WiredState Audio Community

A year or two ago I bought an ortofon 2M red for my Denon dp300f turntable. I paid the store where I bought the denon from to install the new cartridge, home service. This morning I listened to some records and noticed that the bass was lacking, sound was muddy and singer sounds like he had a phlegm.

Disappointed, I wanted to restore the original cartridge but decided to try some adjustments on my own before doing that. I was surprised to find out that the weight was off so I adjusted it on my own. The bass improved but the sound was still muddy. I checked the wiring and found out that the cartridge was not wired properly. Only the white wire was plugged correctly. The other 3 wires were plugged in the wrong socket. After reinserting then into the right pins the sound improved a lot. I then checked the alignment and discovered that the head was off axis by a few millimeters and the weight was not adjusted to specs. The sound improved a lot after these corrections and was a far cry from how it was when the guy installed it. Lesson learned, can’t trust the installer blindly.

here's the mismatched wire to pins

Cartridge and tonearm set-up should be a regular ritual for vinyl lovers and should not be taken as a burden .... that's the only way that you will enjoy listening to your collection

To ease the burden, look for tools that will assist in ease of adjustment and master the procedure until it becomes a habit. Also, keep a record of the specification of the cartridge and tonearm at hand.

@alfa,
Congrats on setting the alignment by yourself! You are well on your way to becoming a certified vinyl “tweaker.”

In my case, after fiddling around with the cartridge and tonearm setup to no avail, I learned that keeping the turntable platter perfectly level was all it took to solve the channel imbalance and inner groove distortion issues I was having.