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SME 312S arm pulling into the center too much.

I have an SME 201/12 with 312S arm.
It has been a great system for several years.
Recently I did not use it for over a year and when I did get back to it I have found that the arm is pulling to the center way too much.
Even when i set anti skating at maximum it still sends the arm to the middle way too fast on a blank record.
Obviously the sound is out of balance to the right.
I called SME England the the guy told me that the groove forces would send the arm outwards and that the anti skate acted in the opposite direction!!!!
I was stunned to say the least.

It is made worse by the fact that the new US distributors do not even publish a phone number let alone answering it when you call.

Before i pack up the arm and return it to the UK just wondered if anyone had similar experience with SME anti skating.

Aloha!
mauidj
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Its nothing but some other guys saying they noticed the same thing,  https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/anti-skating-sme-v that twisting the wires affects anti-skate. I would just search around using terms like SME 312S tension spring, schematic, manual, etc I’m at work where we are stuck with the Goolag and its censored search results but maybe you can use Duck Duck Go or one of the other legit search engines to find what you’re looking for.

Unless its so far off its resulting in mis-tracking then anti-skate really isn’t all that big a deal. If you can twist that wire enough to get by I would just go with that. If not then it shouldn’t be all that much in the way of tools to take it apart enough to figure out what’s going on. It works by spring and filament. Odds are the filament either broke or came off whatever its supposed to be stretched across and that’s why its not working.
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,226 posts
 
Make sure your table is perfectly level. Then check the set up of the arm. If there is too much overhang the skating force will increase. I have also seen a broken stylus do this before. Bad diamond. It just fractured. It sounded surprisingly normal! I suspect your tonearm is normal. I am also assuming that the anti skate weight and mechanism is normal. Blank records get you in the ballpark but you need a test record to set anti skate properly.
mauidj OP
127 posts
 
Big thanks to everyone for the input.
I am going to try adjusting the anti skate mechanism according to SME and see where that gets me.They think the filament might have stretched so there is a way of increasing the anti skate to see if this is the case.
I will report back.
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