Turntable set up HELP

Maybe the counterweight is hitting something on the back of the arm? If it's close to the pivot point, it could be bumping the back of the arm or the lift mechanism or the anti-skate assembly or the mounting base?

very very unlikely but it took about 3 records for me to figure it out. My dust cover is off during play, wasn't looking or listening and did not notice that one of the hinges that held the dust cover up had gone forward not stayed back as it should. Caused skipping in the begginning until the arm had moved past it. Height of vinyl did not matter though.

Raise tonearm,The vta is too low,I had same problem with thicker records.

I think you are right on the tonearm height. That makes sense. I don't know how I lowered it, but it seems as though I have, I will check it and try again.

Thanks for all of the advice.

OK More Turntable Drama:

1)Checked the VTA, seemed fine, but I re-adjusted it very carefully again, per the instructions and the Michael Fremer video....Still skipped past about 1 minute of play time.

2) rechecked all of the levels, the platter was level, but I re-leveled the rack shelf so the Gingko platform was level then re-leveled the turntable platter (when the platter is level the plinth is slightly out of level??).. anyway got all of them as level as possible with the platter still hitting the center mark for level and.....Still skipped past about 1 minute of play time

3) all through these I have used both the Wally Tractor and then the Clearaudio grid to adjust the cartridge to see if either would work, neither did.

So, I decided to go to the attic and get the cartridge (Shure M104E)off of my college turntable (Reference "By Quadraflex" 620t), hook it up to the Clearaudio and see if it was the cartridge? Well, even after 20 yrs of no use, the Shure came off no problem and played fine after adjustments (it's a much lighter tracking force 1.25g) and then.....Still skipped past about 1 minute of play time.

4) Took the Clearaudio out of play and hooked up the old turntable, but installed the Sumiko Blackbird on it. Well, the old turntbale has no arm height adjustment, and I didn't have any tool/grid to adjust the tracking angle of the cartridge, just had to eyeball it and.....played fine. Great in fact, boy that's a good cartridge. The old direct drive turntable sounds pretty freaking good, it's going to my nephew back in Chicago now. I got it from his Dad, so it seems ineviteable that it should go back to him.

Anyway now I am really lost. Cartridge is fine, what happened to the tracking on the Clearaudio?? It was fine before I started the Wally Tractor adjustment, and now I cannot even get it back to the pre-adjustment state? I am going to start all over, disassemble the Performance and begin again.

5) Does anyone have the name of someone in Houston who can do a turntable set up? Might as well pay and get it over with, didn't seem that hard, just time consuming, but I am obviously missing something.

Also, all the guys I work with give me greif about this hobby, and I finally invited, or they invited themselves actually, over tomorrow to have a listen, and looks like I may have to go with an all Digital demo. Very disappointing.

Any more suggestions??

Thx.