Hey Quadfather,
Thanks for the guidance!
I decided to post to reveal my latest findings on the Ed Saunders cart because it seems that most of my CD-4 headaches thus far were the choice of turntables rather than the cartridge, which suprises me on the other Technics I tried since it was their mid-line that looked like the 1200 but had a sligntly inferior tonearm (as far as much more limited adjustability), and was semi-automatic (auto-on/auto0return) but it did have huge cables like the SL-1200Mk2 does. The Sony PS-FL7 and FL7II Linear "front-loading" tables I've got (table actually slides out of the cabinet for use via a slick motorized open/close feature) were apparently the source of the majority of the distortion I'd been experiencing.
I was planning on using the black one (7II) for Stereo/QS/SQ and the silver one (plain 7) for CD-4 to prevent the need for cartridge swapping and have them both stacked nicely on top of my quad receiver in the entertainment center, but alas that plan seems to have been greatly flawed...
I installed the P-mount adapter on a headshell and plugged in the Ed Saunders Audio Technica cart, printed out the free alignment template I found a link to from somewhere on this site, spent a while moving the adapter forwards and backwards in the headshell until both S spots met the tip of the stylus with no movement of the platter, then had to tweak the adapter slightly inwards towards the table's spindle to get the cart to line up with the template, which makes the cart look off center in the headshell (and concerns me a little, honestly), then I set the weight and matched up the anti-skate to it, plugged the SL-1200MkII into the Marantz CD-400B, dropped the Akai test record on, tweaked the separations (there are no carrier adjust controls on the 400B), worked with each side's separation adjust track 'till I was satisfied, then heard the best sounding CD-4 I've managed to get out of my gear so far...
I also found that I had reversed left and right in the unlabelled headshell and in the process of trying to set up the CD-400B decoder I also discovered that the separation controls don't match up with each other for the null as one points at 8 o'clock and the other is more like 10:30 or 11 o'clock, and I don't suspect the decoder because if I swap the cables the two separation controls do swap adjustment settings so it looks like the Marantz decoder really is fully functional and there still may be an issue I'm unaware of with the cart installation/alignment but at least my CD-4's are finally pretty much listenable for the first time since I started this endeavor. I may go back and try the Panasonic decoder and the internal decoder in my Akai AS-980 receiver just for the fun of it but for now the CD-400B is a keeper.
The Black Sabbath Paranoid was probably the worst offender of grungy, crackly, mostly distorted rear channels and it did very well this time, although it's a little hard to tell sometimes since they liked distorted guitars a lot...
Since I'm stuck using my SL-1200Mk2 table I'm just going to buy the AT440MLa Standard Mount cart anyway some time soon and see how the Ed Saunders Ebay cart compares...
I happened to notice that it looks a lot like the AT301 and 311 and E90, right down to the colors of the stylus shell and the labelling on the stylus shell itself. Would be nice to have a clue what it really is.
Anyway, apparently the nice stackable slide-out full-size Sony PS-FL7 series Linear Turntables and the smaller PS-LX55 are all a no-go for CD-4 in case anyone's curious...
If anyone has been successful in using the PS-FL7's I'd love to know which cart and exactly what was done if anything to eliminate the distortion.
I hate that I've got to find a home for my SL-1200Mk2 in my entertainment center now as top-loading is such a space eater, but I'll live with it for now to finally start enjoying the Quadradiscs I've been slowly collecting over the past few years. Losing the linear tables and the extra usable space they allowed is an acceptable price to pay I suppose...
Also, this cartridge has probably played a few dozen albums several times over and over by now in my numerous attempts to get CD-4 working so by now it's probably broken in or at least close to it.
It kind of seems that the further into the record it gets, the more muddy, and less bright it gets and the right channels levels seem to gradually decrease.
I made sure to NOT let Adobe resize the template for printing, I seem to get the same results at anywhere from 1.7 - 2 grams, and the anti-skate doesn't seem to effect the sound so I'm not sure what's up with that.
Since I don't know the specs for the Ed Saunders cart I'm not sure what tracking weight range this cart wants to run in and I don't see he cantilever being effected much differently at all between 1.7 and 2.0 so I'm tempted to leave it at 2.0 for now.
Any suggestions on those issues?
Thanks!
Thomas