My Tonearm/Needle Just Took a Little Ride Across My Slipmat!

My tonearm/needle just took a little ride across my slipmat! When it hit the leather, I heard a small, audible thud through the speakers because I had the amplifier on. Realizing what just happened, I simultaneously freaked out and hated my clumsy self intensely and, instead of turning the amp off (or lifting the needle with the cue lever like I should have), I accidentally reached for the on/off button of the turntable itself. A hop, skip and a jump across my slipmat later, every painful bump and drag of which I heard clearly amplified through my speakers, I stopped dead in my tracks to turn OFF my now spinning platter and survey what I'm now hoping is minimal damage, if any - fingers crossed!

(Forgive the Google Drive URLs - Postimage.org was down at the time)
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Please take a look at my cantilever and needle tip. Aside from a little dust, did I avoid a complete disaster? Will I be able to listen to my records safely with this needle? Would you?

 

Looks fine to my eyes.occasionally these things happen even to careful operators!

 

Thanks for weighing in, Thorensman! Glad to know I'm not alone! And happy to hear that I didn't do any major damage to my needle. The incident probably sounded scarier than it actually was.

It's funny...just when I told myself to stop obsessing over all the variables related to vinyl playback and just enjoy the music, something like this happens and here I am obsessing again. I guess the takeaway lesson is: enjoy the music but be careful!

 

I think we are careful, especially when you know how fragile that precious stylus/ cantilever is.
I usually have a spare stylus, sourced from ebay( jico) when the price is right.
Its only happened once (writing off a 3 month old Ortofon mc30 super)
These days i prefer mm and it's also cheaper!

 

Play a record you know well and see if there is a difference.... I did the same thing twice in 1 week with a LP spinning...bounced 3 times. Never did that before or since.... that was 3 years ago I think.


sean

 

Will do. But in terms of appearance, does it look damaged? In the photos I posted above, I can still clearly see the crisp, triangular tip of my needle/stylus (it isn't old and hardly even has 50 hours of play on it!). That's a good indicator, right?

 

Hard to tell by looking at it...as I really don't know what to look for....but I can tell if something doesn't sound "right".


sean

 

Gotcha. Well, that's what I'll be doing tonight.

Remind me again why I love vinyl - when stuff like this happens all too easily?

 

U do it for the SOUND no other reason....keep telling yourself that!


sean

 

your stylus should maintain no damage from that. It's a diamond. Now, your cantilever and the suspension in the cartridge can if it's dragged and pulled an excessive amount.

Best thing to do is play it, does it sound ok? No worries. Doesn't? Send to Peter at Soundsmith for repair or get a new one. Not sure what cartridge you have outside of it being a Grado.

 

The actual stylus would be the last thing to go in that scenario. The cantilever/suspension would take all the abuse. Try to lower the cart on a record that's not turning to get a sense of how it sits on the vinyl/in the groove.

 

I have a Grado Black1 cartridge. I will be doing some extensive sound tests tonight when I get home. Are there any sound anomalies for which I should be listening?

 

We were listening to an album when the cat jumped off a shelf and on to my LP12, seemed fine after. Being paranoid though I took it to my local dealer who checked and confirmed everything was OK, you may be surprised that the cat lived for another eight years.

 

While performing this test, should I be looking for something like "give" or a "flexing" of the cantilever as the weight of the cart/tonearm rests on the vinyl? I know that's not normal so if I see that I'll know something's wrong.

 

Mostly by the naked eye, you would just want to look at how squarely the cantilever makes the stylus sit in the groove. If it leans to the left or right, etc. You're looking for symmetry.

 

I'll should be able to see that with my naked eye? Those record grooves sure are tiny!

 

Nope. Just go by your own ears.

 

Take a picture with a camera and zoom in on it. Easier way of doing it. I think your getting more involved than need be, more than likely it's fine. If it sounds good to you, your golden.

 

Ha, yes. You can always take a macro and look at it on your computer as well.

