Cartridge too close to record.

[AnthonyI]

........I might have missed this, but did you replace the batteries in your scale?

 

[kvetcha]

@gaporter any news?

 

[gaporter]

@gaporter any news?

Not really to be 100% transparent, my birthday is coming up soon and it's been hinted (not very subtly) that I may be gifted a new turntable to replace the current one altogether. I was already considering going that route and even was starting to put some money aside to save up for a new one just because I was so frustrated with trying to fix the problem.

I know that isn't really the ideal solution all things considered but I'm considering this a learning experience going forward. I need to take more care and be more observant and try to educate myself so I don't make the same mistake again. I also have learned not to wait to ask people on here who are more knowledgeable than me what I should do. Had I done that when I first noticed the issue, rather than stupidly try to troubleshoot myself and likely exacerbate the problem, this would have probably gone better.

I do want to sincerely thank everyone who offered their advice and help to me. I hope I don't come off as ungrateful because I really do appreciate it. Y'all are the absolute best. Much love and many thanks

 

[Joe Mac]

Not really to be 100% transparent, my birthday is coming up soon and it's been hinted (not very subtly) that I may be gifted a new turntable to replace the current one altogether. I was already considering going that route and even was starting to put some money aside to save up for a new one just because I was so frustrated with trying to fix the problem.

I know that isn't really the ideal solution all things considered but I'm considering this a learning experience going forward. I need to take more care and be more observant and try to educate myself so I don't make the same mistake again. I also have learned not to wait to ask people on here who are more knowledgeable than me what I should do. Had I done that when I first noticed the issue, rather than stupidly try to troubleshoot myself and likely exacerbate the problem, this would have probably gone better.

I do want to sincerely thank everyone who offered their advice and help to me. I hope I don't come off as ungrateful because I really do appreciate it. Y'all are the absolute best. Much love and many thanks

That’s rubbish . Sorry you couldn’t get it up and running again! Can completely understand though, the amount of daft things I did in my first couple of years in the hobby it’s a wonder my tt is still in one piece!

If you’re looking at a new table down the line pop into the equipment recommendations thread with a budget and what you’d like on a table and watch us all disageee on whats best

 

[Ericj32]

As many of you know, I recently upgraded my cartridge because of an issue I thought the last one had. The problem, as simply as I can put it as someone largely unfamiliar with turntable vernacular, seems to be that the counterweight is not working as it should be. But even more than that, when I lower the stylus all the way to the record, it's coming down much lower than it should be, to the point where the cartridge is very nearly touching the record and the stylus looks as if it's going up into the cartridge. As you can imagine, this is not good, and as someone who knows the limits of their turntable expertise, I've been looking for the answers to this problem online and have come up empty handed. I don't know if I just don't know what to look for or what but I clearly misdiagnosed the problem as being with the cartridge because it is happening just the same with this brand new cartridge, resulting in distorted and skipping playback. When I came back to the turntable after a few weeks of not using it, I found that the arm would not stay down, almost as if it was loose. I tried to tighten it back myself (probably a mistake, I know) and when it no longer was staying up on it's own and swinging all over the place, I thought my problems with it were done and I was ready to spin again. But now I'm back to square one. I played an older record to test it out before putting a new one on and it seemed fine, but by the end of side 2 the same issues I was having before returned.

I honestly have no idea what is wrong and at this point I'm worried just replacing one piece of the turntable won't solve the problem. I feel like I should know far more about turntables than I do but I've never had issues like this and I don't know what I could have done to cause it. I don't want to panic but it is highly upsetting for me right now, especially since I'm not knowledgeable enough to even figure out what's happening on my own.

I hope I provided enough detail to where maybe someone can figure out what is wrong. As of right now, I'm stepping away from it again at least for a few hours because I've got a pit in my stomach and have just been left really sour by the whole experience. I'll try my best to provide feedback in response to any questions people may have but keep in mind there's probably a lot of obvious factors at play here that I'm oblivious too.

