Vinyl skipping

[highfigh]

You did answer my question about overhang in the process; it gets adjusted at the end of the tone-arm (end being where you mount the head, right?)

Yes, at the end.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

Overhang definitely matters.

highfigh's post has it right ... you adjust overhang by loosening the cartridge mounting screws and moving the cartridge back or forth as required; use the gauge (such as the ones available at VinylEngine) to place the point of the stylus's diamond in the correct spot, which is marked on the gauge. Some tonearm / cartridge combinations don't allow perfect overhang adjustment, in that case make it as close as you can, but follow the parallel position (next paragraph) adjustment. In other words don't cant the cartridge inward or outward in an attempt to get perfect overhang; make it parallel and get the best overhang you can in that condition.

The photo someone posted of the SME mounting base is only used with tonearms that do not have slots in the headshell area. A few aftermarket tonearms mount that way, but it's not the norm.

You also adjust the stylus' parallel position with the gauge and loosened screws; that's what the lines that run parallel to the tonearm are for on the gauge.

In every case be careful; the cantilever (the arm that holds the diamond and protrudes from the cartridge body) is a hollow metal tube*, many times thinner than tinfoil. It is easily bent or damaged as you can imagine. Treat it gentlly.

Broadly speaking a cartridge suitable for High Fidelity use has a delicate cantilever; cartridges suitable for radio broadcast, DJ or "scratching" movements should be used if that is your objective. They have poorer fidelity but are built strong to survive such movements.

Your true HiFi cartridge is not built that way; it will be damaged, probably, by movement of the platter / record in the "backwards" motion.

It is reasonably robust when the disk is moving in the correct rotation (clockwise) as it is designed to be so. Side movements can damage the cantilever and must be avoided.

All of the above should be taken into account when using an alignment tool or moving the cartridge body in the slots. Don't loosen the screws to the point where they can be removed or fall out; just enough to move the body is all that is required. Tighten, of course, when you are satisfied that the cartridge is properly aligned. Not too tight ... snug is good enough.

When cleaning a stylus, you can be reasonably rough with a cleaning brush provided you only move it from back to front (cartridge clips to stylus tip) and no sideways movement. It is strongest when experiencing such movement. I don't mean that you can treat it like a "Red Headed Step-Child" but using reasonable caution you won't damage a cartridge if cleaned in that manner, provided you avoid pressing the cantilever toward the cartridge body.

Many people are adept at manually moving the cartridge / tonearm to the start groove, or elsewhere to select tracks. However, until you are confident with this, use the tonearm lift. The key is to lift and drop with your finger under the tonearm lift bar, allowing the cartridge to set into the groove before removing your finger, not grip the tonearm with more than one finger, if you would like to try such manual handling of the tonearm. Strive to mimic the action of the tonearm lift.

* Some cartridges use a solid, diamond-like material (Boron, Sapphire, Ruby). However they are machined with a specific crystal structure that is also designed to be strong in only one direction, are very thin in comparison with the hollow tube type, and are just as delicate. Generally they cost from $1000 and up; if you have such a cartridge you would probably know it.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Don't take this personally, but if TLS said overhang counts there must be a reason. He's not known to send you on a wild goose chase. Neither are you, of course, but perhaps the guy saw some overhang related skipping.

Johnny2bad indicated to move the cartridge to get to the overhand point. See if the shell or the head or both has slots to move the cartridge fore or aft. Hopefully the TT maker has the distance spelled out. I doubt all TTs have the same overhand distance.
If this or the anti-skating is not helping, time to upgrade to a CD player.

 

[highfigh]

What speakers are being used, where is the turntable located in relation to the speakers and is is possible that the low frequencies from the woofers might be causing this? Have your friend try listening with headphones or with the level turned down and if it still skips, it may be necessary to have the dealer look at the table for possible replacement.

Also, I would look at the stylus to make sure it's fully inserted in the cartridge body and that the wires to the cartridge aren't so low that they ride on the surface.

 

[killdozzer]

It's all well decoupled. He has Sonus Faber Venere 3.0 and those come with pointed spikes for legs. I guess It wouldn't be skipping only from the middle onward if it was due to vibrations from loud music.

I'll have him check the cartridge. Thank you.

 

[highfigh]

It's all well decoupled. He has Sonus Faber Venere 3.0 and those come with pointed spikes for legs. I guess It wouldn't be skipping only from the middle onward if it was due to vibrations from loud music.

I'll have him check the cartridge. Thank you.

Decoupled through the floor, but the sound may be coming directly from the speakers through the air- I had a turntable that howled terribly if the dust cover was closed but once I opened it, it was fine (well, as 'fine' as possible for that POS).

