Doug,
I had set my weight with the clearaudio digital scale to 1.8g (cartridge rec is 1.8g to 2.25)-just assumed lighter in that scale would be best. I fine tuned VTF and all sounded great, but the platter sound (surface noise) bothered me. Mostly all brand new records. I took my scale out to tweak and realized I lost .05g when fine tuning VTA. Something also told me to try the higher side of the recommended tracking force, which I now did. I was so happy with the loss of platter sound, I broke out with some older 20yr+ records and, not only was I delighted to hear no surface noise, but even happier to hear that the very few cracks and pops on the older records where outside of the music plane. Very happy now and records just sound awesome.
I had set my weight with the clearaudio digital scale to 1.8g (cartridge rec is 1.8g to 2.25)-just assumed lighter in that scale would be best. I fine tuned VTF and all sounded great, but the platter sound (surface noise) bothered me. Mostly all brand new records. I took my scale out to tweak and realized I lost .05g when fine tuning VTA. Something also told me to try the higher side of the recommended tracking force, which I now did. I was so happy with the loss of platter sound, I broke out with some older 20yr+ records and, not only was I delighted to hear no surface noise, but even happier to hear that the very few cracks and pops on the older records where outside of the music plane. Very happy now and records just sound awesome.