I wish I would have seen this thread back in February. I've been having this same damn issue for mooonnnnnnnntttthhhhhssss. I would just kneel down and stare at the cartridge from the side while a record was spinning and it was getting soooooooo close to the record. It looked like the stylus was getting jammed up into the cartridge. Not knowing anything about cartridges or turntables in general, I was thinking "oh, well there's a lot of settings on this turntable thingy - maybe there's a knob that I need to adjust to make the stylus stick out farther so my cartridge doesn't start grinding against my records" - but I couldn't find anything on the internet. I read a lot of advice about "tracking force" and thought to myself, "oh yeah, they mentioned something about that in the AT LP120 user guide, I should go and check what they said in there." But yeah, it talks about spinning the wheel/ring, but not about pushing/pulling the whole counterweight back and forth and/or using a stylus force gauge [which I have now ordered].

The thing is most of my records played just fine, so it wasn't clear to me that it was a turntable issue, rather than an issue with particular records. Sure - the cartridge looked way lower than it should be - but, again, most of my records sounded great. Maybe like 10-15% of my records would have issues with skipping. I kept track and it seemed like they always skipped in the same places. Sometimes I could fix it by cleaning the records multiple times, or sometimes the skips would just magically go away, just from playing the record multiple times. But there were a small chunk of my records that I just couldn't fix - every time they played, they'd skip in the same damn places. I would cross my fingers and hold my breath praying for a miracle each time it got to one of the trouble spots, and hearing those same skips over and over again was quite frustrating. Some of these were brand new records. Others were used but looked completely fine. For some of the used ones, I tried buying another slightly more expensive used copy of them, and sometimes I lucked out, but sometimes they just skipped in different places. A few of the replacements skipped in the exact same places. I didn't know what to do, and I could still get away with it for most of my records, so I started to think that maybe you just have to expect that 10% of the records that you buy will have skips just unavoidably built into the grooves.

The black plastic part will spin, that’s not what you want to do- this doesn’t move the weight. Grab the weight from the rear and move the whole thing.

Have you moved the entire doughnut shaped counterweight all the way to the back of the tonearm so that it's almost about to fall off the arm? If not, do that then check your weight.

Then I see these posts from HiFi Guy and Mather earlier this afternoon. And, well, shoot, I did not know you could just pull that whole thing back on the tone arm. I pulled it all the way back to the back, and I have to tell you, just the thought that this *might* address this issue even in part, got me so so so excited. I kneeled down to look at the stylus resting on a record and, hot damn, it was back to looking normal - the cartridge had some breathing room once again! At this point, I can see a flicker of hope. Huzzah!!

I then gingerly pulled a few records from the shelf, records that had been skipping - records that I'd given up on. Records..............that had given up.................on me.

First was the Dandy Warhols "Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia" - it had been skipping during "Nietzsche" on Side A and "Horse Pills" on Side B. I'd actually spent quite a while this weekend spinning this and trying to clean it and make some progress. It's one of my favorite nostalgia albums, and one of the first records I'd ever purchased - years before I even had a turntable. And for whatever reason, I'd never actually spun it. And it felt awesome to finally do so this weekend...until...the skips came. It was really frustrating how many times it skipped on Sides A and B (C and D were totally fine). I had finally gotten to the point of giving up yesterday and just saying "well, it's a trash Rainbo press - I guess I'll just have to wait for something better to become available."

