Howdy --

Rather new to high end audio but purchased a new pair of speakers and
can't stop.

I have a NAD 5040 turntable which I would love to use but have some
troubles.

The issue is that it sounds terrible. There is an ominous low freq.
tone regardless of what I do. I have replaced the ground wire and am
about to re-solder new RCA cables to the contacts comming from the
cartridge. I figured it be best to seek help before melting the inards
of the turntable.

I plan on replacing the RCA cables next which means re-soldering back to
the pc board where the tiny little wires from the crartidge meet the
output cables. I am worried, I am going to use a 15 watt soldering iron
but still I have it in my mind that I will do irreprible damage to the
whole unit.

Some more info, when playing an LP my speakers throw a good inch and a
half at a freq. of about 1.5 cps. It just seems that there is some other
noise comming in that shouldn't be there AT ALL.

Where could this low freq noise be comming from?

eh..

Steve

Steve wrote:


Some more info, when playing an LP my speakers throw a good inch and a
half at a freq. of about 1.5 cps. It just seems that there is some other
noise comming in that shouldn't be there AT ALL.

Where could this low freq noise be comming from?

1.5 Hz? Probably a resonance, the arm mass vs. stylus compliance.
Occurs when a cartridge with too-compliant stylus is used with an arm
that is too high in mass and is undamped. It can also be exacerbated by
an undamped turntable suspension and a shaky floor, and a phono stage
that lacks a subsonic rolloff, so this 1.5 Hz signal is being amplified
excessively, with the extra gain in the low freqs that comes along with
the RIAA phono equalization. If nothing else, it's a waste of amplifier
power and may cause intermodulation at the woofer cone (this was a
favorite peeve of Paul Klipsch).

Carefully watch the stylus as a record is played. If the arm is
bouncing up and down on it like a Philadelphia pimp's Cadillac Fleetwood
on a potholed street, the arm is too massive for the compliance of the
stylus. You can't easily change the arm, and adding viscous damping
would be difficult. Have the stylus suspension examined, in case its
suspension has gone bad. If it hasn't, you need a different,
lower-compliance cartridge.

-GP