Grado Cartridges and Stylus - Questions and Advice.

LeeVing said:
Does yours have an issue with bottoming out on the label when it gets to the runout groove?

Mine does for a bit before the Q-Up kicks in.

I did notice that it rides a bit low. Not a lot of clearance from the cart to the record.

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I'll get the protractor back out.
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It doesn’t bottom out on the label but it does run very low and the sound it makes at the end of the run out groove is at a different note to any previous cartridges. I’ve looked at it closely and it’s not touching anything so I figure that it’s ok!

Sorry I had this typed last night and for whatever reason didn’t hit send, just saw the draft!

I suppose where I place the scale it would be roughly at the middle of the platter.
 
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Joe Mac said:
I suppose where I place the scale it would be roughly at the middle of the platter.
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I reset it for the middle at 1.70

That gives me around ~1.60 towards the outer platter and ~1.90 towards the inner.
1.6-1.9 is the suggested tracking force, so this seems to be the ballpark it needs to be.

Seems to be tracking this 45 RPM Mastodon just fine.
 
kvetcha said:
It seems...unusual that tracking force would vary across the record.
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Yeah...I hadn't really noticed it before now.

No one else has a difference when measuring at the outer area of the platter vs the inner area?

I'll play around with the record mats and see if that is an issue.

I put fresh batteries in my scale, so that shouldn't be a problem.
 
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I got my sprirt level out and it seems that my TT is no longer level. Not sure what happened with that.

I know I leveled it out perfectly when I set it up in this house when we moved in.

After Fleetwood Mac is over I'll work on that....then see if that changes the tracking force.


EDIT - I re-leveled it between records...same varying tracking force. I'm just gonna leave it for now.
 
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LeeVing said:
I got my sprirt level out and it seems that my TT is no longer level. Not sure what happened with that.

I know I leveled it out perfectly when I set it up in this house when we moved in.

After Fleetwood Mac is over I'll work on that....then see if that changes the tracking force.


EDIT - I re-leveled it between records...same varying tracking force. I'm just gonna leave it for now.
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I wonder if your vta or azimuth is off.
 
LeeVing the same thing happened to me. I recently changed cartridges on my U Turn Plus. Had always checked the weight near edge of platter and with the OM 5E got exactly 1.5 every time. Now with the Grado Black 3 I had to move the counter weight and was shooting for 1.6 but sometimes I got numbers all over the place ? Also the U Turns's internal anti skate pulls the stylus off the scale if I try near the center of the platter, so I gave up on that. The scale is new. Just checked again near the edge and got 1.6 go figure.
 
Joe Mac said:
Thats the one thing with not having a detachable headshell, no interest there, doing a full cart install between records isn’t my idea of fun 😂
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Agreed, that's really why I went ahead and filled the "holes" to put together a second system with the main prerequisite being a TT with detachable head shell :)
 
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