But today, after seeing this thread, and yanking back the counterweight on the tone arm so that the cartridge wasn't threatening to bump and grind against my records, I nervously pulled Thirteen Tales from its inner sleeve again and laid it down on the platter and cued the stylus to start with "Nietzsche" on side A. I know it seems really melodramatic, but I cannot overstate how nervous I was to actually see if it would skip again. I desperately wanted this to not be an issue anymore, but at the same time, I didn't want to even try after crashing and burning so many times this weekend - I didn't want to cement another failure to resolve the dreaded skipping. If this didn't work, I would just be stuck with a record that mostly sounded good except for the times where it was torturing my ears. I took a deep breath, pressed play and flipped the cueing lever to slowly lower the stylus to the surface of the record. I waited for the moment in the song....the one that hurt me so many times before....I held my breath....crossed my fingers....and...and.................it played right through!! Was that the right moment, though? Maybe I misremembered where it was? Better listen to the whole track to make sure....and.......wow, no skipping - not a single one! HO-LY BUCKETS!!!!! I flipped over to Side B and played the whole side through - not one skip. The trash record has become a treasure!!!

I have to tell you - the rush that I felt in hearing these songs NOT SKIP after hearing them skip in the same places so many times - felt incredible. I proceeded to play through a few more records (Novos Baianos, Paul Simon, Arctic Monkeys, etc.) that I had obsessed over [documenting all the places where they'd skip, cleaning the records, zapping them with my anti-static milty gun, adjusting the little black tracking force wheel/ring to different settings, adjusting the anti-skate to different settings - all to no avail] and then eventually given up on. Friends, every single one of them (so far at least) is now skip free. I don't know what taking lots of drugs all at the same time feels like, but it can't be much better than the feeling of listening my way through all of these points in the songs on these records where my brain has been conditioned through repeated aural abuse to brace for the impact of a jarring skip and just, FINALLY, hearing them play through those same moments seamlessly without any interruption or hesitation.

So thank you, @gaporter for posting this question, and thank you @HiFi Guy, @Mather, and everyone else for your thoughtful responses. You have made the world feel immeasurably safer, kinder, and less irrationally terrible for me and my records, and for that, I am endlessly grateful.

 

[kvetcha]

I wish I would have seen this thread back in February. I've been having this same damn issue for mooonnnnnnnntttthhhhhssss. I would just kneel down and stare at the cartridge from the side while a record was spinning and it was getting soooooooo close to the record. It looked like the stylus was getting jammed up into the cartridge. Not knowing anything about cartridges or turntables in general, I was thinking "oh, well there's a lot of settings on this turntable thingy - maybe there's a knob that I need to adjust to make the stylus stick out farther so my cartridge doesn't start grinding against my records" - but I couldn't find anything on the internet. I read a lot of advice about "tracking force" and thought to myself, "oh yeah, they mentioned something about that in the AT LP120 user guide, I should go and check what they said in there." But yeah, it talks about spinning the wheel/ring, but not about pushing/pulling the whole counterweight back and forth and/or using a stylus force gauge [which I have now ordered].

The thing is most of my records played just fine, so it wasn't clear to me that it was a turntable issue, rather than an issue with particular records. Sure - the cartridge looked way lower than it should be - but, again, most of my records sounded great. Maybe like 10-15% of my records would have issues with skipping. I kept track and it seemed like they always skipped in the same places. Sometimes I could fix it by cleaning the records multiple times, or sometimes the skips would just magically go away, just from playing the record multiple times. But there were a small chunk of my records that I just couldn't fix - every time they played, they'd skip in the same damn places. I would cross my fingers and hold my breath praying for a miracle each time it got to one of the trouble spots, and hearing those same skips over and over again was quite frustrating. Some of these were brand new records. Others were used but looked completely fine. For some of the used ones, I tried buying another slightly more expensive used copy of them, and sometimes I lucked out, but sometimes they just skipped in different places. A few of the replacements skipped in the exact same places. I didn't know what to do, and I could still get away with it for most of my records, so I started to think that maybe you just have to expect that 10% of the records that you buy will have skips just unavoidably built into the grooves.




Then I see these posts from HiFi Guy and Mather earlier this afternoon. And, well, shoot, I did not know you could just pull that whole thing back on the tone arm. I pulled it all the way back to the back, and I have to tell you, just the thought that this *might* address this issue even in part, got me so so so excited. I kneeled down to look at the stylus resting on a record and, hot damn, it was back to looking normal - the cartridge had some breathing room once again! At this point, I can see a flicker of hope. Huzzah!!

