[Digiman]

I recently bought a Clearaudio Virtouso cartridge. Very expensive and all
that..
After carefully adjusting it using my usual Baerwald protractor w/overhang
adjustment and about 5 hours of playing-in (lets not start that debate
again)
i started serious listening, and found some peculiar things.
First, The bass is.. impressing. Even a record like Rush's Presto suddenly
had a powerful precise deep bass. Its like I never had heard the bass guitar
on this one before. The middle is open and airy. Vocals are "just there" in
an unsettling way.
But treble... Hihats and the likes that usually goes "pssss" now goes
"psccchhh"
At the moment I'm a film student, and I would compare it visually with an
bad white balance adjustment that lets the brightest parts "burn out"
A loading issue? Or adjustment?
I then bought a Grado Gold and while treble is much nicer the bass and
middle is now back to "normal". Sometimes I understand those digital
defenders....
Considering the wealth of expertice found in here Im sure someone has some
comment on this

Setup:
Thorens TD126MKIII
Clearaudio AC300 arm
One-off tube handbuilt pre/riaa
One-off tube handbuilt power
Heavily modified Infinity SM155 speakers

___________
Digiman
(from Norway)

[C. Leeds]

Digiman wrote:
I recently bought a Clearaudio Virtouso cartridge...
After carefully adjusting it using my usual Baerwald protractor w/overhang
adjustment and about 5 hours of playing-in (lets not start that debate
again)...
But treble... Hihats and the likes that usually goes "pssss" now goes
"psccchhh"
At the moment I'm a film student, and I would compare it visually with an
bad white balance adjustment that lets the brightest parts "burn out"
A loading issue? Or adjustment?

Overhang is only one aspect of cartridge alignment. Probably equally
important are VTA and SRA. These are especially critical with fine-line
type styli.

Proper azimuth is also vital. This is tricky to get correct, because
many cartridges - even very good ones - have slightly misaligned
cantilevers. The only way to visually get this correct is to align the
cantilever itself, not the cartridge body. To do that, you'll need an
alignment gauge that uses a mirror to align the cantilever. The
WallyTractor and old CartAlign gauges are good for this.