How to set bias on a spacearm - what do you listen for exactly?

By way of an experiment (I have stacks of vinyl) I recently bought a s/h Hyperspace with Spacearm. I haven't set up a turntable in years so with trepidation I set it up this evenng. What a surprise - sounds great - hugely involving pity about the odd crackle. NAS advise setting bias on a spacearm by ear - can anyone give me an idiots guide to what to do here?

Plus trying out a s/h Ortofon MC the one thats about £150 MC 15 Super Mk2 and that sounds nice too - any guidance on what else i should try if the bug bites (vinyl bug that is) - my phono stage is set for low output MC. MC seem so very expensive - do you really geta return on better models? It will have to wait but any opinions?

As ever thanks for any tips here.

 

Well ...... have a word with uncle ants

but its the same thing as setting the tracking weight by ear ....so rather than listening for too dull or too bright ....you should be able to tell via the sound balance left and right to some extent ...

the bias is trying to compensate for centripetal force...to get the stylus to trck the centre of the groove [I'm certain you knew that !] so if Iwere you I'd set it in the centre position then either side of the central position ....and see how it sounds.

if eveything is set up ok you should be about spot on with the middle position.....but its the sort of thing you need to be there to do!

interestingly I was in manchester on monday selling a naim preamp and ended up helping set up a project debut...by ear as I'd no of the right tools with me....
tracking weight was 0.2 gram out by ear ..not bad for an old fart !..

but I just set the bias to the central position!

 

Larkrise, I am not sure about the spacearm but with the Moerch arm I had a thread on this same topic recently and Joel gave me really good advice. If you search the forum you will find it for sure.

In summary, it is in the vein of what Zanash is telling you: play a record and look at the needle. If it is pulling to one side while playing to the centre of the record, compensate the anti-skate until it doesn't. It should sound good at that point. All in all, I gave up test records and much aggravation and if I like the sound, I keep it that way.

(my cart is particularly unusual to set up according to Les from Walrus anyway...)

HTH,
Jack

 

Thanks - I think by luck I have it set correctly anyway.

Appreciate any ideas on better MC cartridge.

 

Larkrise you can get good MCs at almost any price... so an idea of budget would help greatly.

You will hear people suggest the ever favourite high output MC by Denon (DL103)... then depending on your tastes in music you could try a Lyra Dorian or Ortofon Kontrapuncts... a bit further in the price range and Benz does some of my favourite cartridges, and then you can look at things like Van den Huls, Shelters and even Koetsus... all of them are different and all of them are nice in the right system for the right pair of ears...

Let us know more, maybe we can help more.

Cheers,
Jack

 

A Lyra Skala is quite a lot better than what you have right now, especially if you add a Connoisseur phono stage as well

 

I picked up a Micrgroove plus phono - have heard interesting things re the Lyra - budget i suppose aroud a few hundred and have been offered a s/h Ortofon Kontrapunct - er spelling? Need to see if I'll get back into it - but must say the deck sounds very nice indeed. Thanks again for advice here.