I then gingerly pulled a few records from the shelf, records that had been skipping - records that I'd given up on. Records..............that had given up.................on me.

First was the Dandy Warhols "Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia" - it had been skipping during "Nietzsche" on Side A and "Horse Pills" on Side B. I'd actually spent quite a while this weekend spinning this and trying to clean it and make some progress. It's one of my favorite nostalgia albums, and one of the first records I'd ever purchased - years before I even had a turntable. And for whatever reason, I'd never actually spun it. And it felt awesome to finally do so this weekend...until...the skips came. It was really frustrating how many times it skipped on Sides A and B (C and D were totally fine). I had finally gotten to the point of giving up yesterday and just saying "well, it's a trash Rainbo press - I guess I'll just have to wait for something better to become available."

But today, after seeing this thread, and yanking back the counterweight on the tone arm so that the cartridge wasn't threatening to bump and grind against my records, I nervously pulled Thirteen Tales from its inner sleeve again and laid it down on the platter and cued the stylus to start with "Nietzsche" on side A. I know it seems really melodramatic, but I cannot overstate how nervous I was to actually see if it would skip again. I desperately wanted this to not be an issue anymore, but at the same time, I didn't want to even try after crashing and burning so many times this weekend - I didn't want to cement another failure to resolve the dreaded skipping. If this didn't work, I would just be stuck with a record that mostly sounded good except for the times where it was torturing my ears. I took a deep breath, pressed play and flipped the cueing lever to slowly lower the stylus to the surface of the record. I waited for the moment in the song....the one that hurt me so many times before....I held my breath....crossed my fingers....and...and.................it played right through!! Was that the right moment, though? Maybe I misremembered where it was? Better listen to the whole track to make sure....and.......wow, no skipping - not a single one! HO-LY BUCKETS!!!!! I flipped over to Side B and played the whole side through - not one skip. The trash record has become a treasure!!!

I have to tell you - the rush that I felt in hearing these songs NOT SKIP after hearing them skip in the same places so many times - felt incredible. I proceeded to play through a few more records (Novos Baianos, Paul Simon, Arctic Monkeys, etc.) that I had obsessed over [documenting all the places where they'd skip, cleaning the records, zapping them with my anti-static milty gun, adjusting the little black tracking force wheel/ring to different settings, adjusting the anti-skate to different settings - all to no avail] and then eventually given up on. Friends, every single one of them (so far at least) is now skip free. I don't know what taking lots of drugs all at the same time feels like, but it can't be much better than the feeling of listening my way through all of these points in the songs on these records where my brain has been conditioned through repeated aural abuse to brace for the impact of a jarring skip and just, FINALLY, hearing them play through those same moments seamlessly without any interruption or hesitation.

So thank you, @gaporter for posting this question, and thank you @HiFi Guy, @Mather, and everyone else for your thoughtful responses. You have made the world feel immeasurably safer, kinder, and less irrationally terrible for me and my records, and for that, I am endlessly grateful.

Be sure to pick up a scale! Too little tracking force is worse than too much.

 

[Joe Mac]

I wish I would have seen this thread back in February. I've been having this same damn issue for mooonnnnnnnntttthhhhhssss. I would just kneel down and stare at the cartridge from the side while a record was spinning and it was getting soooooooo close to the record. It looked like the stylus was getting jammed up into the cartridge. Not knowing anything about cartridges or turntables in general, I was thinking "oh, well there's a lot of settings on this turntable thingy - maybe there's a knob that I need to adjust to make the stylus stick out farther so my cartridge doesn't start grinding against my records" - but I couldn't find anything on the internet. I read a lot of advice about "tracking force" and thought to myself, "oh yeah, they mentioned something about that in the AT LP120 user guide, I should go and check what they said in there." But yeah, it talks about spinning the wheel/ring, but not about pushing/pulling the whole counterweight back and forth and/or using a stylus force gauge [which I have now ordered].