I agree with your last sentence, with the addition of as long as everything is OK with the turntable and cartridge.

If you or your friend know someone who has a microscope, remove the stylus and inspect it- I have often been amazed by the amount of crud that can collect on the tip, even though the LPs have been cleaned religiously, handled without touching the surface with hands, weren't left out of their sleeve to collect dust and when the stylus had been cleaned. It may even seem to be clean through a jewler's loupe, but that may not be enough magnification.

I bought one at a Goodwill, so I drove to another store that day while I was close enough and as I pulled into the parking lot, I thought "I'd like to find a microscope". There it was, on the top of a push cart- battery powered LED lighting above and below the table and it worked! It showed me the exact condition of my cartridges and I was relieved to see that my Denon has almost no wear- much better than I expected.

Maybe a local shop that sells turntables has a scope, too.

While it's rare, it's also possible that the tip has been damaged- if it's not shaped correctly, it won't track the whole side without problems.

 

[lovinthehd]

Could be the 30 minute-a-side LPs too. What are they?

 

[TLS Guy]

This thread has gone on far too long, with far too much nonsense per line.

A turntable skipping is a serious problem. In terms of set up something as gross as skipping will only occur if there is way too little tracing force, or overhang and tracking angle are way out of bounds. For years turntables had no antiskating device.

What turntables need to be is devices manufactured with extreme precision. It only takes the most minor of manufacturing defects to make a turntable totally useless.

This project outfit have a had a lot of bad press lately. These have been rumble, hum and skipping issues. You don't have to do much of an Internet search to find the problem we are dealing with here applying to other identical turntables.

I think the problem is they have been holding price. They have a cartridge of much better quality than is usually found on turntables of this price. I suspect the price should be at least $200 higher than it is now to make a decent turntable with that cartridge.

I note most complaints I run into seem to involve newer rather than older units.

Pickup bearings have to be absolutely perfect, and totally free of even small defects. One theory I came across which seem plausible is that they have changed to cheaper wire, that is too stiff and or gets retained memory.

I know we laugh here about exotic high priced wire. This should not apply to PU wire, where only the expensive best will do. I only restore turntables using premium wire.

I would not advise changing the cartridge. The chance of an Ortofon cartridge being defective is remote in the extreme.

Once the OP is satisfied that the turntable is set up correctly, if it skips the turntable needs the old deep six! My money is strongly on this turntable being a dud.

As I said previously these turntables are now on my to be avoided list and I no longer recommend them.

My current entry recommendation is the U-Turn.

If you are one of those that thinks only LPs can get you to audio Nirvana then you need a fat wallet, that can purchase you the precision engineering and machining involved. That means a turntable with an SME arm for starters.

 

[mtrycrafts]

What speakers are being used, where is the turntable located in relation to the speakers and is is possible that the low frequencies from the woofers might be causing this? ...

While this is an interesting aspect to explore, why is it only happens mid disc and closer to the center only?
If it is an acoustic reaction, shouldn't it happen at anywhere on the vinyl?

 

[3db]

This thread has gone on far too long, with far too much nonsense per line.

A turntable skipping is a serious problem. In terms of set up something as gross as skipping will only occur if there is way too little tracing force, or overhang and tracking angle are way out of bounds. For years turntables had no antiskating device.

What turntables need to be is devices manufactured with extreme precision. It only takes the most minor of manufacturing defects to make a turntable totally useless.

This project outfit have a had a lot of bad press lately. These have been rumble, hum and skipping issues. You don't have to do much of an Internet search to find the problem we are dealing with here applying to other identical turntables.

I think the problem is they have been holding price. They have a cartridge of much better quality than is usually found on turntables of this price. I suspect the price should be at least $200 higher than it is now to make a decent turntable with that cartridge.

I note most complaints I run into seem to involve newer rather than older units.

Pickup bearings have to be absolutely perfect, and totally free of even small defects. One theory I came across which seem plausible is that they have changed to cheaper wire, that is too stiff and or gets retained memory.

I know we laugh here about exotic high priced wire. This should not apply to PU wire, where only the expensive best will do. I only restore turntables using premium wire.

I would not advise changing the cartridge. The chance of an Ortofon cartridge being defective is remote in the extreme.

Once the OP is satisfied that the turntable is set up correctly, if it skips the turntable needs the old deep six! My money is strongly on this turntable being a dud.

As I said previously these turntables are now on my to be avoided list and I no longer recommend them.

My current entry recommendation is the U-Turn.

