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Rega planar 8/Apheta : Tiny needle arm collapsing on itself

Hi,
It took me a good few weeks to finally be able to extract the enormous potential of my new Planar 8 on my system. Today a Hifi news setup LP arrived in the mail in perfect virgin condition and 10 seconds after I played it I heard a silent crack sound followed by an eerie silence. I looked at the Apheta and realized that the tiny arm holding the needle is twisted sideways.
There was no hit, scratch or any violent motion that could explain how it happened. I listen to LPs for almost 40 years and I never had such an experience.
My biggest fear now is that this is not covered by the warranty :-(

 

triskadecaphobic

Showing 2 responses by jcoehler

jcoehler's avatar
jcoehler
232 posts
 

The photo is hard to tell exactly what is going on but from what you described the cantilever ("tiny arm holding the needle") has twisted and the needle is facing to the side and not down, is that correct?

Did the crack sound happen during or after you played it? You say "10 seconds after I played it I heard a silent crack sound". Are you saying 10 seconds after you started playing the test record you had the issue?

What is the age of the Apheta? Is it the original Apheta? Or a 2? Or a 3? Are you the original owner?

And have you gently run your fingers across the LP to feel any deformaties in the LP?

jcoehler's avatar
jcoehler
232 posts
 

I recall you had an earlier thread started about anti-skate setting. I'm wondering if you've torqued your anti-skate setting so much that when it encounters one of the test LP toruture tracks it's causing this issue? Happening on two separate turntables is very odd. 

And you're positive there are no blemishes on the actual LP?

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