up and try it. I want to be sure it doesn't skate, and has proper stylus alignment and weighting before I try it and kill a record.

*laugh* previous owner said, "yeah, I don't read manuals..." *grimace*

[raphaelmabo]

I once read in a review (it was Amazon, user review) about a turntable, where the reviewer liked the turntable overall but didn't give it full stars because the belt wasn't pre-mounted at the factory so he wrote that quality control at the factory was bad... Well... It's easy to make fun of people of course, but I believe many expect it to be like CD's - just plug'n go and they are not informed enough or have misread the manual or haven't got a good seller that explained to them... Half the fun with turntables and vinyl is the fiddling... isn't it?