Inner Groove distortion - Can it ever be TOTALLY eliminated?

[zharca]

I think it's unfair to say that the 1042 is to blame. It's a good cartridge with a very good Gyger profile stylus, which actually tracks inner grooves very well. Over here in the UK Noel Keywood was happy to use one for several years as his standard setup with Garrard 401/SME 3012, so definitely not a duffer.

I think the dealer could have demonstrated that the cartridge showed the same issue in a different turntable if he was saying that was the problem, before suggesting that you start spending money.

There's always the definite possibility that the arm bearings are not adjusted correctly.

[davidsrsb]

I still cannot explain my G1042/SME3009s2 very high distortion on 3 and 10 kHz test record tracks. This is direct from cartridge to an oscilloscope input and it looks really odd with 2nd harmonic so high it gets doubling.
The G1042 body is very close to the vinyl, preventing setting the VTA right.

[Wozza]

Hi.

I've owned a p3 24 for about a year now and on some records got inner groove distortion.

Any way I redid my cart position using the baerwald rega two-point protractor off VinylEngine and this time I made sure that my stylus hit both points perfectly. Previously I had got it perfect on one and 'almost' on the other.

Now records that distorted half way through the final song are perfect.

The last track on John Foxx's The Garden goes almost to the label and distorted badly previously. Now it tracks fine.

I'm chuffed to say the least.

Due diligence in alignment can go a long way.

[mikewilliamson]

UPDATE:

I called Roy Hall at Music Hall. He said what I was experiencing was not normal and sent me to Mitch Singerman in LA to look at it.

Mitch heard the distortion on the turntable. We took the record and played it on his Goldring turntable which is using a moving coil cartridge (can't remember which one, but he said it was a $1500 piece). No distortion at all. Sounded great on inner grooves.

Mitch tried replacing my arm, stylus and cartridge with new stock of all the same brands (Pro-Ject arm for MMF 5, Goldring 1042 cartridge and stylus). The distortion was STILL there.

We then took the record and put it on a DIFFERENT record player of his (Rega) which was outfitted with a Goldring 1012 cartridge. THE DISTORTION WAS THERE.

Mitch is reluctant to say it, because he said he always found Goldrings to track very well...But it's evident to me. Goldring can't track inner grooves well. At least not on rock music.

Now...When we FIRST tried out my turntable, I did not bring any of my own records over. I figured Mitch would have some. All he has, however, is classical music. We didn't really hear my problem on those records.

But when I brought over some rock records with more aggressive midrange from guitars, and generally just more loud and "busy" sounding than classical, it was evident.

So I think the Goldring can maybe handle some things well, but loud rock on inner groves? Problematic.

So, I'm now gonna finally try an entirely different cartridge setup. I was thinking the ORTOFON BLACK. If anyone has suggestions, please post them. I am looking for CLARITY at this point, above all. I never want to hear distorted grooves again after all this headache! (not to mention about 5 round trips back and forth to Mitch's place, a good 30 miles from me each way!)

Mike

[pivot]

Coming off IGD from a much modified Grado Blue I found relief with an Audio Technica 440 MLa.

Oddly I find Classical more prone to IGD then Rock/jazz/pop myself.

[itchmay]

Mike is a nice guy, but this is an example of garbage in, garbage out. He was sure that there was a problem with the Goldring and could not be convinced otherwise until he went to a dealer friend of mine, where there turned out to be a problem with his tonearm. I have used Goldrings for over fifteen years and have always found them to be among the best tracking cartridges I have heard on all types of music.
Mitch Singerman

[davidsrsb]

UPDATE
My problem with my G1042 was caused by my experimental preamp soft clipping too early. I rebalanced the gains of the two stages and now see around 0.3% on the 3 kHz test tone after equalisation. This is a fairly high level signal about 3/4 of the way across the side of the HFS75 test record, so almost "inner groove"

[PeterW.]

I have a Music Hall MMF5 and a Goldring 1042 cartridge.

Inner Groove distortion has been bugging me and I started futzing around with Cartridge Alignment to try and eliminate it, to no avail.

Has anyone ever truly eliminated inner grove distortion completely, having the outer groove and inner groove songs sound equally crisp and rich, or will these inner tracks always sound inferior in fidelity to outer groove tracks no matter what?

Sure.

Use a good linear tonearm. There are more than a few out there, not cheap, mighty fussy, but once in play, well worth it. Seems too simple to be true. But it works.

[davidsrsb]

I wonder if the more skilled mastering engineers used to select tracks and adjust balance to allow for inner groove problems, becoming a self-fulfilling story. LPs were expected to be played with conical or at best elliptical stylii.
I have been digitising some of my 1960s LPs and many start rolling off rapidly above 7 kHz and nothing above 15 kHz on outer grooves.

[fscl]

+1 with Peter W.

Or perhaps a nice conical...... on pivots.

Good luck.

Fred and can be a bargin on the bay.......

[pivot]

I wonder if the more skilled mastering engineers used to select tracks and adjust balance to allow for inner groove problems, becoming a self-fulfilling story. LPs were expected to be played with conical or at best elliptical stylii.
I have been digitising some of my 1960s LPs and many start rolling off rapidly above 7 kHz and nothing above 15 kHz on outer grooves.

Are you familiar with RCA 1962 "Dynagroove" specs?

Included "Dynamic Styli Correlator", a pre-distortion scheme to compensate for conical styli.

Seen this?

http://www.tronola.com/html/dynagroove.html

or

http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/95/

[davidsrsb]

I was only 4 years old in 1962!
The DSC would give serious distortion on very low radius stylii. I suppose that if Dynagroove had caught on, that we would ALL use conical. It's a pity that they combined DSC with DSE. DSC alone in a conical only world would have been very good.