Check that the arm is not touching the arm lifter bar during playback. If the arm is not horizontal but sloping up from the cartridge to the pivot point, this can happen during playback
what's causing a SME 3 to stick after a few spins?
I just bought a Rega Planar 3 with an SME series III tonearm. When I drop the stylus at any place on the LP it starts to skip after about five seconds. It's as if there is some resistance to the arm moving horizontally. I've tried to adjust the anti-skating and it seemed to work for a while and then the problem returned? Is there maybe some damping silicone in the leaking into the bearing?