Goldring GR-1

So I've finally got round to buying a turntable and am confronted by annoying sibilance - like the type of distortion you get when listening to pronounced vocals through poor quality headphones at loud volumes.

The deck came with a Goldring Elektra cartridge. Could this be the problem or am I expecting too much from a budget deck? Is it just a vinyl thing?

That said I've only used it around 6 hrs total, so maybe it could benefit from more breaking in. If not, maybe I should sell the cartridge and by a new one.

 

The cartridge will need a good few hours on it to mellow down,you could look to a better Goldring at a latter date,but get used to what you have now and enjoy it,vinyl is more fussy than CD. I find mine more sibilant,and vinyl quality,in recording and pressing makes a huge difference,if it's poor quality,you'll curse at it,but get a good one,and it will bring tears to your eyes.

 

Probably the cartridge, its like a loudspeaker in reverse, it has suspension that needs to 'relax', and poor tips and magnets can excite resonances, too.

Vinyl can sound nasty and distort with sibilance esp. if the record is poor.

 

I'd say it needs some breaking in - might be worth checking alignment as well. I know these things are supposed to come pre aligned, but I bet its worth looking at.

Its a pretty cheapy cart as well and even after running in may well be prone to sibilance anyway. If so one of the carts in the Goldring 1**2 series would be better or one of the Ortofon 500 series.

 

Hmm don't mean to contradict, but with a half decent arm and cart, properly aligned (the GR1 arm is a variation on an RB250, so shouldn't be too shoddy), nasty distortion and sibilance should only really happen on really duff pressings or knackered vinyl.

 

Thanks, I'll have a look at the alignment some time today. I don't think it's the pieces of vinyl i'm using since they're all brand new.

 

Hi Buffallosoldierz,

I would double check the set-up of your supplied cartridge, alignment and VTF in particular. I'm a firm beliver in the fact that budget kit can sound very good if set up properly and looked after well. I have used many different cartridges over the last few years, all of them sub £200 ones. So i am in no way trying to sound elitest, however I have to say that the Goldring Elektra cart that i owned a few months ago was ( to my ears ) shockingly bad, I spent many hours trying to get the best out of it but just gave up in the end. You don't need to spend an arm and a leg to better it either. I really liked The Goldring 1000 series of carts ( £60 and upwards...) I also thought that the Ortofon super OM10 was a real gem of a budget cart at about £30+, likewise the well regarded Audio Technica AT95 or even better AT110e all available for about £30+. The super OM10 would be my choice though , slightly more difficult to set up due to its shape , but a peach to use once set up ( again due to its shape).
By all means try and get the best out of the Elektra but bear in mind that it will still have a little residual value on the s/h market whilst still releatively new, to off set the cost of a decent budget upgrade. Have fun.

 

buffalo -

whats the rest of the kit, especially phono stage?


Cheers
Chris

 

I've seen the OM10 on ebay for around £17 from Germany, but the picture shows OMB10. Does anyone know if this OMB could be any different from the OM?

 

At the moment, I've got the turntable going direct to the phono stage on my Marantz PM4200 (=>Mission M71s). It's not ideal, but I don't really want to start spending excessive amounts on hardware, if i've barely got any vinyl to play on it (although all this turntable business is supposed to be an avenue to get into some older jazz/soul, and I expect to purchase a fair amount of vinyl in the future).

 

well I decided to sell the Elektra and bought the Ortofon OMB10 cartridge for no extra money. The stylus seems to be the same stylus 10 as on the OM10 super cartridge.
Anyway, the results have been very good, with a much more smoother and listenable sound, with a lot less distortion than before.
However, there still is some distortion, which i've noticed is obviously worse as you play tracks closer to the centre of the LP. Also, it seems to be worse with thinner LPs, which either means the VTA is a bit off, or a thin LP is asociated with the quality of recording.
The arm is an RB250, and it appears I cannot adjust VTA, although the instructions that came with the deck were very thin and I may be wrong.
Are there any slip mats, I could use to help this problem?

 

Three words - Mould Release Agent; most new vinyl I get sounds crap - after a run through the Disco Antistat manual cleaner, they sound much better.

In fact, a lot of the time, second hand vinyl (if clean looking), while more crackly, can actually sound far better than brand new vinyl - thickness for thickness.

I had a Goldring Electra on my NAD533 - bloody AWFUL POS cartridge. Thank god I had a spare Ortofon 530 from my other deck that I could use; the Electra was vicious - really thin, harsh, and with the tracking ability of a large-bore knitting needle. Very poor and a real short-sell of that NAD; I'd imagine it doesn't do the Goldring turntable any favours either...

 

You can get after market washers to adjust the height of the arm. Try www.audiophilecandy.co.uk for ideas.

The ringmat system adjusts VTA for each pressing. It would be a real PITA I think to do though, so personally have never bothered.

Essentially with the ringmat system you get plastic discs of varying diameter to put under the vinyl - like great big spacers.


Cheers
Chris

 

I'm pretty sure you'll find the arm on the GR1 is actually a sort of bastardised RB250, rather than an actual RB250 - I believe the mount is different and the bearings are different too. VTA won't be adjustable and because of the differing mount its even possible that the spacers used for the RB250 won't fit either (though I don't know on that count, Goldring may be able to advise on that one).

Ringmats might well be the solution for a VTA problem - if that is the problem - a bit pricey mind.

The fact that it gets worse the closer you get to the spindle shouts out "tracking problem due to misalignment!!" to me though. In my experience changes in VTA results in a change in the tone, but not really distortion as such.

Oh and yes - really thin vinyl is often really crap vinyl (though not always)

 

Your deck should really have come with a cartridge alignment protracter, or a piece of cardboard with a few crosses on so you can check whether or not it is set right in the arm. If you don't have one of these, it's worth getting one. They can be bought cheaply, or I believe there are some available free on PDF, but I'm suspicious as they may be susceptible to inaccurate printing.
It has to be said that your problem does sound like an alignment one.

 

If you want the free PDF protactors then there are some availabe at the following link, along with a variety of useful bits and pieces to do with turntables i.e manuals, setup guides, reviews etc.

http://www.nakedresource.com/library_tonearms.shtml

Note you need to register to access the files, but this is free.

Hope this is of some use.

BL21DE3