The thing is most of my records played just fine, so it wasn't clear to me that it was a turntable issue, rather than an issue with particular records. Sure - the cartridge looked way lower than it should be - but, again, most of my records sounded great. Maybe like 10-15% of my records would have issues with skipping. I kept track and it seemed like they always skipped in the same places. Sometimes I could fix it by cleaning the records multiple times, or sometimes the skips would just magically go away, just from playing the record multiple times. But there were a small chunk of my records that I just couldn't fix - every time they played, they'd skip in the same damn places. I would cross my fingers and hold my breath praying for a miracle each time it got to one of the trouble spots, and hearing those same skips over and over again was quite frustrating. Some of these were brand new records. Others were used but looked completely fine. For some of the used ones, I tried buying another slightly more expensive used copy of them, and sometimes I lucked out, but sometimes they just skipped in different places. A few of the replacements skipped in the exact same places. I didn't know what to do, and I could still get away with it for most of my records, so I started to think that maybe you just have to expect that 10% of the records that you buy will have skips just unavoidably built into the grooves.




Then I see these posts from HiFi Guy and Mather earlier this afternoon. And, well, shoot, I did not know you could just pull that whole thing back on the tone arm. I pulled it all the way back to the back, and I have to tell you, just the thought that this *might* address this issue even in part, got me so so so excited. I kneeled down to look at the stylus resting on a record and, hot damn, it was back to looking normal - the cartridge had some breathing room once again! At this point, I can see a flicker of hope. Huzzah!!

I then gingerly pulled a few records from the shelf, records that had been skipping - records that I'd given up on. Records..............that had given up.................on me.

First was the Dandy Warhols "Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia" - it had been skipping during "Nietzsche" on Side A and "Horse Pills" on Side B. I'd actually spent quite a while this weekend spinning this and trying to clean it and make some progress. It's one of my favorite nostalgia albums, and one of the first records I'd ever purchased - years before I even had a turntable. And for whatever reason, I'd never actually spun it. And it felt awesome to finally do so this weekend...until...the skips came. It was really frustrating how many times it skipped on Sides A and B (C and D were totally fine). I had finally gotten to the point of giving up yesterday and just saying "well, it's a trash Rainbo press - I guess I'll just have to wait for something better to become available."

But today, after seeing this thread, and yanking back the counterweight on the tone arm so that the cartridge wasn't threatening to bump and grind against my records, I nervously pulled Thirteen Tales from its inner sleeve again and laid it down on the platter and cued the stylus to start with "Nietzsche" on side A. I know it seems really melodramatic, but I cannot overstate how nervous I was to actually see if it would skip again. I desperately wanted this to not be an issue anymore, but at the same time, I didn't want to even try after crashing and burning so many times this weekend - I didn't want to cement another failure to resolve the dreaded skipping. If this didn't work, I would just be stuck with a record that mostly sounded good except for the times where it was torturing my ears. I took a deep breath, pressed play and flipped the cueing lever to slowly lower the stylus to the surface of the record. I waited for the moment in the song....the one that hurt me so many times before....I held my breath....crossed my fingers....and...and.................it played right through!! Was that the right moment, though? Maybe I misremembered where it was? Better listen to the whole track to make sure....and.......wow, no skipping - not a single one! HO-LY BUCKETS!!!!! I flipped over to Side B and played the whole side through - not one skip. The trash record has become a treasure!!!

