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• Brass mounting screws make any cartridge sound better. Ditto for removing the heat shrink on cartridge clips and treating the clips with SilClear.
• To get first rate sound, you MUST adjust VTA every 3-4 months, no matter how painful. Stylus suspensions always sag with use. This lowers VTA and seriously kills dynamics and treble sparkle. Lots of people misinterpret this as a worn-out cartridge, an expensive error. Instead, raise VTA until your test record’s treble sounds too harsh, then drop VTA a hair. Your test record must not be thicker or thinner than the bulk of your record collection.
• The largest single TT upgrade I know comes from draining the TT’s internally-created vibrations via super-rigid, massive brass footers down into a thick maple receiving platform. The improvement in dynamics, tight bass, midrange harmonic detail and treble airiness is HUGE—even for light, low energy storage TTs like the Linn. Unsuspended TTs—anything from the little Regas to the most massive VPIs and Clearaudios—improve even more.
• Adding brass weights on points to TT plinths, armboards and motor housings can add 50% to the good effect of footers. Move weights and listen to find the sweet spots. Remember, adding too much kills all the gains.
• All TTs, whether using direct wall power or a power supply, are amazingly sensitive to AC cord quality. A fast transient, wide bandwidth cord like the Clearview Double Helix MK II can do as much as doubling your cartridge investment; the Omega Mikro will go well beyond that. Even on budget Regas or Pro-jects, replacing the captive power cord with a squeeze-on Clearview AC Power Cord Kit is well worth doing.
• For TTs with a suspension, bypassing the springs is always a transforming improvement, particularly in the bass. This is most easily done by placing the TT plinth (i.e., the part resting on the springs) directly on brass footers tall enough to lift the old spring feet clear of the shelf or platform below—assuming space permits on the underside of the plinth. Later on, you can remove the springs completely to get rid of their resonance.
• If your TT has a free-standing motor, upgrading the motor’s feet is just as important as the upgrading the main TT’s mounting. Rubber feet are the worst possible mounting. IsoBlocks, in our experiments, are the best, better than brass footers. You can adjust the motor height by adding or removing IsoBlock laminations. For vibration control support of motor and TT, a single long custom maple platform, preferably 4”, is both practical and yields superb sound. However, to achieve the ultimate in resolution, use separate large platforms for motor and TT.
• On any TT where belt tension is adjustable, replacing the rubber belt with the thinnest possible dental floss—or, even better, silk thread—is a HUGE upgrade. Use a square knot to make the thread belt. To achieve best-sounding belt tension (whether rubber or thread), always loosen belt tension until your stroboscope disc just begins to show speed slippage, then tighten a smidge. This makes a big diufference.
• Arm-wrapping with glass fiber reinforced tape (or an arm-wrapping kit) is a nice sonic improvement for most arms. Wrap super-tight.
• Correct grounding yields major sonic gains. Test by ear grounding the arm directly to the preamp, then separately grounding to the preamp any metal plate that’s part of the TT. Use the thinnest possible bare solid core copper wire. Listen to each ground wire in both directions; they’re always directional.
• Rubbery or soft and damped platter mats always yield mushy bass and poor transient dynamics. Try each of the following: no mat, thin hard paper, hard manila folder cardboard, thin hard cork. To make meaningful listening comparisons, you MUST reset VTA for each mat.
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