If you are one of those that thinks only LPs can get you to audio Nirvana then you need a fat wallet, that can purchase you the precision engineering and machining involved. That means a turntable with an SME arm for starters.

I have owned one other turntable from Project and they have worked/work flawlessly . I do think something may be wrong with this table and I would ask for an exchange but Im not going to hit the panic button as readily as you appear to be doing .

 

[TLS Guy]

While this is an interesting aspect to explore, why is it only happens mid disc and closer to the center only?
If it is an acoustic reaction, shouldn't it happen at anywhere on the vinyl?

No, this is a mechanical problem I think. Either a bad bearing or stiff wire would do this. The stiff wire makes most sense to me. The problem would occur at the same point at which the lay of the wire gets stretched. Choice of wire and how you thread the wire is one of the most important aspects of turntable restoration.

 

[mtrycrafts]

There is another experiment maybe worth trying.
Get a thin metal rod that doesn't flex, put it under the arm near the shell lift it parallel to the platter so the needle is just a little above the vinyl and move the arm inward to the center and see if there is a different feel to it at the center and inwards. Does it want to return towards the outside?
Or, use some plastic rod with a lower surface friction than metal.

 

[highfigh]

While this is an interesting aspect to explore, why is it only happens mid disc and closer to the center only?
If it is an acoustic reaction, shouldn't it happen at anywhere on the vinyl?

Anti-skate is needed more at the end of the disc, but it starts closer to the middle- the weight isn't doing much at the beginning but I would like to see what happens if the weight is removed. If it still skips, the tonearm pivot would be a likely culprit.

 

[killdozzer]

This thread has gone on far too long

It is due to many recommendations falling short. So far only the overhang hasn't been touched. All else has been checked and didn't make a difference. Bearings and wire are beyond me and I even get a feeling that my friend is reaching the limit of what he would do by himself. Trouble is, we're known to have thousands of "universal experts" that fix sinks, cars, turntables and lay ceramic tiling. This is why it is hard to trust people here; "I know nothing about how to fix that" is a sentence that was almost never uttered in my country. There seems to be some mention in some 16th century monk's diary, but the diary is forbidden and the monk was sworn to silence.

Every single repair shop will tell you they can fix it. What they do is just start fiddling with it and see what happens. This is why I first wanted to try to home in on the problem.

I think warranty is long gone and what I find peculiar is the fact that it didn't skip while new. This raises some doubt about overhang as it is suppose to be the same all along. I will, of course, try to set this if I see my friend is ready to go there. I think he would just prefer to find a good repairman he could trust, but as I said, those are scarce.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

... [snip] ...

I think the problem is they have been holding price. They have a cartridge of much better quality than is usually found on turntables of this price. I suspect the price should be at least $200 higher than it is now to make a decent turntable with that cartridge.

... [snip] ...

I would not advise changing the cartridge. The chance of an Ortofon cartridge being defective is remote in the extreme.

... [snip] ...

As I said previously these turntables are now on my to be avoided list and I no longer recommend them.

My current entry recommendation is the U-Turn.

The Ortofon Red retails for $US99, that is not out of line for a turntable of this price. When you are buying moving magnet high volume manufactured cartridges at OEM quantities in bulk packaging (basically, no packaging)*, your cost is at least 60% below retail and could be lower. So we can assume it's contributing perhaps $40 to the retail price, which I feel is reasonable for this price point package. In any case, we can confidently assume that Pro-Ject is buying these from Ortofon at the lowest possible OEM pricing, period, whatever that may be.

The Ortofon Red is a very good cartridge, especially in comparison to other similar priced units. Also Pro-Ject is almost certainly using a jig to align the cartridge at the factory, since manual adjustment would be quite inefficient at the quantities this table sells at. So changing cartridges is probably not the best option.

Perhaps the cartridge moved in transport, though.

I agree the Ortofon itself is probably not the issue here, but it does begin to seem like we can't rule anything out, since the problems seem to persist.

I am a bit surprised that your experience with the Pro-Ject Carbon is one of multiple problems, or that online, owners are having issues. Perhaps there are recent quality control issues?

**

Don't get me wrong, I like the U-Turn, but it's a unipivot tonearm design. They are excellent performance-wise but especially new users are taken aback by the movement side-to-side rather than simply up-and-down only with gimbal tonearm designs. (A unipivot arm only has one balance point; think a needle coming up from the centre rather than two bearings, one on each side in the vertical direction of travel; two more in the horizontal direction). This is compounded somewhat by the fact that a tonearm lift mechanism is optional on the U-Turn, so many tables ship without one, meaning all movement of the arm to and from the record groove must be done via the finger lift, manually, only.