I have to tell you - the rush that I felt in hearing these songs NOT SKIP after hearing them skip in the same places so many times - felt incredible. I proceeded to play through a few more records (Novos Baianos, Paul Simon, Arctic Monkeys, etc.) that I had obsessed over [documenting all the places where they'd skip, cleaning the records, zapping them with my anti-static milty gun, adjusting the little black tracking force wheel/ring to different settings, adjusting the anti-skate to different settings - all to no avail] and then eventually given up on. Friends, every single one of them (so far at least) is now skip free. I don't know what taking lots of drugs all at the same time feels like, but it can't be much better than the feeling of listening my way through all of these points in the songs on these records where my brain has been conditioned through repeated aural abuse to brace for the impact of a jarring skip and just, FINALLY, hearing them play through those same moments seamlessly without any interruption or hesitation.

So thank you, @gaporter for posting this question, and thank you @HiFi Guy, @Mather, and everyone else for your thoughtful responses. You have made the world feel immeasurably safer, kinder, and less irrationally terrible for me and my records, and for that, I am endlessly grateful.

Im nervous at the thought of you just messing with the weight without any measurements, @kvetcha is right, please get a little electronic stylus measure (less than $10 on the shitty online book store) and set the tracking force right for the type of cartridge that you are using...

 

[Ericj32]

Be sure to pick up a scale! Too little tracking force is worse than too much.

Im nervous at the thought of you just messing with the weight without any measurements, @kvetcha is right, please get a little electronic stylus measure (less than $10 on the shitty online book store) and set the tracking force right for the type of cartridge that you are using...

I ordered the stylus force gauge that HiFi guy linked above in the thread. That’s all I need right?

 

[Joe Mac]

I ordered the stylus force gauge that HiFi guy linked above in the thread. That’s all I need right?

yeah that’s fine! It’s important that you have it set right for your stylus, too much and you run the risk of damaging your records, too little and it can cause skipping and tracking issues.

 

[kvetcha]

I ordered the stylus force gauge that HiFi guy linked above in the thread. That’s all I need right?

Yep. Just look up the recommended tracking force range for your cart and adjust using the scale. You can then properly calibrate the counterweight by turning the label ring to match the tracking force you just dialed in.

 

[Ericj32]

yeah that’s fine! It’s important that you have it set right for your stylus, too much and you run the risk of damaging your records, too little and it can cause skipping and tracking issues.

I mean - at least for now, none of my records are skipping at all. In some ways, the sound seems clearer and less muted, too. I’m going to try to go through the rest of the problem areas I’ve documented with my other records today and see if any of the skips still persist.

 

[Mather]

I mean - at least for now, none of my records are skipping at all. In some ways, the sound seems clearer and less muted, too. I’m going to try to go through the rest of the problem areas I’ve documented with my other records today and see if any of the skips still persist.

Yep just to mirror the others, that tracking force scale is the best thing, super easy to use but be a little careful running through all your records right now without knowing what weight you're actually using because if it's way too little it can do some damage to the grooves. But either way you'll have the scale soon and that'll sort you out. Glad that it's working out for you that's great!

I had the same feeling when I connected these attenuators yesterday for the first time and played through my most problematic track and it was clean... I think there was a couple of silent fist pumps... Very good feeling.

 

[topofthedial]

There are two similarly-named settings that can cause issues with the cartridge riding low relative to the vinyl, both of which also have a real effect on sound quality:

• Vertical Tracking Force (VTF) is what's been described throughout this thread. It's basically the weight of the cartridge on the vinyl, and you adjust it using the counterweight. The optimal VTF varies based on the cart but it's generally somewhere around 2g.
• Vertical Tracking Angle (VTA) is the angle of the tonearm relative to the vinyl, which ultimately controls Stylus Rake Angle (SRA), which is the angle at which the stylus meets the record. Cartridges aren't uniform in height, so this setting sometimes needs to be tweaked when you change carts. I use a Jelco SA-750E tonearm, and I adjust VTA by loosening a hex screw on the side of the tonearm and physically raising or lowering it as needed. Not all tonearms support VTA adjustments, unfortunately, but getting VTA/SRA dialed in correctly can really improve the sound of vinyl playback.