Did you move the kit, clean, or do anything different? How about a bad signal cable, gray snaic? Black snaic?
I suggested the ground on superline because that is carrying the signal. In order to hear the pop, the superline has to deliver that sound. Just trying to think of anything.
And all seriousness, there may be something happening like when you shuffle your feet across the carpet when you were young, and walk up and touch your friend or sibling on the ear and give them one heck of a shock. Is your TT building up static electricity somehow all the sudden. Did your felt mat always come off the platter and stick to the album before you switched to the leather?
I know that feeling very, very well
But the randomness of the cracks is something that can easily be caused by a broken wire or bad solder and the slight twisting of the wiring while the arm travels across the LP.
No Iāve not changed anything at all in the system.
Apart from swapping bits and bobs in and out to try to sort things, itās the same as it was since 2010 when I changed my original Xerxes for a Xerxes 20plus. The last change of any significance was in 2017. We had new windows fitted so I took the opportunity to send everything back to base for a service and replaced the ageing cartridge.
To try and fix the problem Iāve tried a different Snaic, borrowed a Stageline while the Superline was back at Salisbury, tried both Lavender and HiLine I/Cās, removed the HiCap and powered straight from 252 and now changed the arm cable.
Iāve never noticed an issue with static and the original mat never clung to the record when lifting it off the platter. I wet clean my albums using a Moth RCM and then store in anti static sleeves. Iāve also tried using a zerostat and even using a grounding strap on my ankle.
The purchase of the leather mat was out of desperation really rather than any strong belief it would fix the issue.
I recently changed cartridge to one with an Ortofon replicant 100 stylus and I get enough static build up that I can feel it pulling back when lifting a record, hear it crackle and also hear it through the speakers, (Iām not running a cap plug on my superline at the moment) none of this is as loud as you describe. I donāt think static is your problem. If it only happens when playing a record, which hasnāt been fully established yet, and itās not static that only really leaves the internal tonearm cabling. Pickup from an external source will show up with nothing playing.
I said that in post 133 - Iāve actually had this and it produced the same results as described, but in my case I could reproduce it by manually moving the arm to and fro (a lot) along with up and down. When I ripped it all apart I found there were the 4 wires from the cartridge to the connector, plus a fifth, much shorter one which ātouchedā the arm tube and was joined to one of the signal grounds (to ground the arm tube) - that short wire looked fine, but was broken inside itās insulation - I suspect because it was a āgarden shed manufacturedā type of device and the builder had been over-excitable with the wire strippers and had broken the wires when stripping the ends ready to make the joints. The strands were touching each other most of the time, hence only an intermittent issue.
It may be possible to check this with a multi meter if you can access both ends of each of the wires - a break would show as a needle movement if you were measuring resistance. If you do this remeber to disconnect from the cartridge and phono amp before testing or youāll be putting DC into either/both.
Interesting, thanks for that.
After much searching today for the old ATOC9 cart Iāve remembered I put a load of stuff in the loft. Iāll get it down tomorrow and while the XX-2 is off Iāll get the multimeter out too - not that Iām proficient using one.
Also, I thought you were referring to the tonearm cable rather than the cabling in the arm itself.
Weāll see what tomorrow brings.
Well I have the ATOC9 on the arm and set up, just waiting for the all clear on the storm front to power up the system.
Does anyone use an ATOC9 with a Superline and if so what resistance plug do you use? I have a 453ohm air plug for the XX-2 but it looks like I may need to drop it to either 100ohm or 220 ohm.
Regards,
SteveO.
Cheers for that. I tried searching the old Superline loading thread to no avail. Iāll leave things as they are for a starting point at least. I doubt the cartridge will stay in place for long. The info in the box with the cartridge says 20ohm but most info I could find on tāinternet, people preferred either 100 or 220 ohm.
Cheers,
SteveO.
Right chaps, this could be an interesting development.
Just done 2hrs with the ATOC9 and it has worked flawlessly, albeit a little underwhelmingly. That isnāt entirely fair to the ATOC9 though as the resistance on the Superline is set up for the XX-2. That isnāt what has piqued my interest though ā¦
Now I donāt have much of a clue what Iām doing with a multimeter but Iāve picked up a few pointers from this thread and a couple of YouTube videos. Donāt ask me why I did it but I was about to bin the copper gasket @Richard.Dane suggested I try seeing as it didnāt cure the problem when I decided to stick the multimeter on it. One side read ā1ā and the other side ā0ā. I gave the ā1ā side a scrub with some wet and dry and now both sides are reading ā0ā. Iām guessing one side had a coating that prevented it from performing itās intended job.
Now Iām in a quandary, do I stick with the ATOC9 for a few weeks and see what happens or put the XX-2 back on and see if the gasket does the trick.
Actually Richard, I woke up at 6am and have done just that. Sadly it was my first thought on waking.
Having an early morning listening session right now.
Regards,
Steve O.
Right, Iām trying not to have a Eureka moment here - Iād be foolish to think the problem was solved after 3 albums when the problem has gone a couple of weeks before now before appearing like a bolt out of the blue again.
BUT ā¦
Iāve been using an XX-2 for just over 10 years and my only criticism has been the surface noise - thereās not a lot but over the course of 40 years in this mad hobby Iāve had quieter.
All of a sudden itās vanished. Was that noise a minor manifestation of a static problem all along? Iām hoping if the gasket has improved the earthing to an audible extent on replay it might prove enough to prevent any static build up and subsequent arcing.
I know Iām getting a bit carried away but after 9 months trying to get to the bottom of this I so want a solution.
Will keep you all posted.
Regards,
Steve O.
Thanks for that guys.
For the first time Iām feeling like Iāve actually done something that could have solved the problem as opposed to merely hoping, and I really enjoyed yesterdayās listening. Every other time Iāve listened to vinyl for the last nine months my enjoyment has been tempered by the expectation of a loud crack.