 

Thank you!

 

Lots of great stylus upgrades for the Grado so you have options. Sounds like it is OK though.

 

Looks good to me. Play a good but expendable record and if it survives, I wouldn't worry about playing other records.

 

If what survives? The needle or the record?

Ideally, both would be the answer, but for this test, which did you mean?

 

Surface noise isn't an indicator of a damaged stylus, right?

I analyzed my needle as best I could with a combination of bright light, various photographs with which I could zoom in to get a closer look, and a magnifying glass. The stylus tip seems to sit squarely in the record grooves and the cantilever isn't skewed or twisted either to the left or right, as far as I can tell.

I also looked up into my cartridge from the underside with said magnifying glass. There I saw both how the stylus is attached to it and took note that it's recessed into the plastic housing. It's actually a lot longer than it appears at eye level - there's a hollow housing shielding about two-thirds of the needle from normal cueing view. Interesting.

Anyway, I'm listening to a few records right now and, thankfully, fidelity seems accurate to what I remember. However, on this one particular record, I'm hearing quite a bit of surface noise. Other LPs play dead quiet, save for the music, of course. This one particular record is probably just a noisy pressing since I cleaned it with my Groove Washer about ten minutes prior to playing. I'll keep trying a few more LPs and take some mental notes. The Sundazed pressing of Donovan's Mellow Yellow was sublime and sublimely surface noise free.

At this point, I think I successfully dodged a bullet.


I'll be extra, extra, extra careful from this point forward!

 

Obviously the record.
If you've closely inspected the stylus, and it isn't chipped or shaft bent, then you know it has survived. Most stylii used in cartridges like yours are made of diamond, so their pretty hard to damage. The shaft, or cantilever, usually suffers the damage. A leather slip mat. Never heard of that before. Most are made of a felt-type material or cork. Damage to the cantilever, in my personal experience, happens when the platter turns backwards or with the stylus touching the mat, instead of a straight pick-up, it is allowed to move sideways as it is picked up.

As an example, once when I was cue-starting a 7" record, I didn't realize it but the TT was in reverse. When I hit the start button, the platter turned backwards, the stylus traveled off the record, caught on the felt mat and bent the cantilever.

As far as stylus damage, an original high-quality cartridge manufactured diamond stylus will last for many hundreds(even thousands) of hours of playing and usually years without noticeable wear. Heck, I've got a good old standby Shure RXT5 I bought in the late-70's, have hundreds of hours of use on it and it still is in great shape. I can't say that a generic brand replacement stylus will have the same lifespan as it has been hit or miss for me and quality can vary widely, which is why I stick to original brand stylii.

OK, here's another example and why I don't use Audio Technica carts or stylii anymore. The Audio Technica and other turntables now coming from the same factory in China, usually come with a pre-mounted Audio Technica cartridge. With my first AT-120LP Audio Technica turntable, I found that once in awhile, the ant-skate mechanism hangs up and then releases sending the tone arm flying across the record into the label area. Well, the first time that happened, I thought that I may have caused it, so I picked it up and restarted the record and played it through. I put on the next record and although it sounded OK, I noticed a bunch of black dust on the record. I was wondering where it was coming from, so I cleaned the record and started to play it again. More black dust appeared so I stopped playing it half-way through. The stylus had been damaged and was plowing through the records. I looked at the previously played record, which was made out of vinyl, and noticed groove wear. The 2nd record, made out of polystyrene, a harder injection molded compound that many cheaper record manufacturers used was ruined as that material is not as resilient. AT sent me a replacement stylus and in the meantime, I mounted my 30+ year old RXT5 cart, which played just fine. When the new AT stylus arrived, it was put in it's case upsidedown and the point of the stylus was embedded in the clear plastic cover of the box. So, at that point, I banned all newer AT carts and stylii. I've never had the same problem with Shure, Pickering, Stanton or Grado carts or stylii, even if they skated into the record labels.