The famous or not so famous Grado wobble

I have a Grado Reference cartridge mounted in a Rega RB900 arm, mounted on a VPI HW-19 Mk 4 turntable (hardly a light TT). I also have occasional problems with the Grado "wobble". The floors in my house are wood, suspended above a 3-foot crawl space, and with recorded material that has lots of deep bass (such as pedal organ), the problem can be acute. I've come to the conclusion that my Grado, and maybe yours, is vulnerable to acoustic feedback.

I suspect that your problem is due to the light turntable AND the floors. A good turntable isolation base might help (such as the Bright Star Big Rock), but if your setup allows you to wall mount a turntable shelf, that might be your best bet. The other precautionary step you should take is to make sure the tonearm cable is well isolated and not feeding acoustic vibrations back up into the tonearm. I wrapped the phono cables (leading from the Rega arm to the phono preamp) in bubble pack material, so the cables don't directly touch the audio cabinet surfaces. These sorts of problems can be aggravating, so try a number of approaches to improve the isolation of your turntable.

I had this problem also with my Grado Platinum.It only "wobbled" in the lead in grooves and stopped quickly.I have since gone to a wall shelf with a Bright Star Audio Big Rock between the table and the shelf.I havent had a "wobble" problem since.

i have a platium reference on a fulton arm, with an ERA table. haven't had the wobble despite the fulton arm operating with neither anti-tracking or skate. isolation as previously mentioned a priority area. i have concrete floor brite star litter-box, and sorbo feet as the TT is very rigid.
back to basics... check table level and balance.
let us know what happens. kurt

Rwd:

An LP-12 on a light wooden table on a wood floor is a formula for wobble. A wall shelf is the best alternative, preferably on an outside wall. While the suspension on the Linn is very good, the system is suseptible to vibration in ways a VPI, Walker or Basis are not.

Mario

the grado DANCE is what ive heard it called. using a grace 707 and a $20 grado, on a kenwood kd500 tt, it happened! awesome to see, wish id videotaped the occurrence. it oscillated in a circular path as viewed from the front of the cartridge.
im sure it has to do with the cantilever, tt, warp freq. i put a 1 gram blob of black modeling clay on the headshell, rebalanced the arm, and reset the vtf. all was fine from then on. all i did was to move the resonant freq out of the range. its worth a try, and you can just find another 1 gr weight to put there.
......regards......tr

I had the same problem with a very light deck.  Balancing the table solved the problem all on it's own.  I did eventually buy a heavier deck but I'm hoping that the change of cartridge to the Grado won't bring back that horrible sound.