For experienced vinyl users it would just take a bit of getting used to but for novice users I would recommend one of the others available of suitable entry-level quality, starting with the Fluance 81 ($199 MSRP w/Audio-Technica AT91), Music Hall MMF-1.3 ($299 w Audio-Technica AT-3600) up to the REGA RP1 ($445 MSRP w/Ortofon OMB-5E, the OEM version of the OM-5E) or even the Pioneer 500X Direct Drive ($349 w/Audio-Technica AT-91).

Admittedly none of the included cartridges are the equal of the Ortofon Red ($99 MSRP), but they are not terrible either.

--

I would be surprised if mechanical airborne resonance is the cause of the problem; that would be a new one in my experience. It would take considerable airborne vibration to move a stylus out of a groove, and you would hear obvious feedback before that point in any case, signalling you to the problem.

*When I had my store, many years ago, we would sell our entry-level cartridge at $35 with a turntable, which was our cost, they carried a $79.95 MSRP. We bought them in boxes with styrofoam trays with 100 round holes where the un-packaged cartridges resided; two trays per box. It was the only cartridge we bought in those quantities and was midway in the line (ADC QLM-36). The next model up (XLM MK II) which we could not afford to buy in bulk cost us about $100 each, and that was with our large quantity discount as we would order the QLMs at the same time. A typical order was 1000 QLMs (5 boxes); anything less and our cost went way up.

This was a time when the Technics SL-1200 MSRP was $329, to put prices in perspective. The entry level composite plinth Kenwood (KD-2055) was $199; a Thorens TD-145/160 was $345, a Linn was about $900, an Oracle about $1200.

The most expensive MM cartridges were under $200 and most Moving Coils were under $400. No cartridge was more than $1000. Note as well these all these prices are in $C, $USD MSRP would be about 20% less.

 

[TLS Guy]

It is due to many recommendations falling short. So far only the overhang hasn't been touched. All else has been checked and didn't make a difference. Bearings and wire are beyond me and I even get a feeling that my friend is reaching the limit of what he would do by himself. Trouble is, we're known to have thousands of "universal experts" that fix sinks, cars, turntables and lay ceramic tiling. This is why it is hard to trust people here; "I know nothing about how to fix that" is a sentence that was almost never uttered in my country. There seems to be some mention in some 16th century monk's diary, but the diary is forbidden and the monk was sworn to silence.

Every single repair shop will tell you they can fix it. What they do is just start fiddling with it and see what happens. This is why I first wanted to try to home in on the problem.

I think warranty is long gone and what I find peculiar is the fact that it didn't skip while new. This raises some doubt about overhang as it is suppose to be the same all along. I will, of course, try to set this if I see my friend is ready to go there. I think he would just prefer to find a good repairman he could trust, but as I said, those are scarce.

I note some claim the wire stiffens over time and gives rise to the problem.

Anyhow I have a somewhat better opinion of Croation repair men.

My brother was rallying in Croatia in one of his vintage Bentleys. It was this 1930 4.5 liter.

Anyhow he had a total failure of one of the four leaf springs. He was directed to the local blacksmith, who worked through the night and made an exact copy of the Spring. He was on the road next morning and completed the race. That spring is still on the car, and been through further hard rallies.

What would be the cost to ship that turntable to me and ship back again?

I feel confident I could repair that turntable. The voltage is adjustable. In Croatia I believe you are 230 volts, 50 HZ.

 

[killdozzer]

Some nice words there for my fellow countrymen. I'm glad you had such an experience.

Over the pond and back? I believe you could buy a new one.

Don't you worry, we're not giving up. It's a slow process, my friend works like crazy, but we'll get there.

I get what you say about wires - it could have been OK when new and get worse later on. For now I want to see how confident does he feel about doing the check on the overhang. We'll pick up from there.

As I said, he did try with heavier needle pressure and says it doesn't help.

Thank you for guidance and patience.

 

[TLS Guy]

Some nice words there for my fellow countrymen. I'm glad you had such an experience.

Over the pond and back? I believe you could buy a new one.

Don't you worry, we're not giving up. It's a slow process, my friend works like crazy, but we'll get there.

I get what you say about wires - it could have been OK when new and get worse later on. For now I want to see how confident does he feel about doing the check on the overhang. We'll pick up from there.

As I said, he did try with heavier needle pressure and says it doesn't help.

Thank you for guidance and patience.

Probably right about the new one!

Well good luck with this project! Turntables are simple, but highly intolerant of the slightest mechanical defect. If you need it, I might have some very high quality Cardas pick up wire tucked away somewhere.