My First Turntable - Any Sage Words Of Advice?
My System
- Pro-Ject DebutIII Turntable
- Cyrus CD 6S CD Player (connected to my amp with a Black Rhodium Rhythm Interconnect)
- Cyrus Integrated 6vs2
- ATC 7 Speakers
- Cambridge Audio Azur 640P Phono Stage (connected to my amp with a Cambridge Audio Pacific interconnect)
- Linn K20 Speaker Cable
- Soundstyle Z2 Speaker Stands
My girlfriend bought me a Pro-Ject Debut III turntable for Xmas and I've set it up as best as I can but having never owned (or even used) a record player before I'm not confident that I've set it up correctly.
It's working and sounds good but I'm not convinced that I have balanced the tone arm correctly - has anyone got some advice on how to do this properly as the instructions are a bit confusing?
At the moment I don't have a proper rack for it and I've not been able to level it properly. I've also had to set it up next to one of my speakers, which I know is less than ideal but my Interconnects are too short to put it further away.
I was thinking of upgrading to a Cyrus Interconnect for my CD player and some Cyrus speaker cable but this would be overkill for my turntable so has anyone got some advice relating to replacement cabling for the Cambridge Audio Pacific cable?
As yet, I've only got three records (Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV and the Joy Division albums Unknown Pleasure and Closer) and Unknown Pleasure seemed noticably cracklier than the others. When I checked the record it seemed to have quite a static charge - what should I do about this and would this account for the difference?
Has anyone got any other advice?
Any advice - only the obvious, buy some more records mate!
Only advice I have is after you've been down the pub leave your records in their sleeves so you don't damage anything and use your CD player.
Buy a Shure stylus force gauge so you can easily check you have the correct downforce set. With a gauge, manual or electronic, you don't need to go through the balancing the arm part first.
Apart from that, I'm sure in thyme some more folk will offer more (sage words of advice that is 
))
any hi fi sage will tell u that in thyme u will be upgrading yr system...
best advice is this: sell the system now. this hobby will make u broke. :-}
plastic penguin:nip down to any good record/music shop like HMV
Error, does not compute!
The only thing I'd say is that you've got good taste in music, so sit back and enjoy. By the way, to echo what someone has already said.......you are now in for years, and years of upgrading!
Hi
The turntable you have is fine, unless you are going to build a substantial collection of the black stuff. Then, after some time , I would think about upgrading to a Rega or a better Pro-ject. For the timebeing, it's fine.
Regards setting up, unless you're an expert, unlike me, as long as you follow the instructions to the book then it should be okay. If you don't hear distortion the arm setting should be sound.
Interconnects? I'm not sure about the question, but if I'm understanding it correctly, your leads from CDP to amp has no real bearing. Course, if you have a £1,000 amp & CDP it could make a difference, but not on a Cyrus 6 combo.
Regarding the static, nip down to any good record/music shop like HMV and buy an anti-static cloth and some cleaning fluid. Used sparingly, it should remove any residual crackles and muck that synonymous with vinyl.
Hope I've covered most areas.
Good luck, PP.
Leema Pulse MKII-S; Naim CD5i MKII; Denon TU-260L MKII; MA RS6 speakers; Pro-ject Xpression 1; loads of different cables...
Formerly known as plastic penguin