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Cartridge Tacking Problems - Help please

I have major tonearm/cartridge tracking problems that seems to have gotten worse, leading me to believe there's a problem with the arm. Can anyone suggest what I can/should try to further diagnose the problem?

Here's what it's doing:
On some (becoming many) discs, the cartridge will just skip out of the track, as though there's a scratch, or someone bumped the stand. Changing the anti-skate setting (ie over driving the anti-skate to 2.5) helps a little, but doesn't cure it.

Here's the set-up:
Pink Triangle original table
Audioquest PT6 arm
Signet TK7SU cartridge with new stylus
(the the problem exists also with the old one)
I have no damping fluid in the trough at present

Here's what I've done:
Table is leveled and set up properly
Arm/Cartridge is set up and aligned (and quadruple-checked)
Tracking force is set at 1.75 g, which is the max recommended by Signet. I've always tracked this cartridge at 1.25 g on my old table and it worked beautifully.

thanks in advance!
bdgregory

Showing 2 responses by nsgarch

nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,524 posts
 
Did you balance the arm to zero before you set the tracking force? Did you check the tracking force independently with a stylus pressure gauge?

Compliance mis-match to effective tonearm mass is not IMO the problem here. And even if it were, it should produce some arm resonance but not that kind of mis-tracking.
nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,524 posts
 
Bd -- you may be right about the horizontal bearing being sluggish. Possibly from spilled silicon damping fluid like you said, or maybe just dried out lubricant. Test the horizontal swing at zero VTF and NOT on the cuing support. Use a stylus guard to protect the stylus.

Another thing to check is that the tonearm connecting wires are not inhibiting the arm movement. There's tons of info about the PT6 including upgrades. Just go to Google and type "Audioquest PT6" in the search field.
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