Paul R Posted March 17, 2021 Posted March 17, 2021 Long time user of the DP-6. Blue Dot and Yellow Dot standard arm wands. Recently bought the Ortofon 2M Black. And it was a real bugger to align properly on the standard arm tube. I bought the bullet and ordered the precision Red Dot arm tube. Three months later, the arm tube arrives from Denmark. Aligning the cartridge was a doddle. Less than half an hour. Would have been less if I had first installed the finger lift correctly. Now vinyl sounds like it should. No tracking errors due to cartridge mis-alignment. I am now very happy and feeling a whole lot less paranoid. Paul
haygeebaby Posted March 20, 2021 Posted March 20, 2021 (edited) Yeah - also really like the Moerch arms. Using DP6 on a Gyro SE. Running a red precision (Benz Wood S L) and a green narrow (EMT JSD P6.0). Nice to be able to swap arms - and still have half the adjustments already set. Ability to go to 12" length is also a great design element. However - I didn't find either style to be harder or easier to use during alignment - same for both. Alignment always takes me about 2 hours. It's a pain in the toosh. What protractor are you using? Do you find that the azimuth adjustment a little weird? To get mine as close to vertical as possible I have to turn it almost 100% clockwise. If I turn it 101% clockwise - the arm no longer balances. Are you using the silicone fluid in the vertical damping well? My arm sticks for a short time when the cantilever is dropped. Also wish the VTA was better than just an Allen screw - hard to get the micro adjustment needed on this arm for VTA. Did you change the tonearm cable? The stock one is mediocre and man it has some nasty smell from it. Did you notice this? Otherwise - its a pretty decent arm in its price range. Very enjoyable to own. Edited March 20, 2021 by haygeebaby
Paul R Posted March 28, 2021 Author Posted March 28, 2021 On 20/03/2021 at 7:39 PM, haygeebaby said: Yeah - also really like the Moerch arms. Using DP6 on a Gyro SE. Running a red precision (Benz Wood S L) and a green narrow (EMT JSD P6.0). Nice to be able to swap arms - and still have half the adjustments already set. Ability to go to 12" length is also a great design element. However - I didn't find either style to be harder or easier to use during alignment - same for both. Alignment always takes me about 2 hours. It's a pain in the toosh. What protractor are you using? Do you find that the azimuth adjustment a little weird? To get mine as close to vertical as possible I have to turn it almost 100% clockwise. If I turn it 101% clockwise - the arm no longer balances. Are you using the silicone fluid in the vertical damping well? My arm sticks for a short time when the cantilever is dropped. Also wish the VTA was better than just an Allen screw - hard to get the micro adjustment needed on this arm for VTA. Did you change the tonearm cable? The stock one is mediocre and man it has some nasty smell from it. Did you notice this? Otherwise - its a pretty decent arm in its price range. Very enjoyable to own. i bought arm without cable. Me dealer made up a cable which I'm still using. I have a CARDAS but the leadout is not useable.. Protractor, I've used the Dennesen Soundtraktor but this is not good with the Morch. I'm using the standard two point protractor. I do have other options, now. The precision arm tube means I can align the 2M Black in less than half an hour. I do not use the damping in the central pillar as yet. Suggestions?
haygeebaby Posted March 30, 2021 Posted March 30, 2021 Hi Paul Man if you can align in 30 minutes - you are my hero. But from my experience it should take you a little longer if you are doing all the steps. Neither style arm tube should make a difference. But maybe you are already doing all the steps and have mastered it. Here is my two cents on suggestions: The Dennesen Soundtraktor looks similar to the Dr Feikurt protractor which I have used before. Both won't get you super close to perfect alignment. But perfect in my book is bloody impossible. Let's say they get you 85% to 90% perfect alignment - we are talking really small margins here. But very audible none the less. The best I've used is the Mint Best Tractor. Let's say this can get you to 95%. You'll know what I mean when you use a protractor like this. Its a mirror style protractor and it is custom made for your turntable and arm setup. https://mintlp.com/best.htm You'll want a 3x and a 10x magnifier (or better) to be able to see where the needle is. If you are not using a magnifier at this strength - you're not going to be able to tell how good your alignment is. The mirror style helps you judge the alignment more accurately than a grid that other protractors use. I'll assume you are using something similar to a Fozgometer and a good test/alignment record to get your azimuth right. We could go on for 10 pages on setup - but the more you do it the more you'll master it. The analogmagik analyzer is a tool that interests me. Probably the tool that's needed to get really really close to 99%. As for the DP6 - I wouldn't worry too much about the silicone in the damping well. It didn't make a noticeable difference for me. And it gets messy trying to get all the fluid in the right spot. Tonearm cable - decent gains here by getting a good matching cable to the rest of your system or tuning the sound to your liking. I currently use a Kimber Select 1236 cable. The silver ground portion impressed me as I noticed a good reduction in noise when I switched to this cable. The red arm tube is a good match for the weight of the 2M Black. You shouldn't have any resonance issues with this combo. Curious to know what cart you used on the blue and yellow arm tubes. The yellow was phased out because uncommon combination. The blue would have been a good match for really lite carts. Anyway - you spend a decent amount with your DP6. Goes without saying that you should spend an equal amount on the tools to align it to perfection. You can adjust everything with this arm. Good luck and happy trails on your hifi journey
Manuel Leeft Posted July 25, 2024 Posted July 25, 2024 A newbie to the Mørch brand until a few days ago. Need some time sitting in front of it but after it was taken apart and cleaned up it went back on the TT like a dream.
e83cc Posted July 25, 2024 Posted July 25, 2024 In theory you don't even need a protractor for the Moerch - from memory ( Moerch DP8 user a while ago ) if you line the stylus up with the leading edge of the headshell ( looking down ) and align the cartridge body/cantilever in line with the headshell, you are there. Baerwald. 1
cport101 Posted March 14 Posted March 14 On 25/07/2024 at 3:18 AM, e83cc said: In theory you don't even need a protractor for the Moerch - from memory ( Moerch DP8 user a while ago ) if you line the stylus up with the leading edge of the headshell ( looking down ) and align the cartridge body/cantilever in line with the headshell, you are there. Baerwald. That "theory" only works with certain phono cartridges -- ones that have a specific stylus offset distance from the mounting holes -- as this is *not* a standard, it is best to use a "custom" protractor [alignmentprotractor dot com] with the DP-6 (or DP-8)
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