Needle skipping into first song 75% of the time...

Hi Everyone,

I'm having a problem with my needle jumping into the first song of almost every record... I use the cueing lever, and the second the needle hits the record, it skips into the first song of the record. I know this can be a problem on older records, where the edge is a bit sloped, but this is happening at least 75% of the time on almost every record.

I searched the forum and found a post about this, but the person had a bent cantilever, so it doesn't really pertain to my situation as much.

My table is perfectly level, I set up the tracking weight based on my Pro-ject Debut Carbons instructions, and double checked it with my shure tracking force gauge, and it doesn't seem like my cantilever is bent or anything. I also checked my cartridge alignment and it seems to be aligned.

I bought my record player a year ago, and while I don't remember it always doing this, for the last 6 months or so, I've just been cueing right at the first second of the first song to bypass this problem.

My records sound great otherwise, so hopefully I'm not secretly slowly screwing them up if my needle diamond is damaged or something similar to that?

Does anyone else have any suggestions? I'd be very appreciative of any help. Thanks!

 

My first thought is to bump the tracking force to the top of the range (2g) and ip see if it's better. If so back down to 1.9 and see what happens. A little more is generally better than a little less.

 

I only use the cueing level to to raise the arm off the record.

Try starting the record by lowering the arm manually for the first songs on each side. This always works for me.

 

Random thougt...any fans or air ducts in the area? A good arm bearing is really low friction....doesn't take much to move the arm a little. Blowing air, especially if it's more or less perpendicular to the arm, is plenty.

 

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

I decided to calibrated the tracking force (again), and randomly it now seems to skip ahead only about a 1/3 of the time. Can 1/10 of a gram difference in tracking force really make that much difference? It now seems like if it doesn't catch one of those first lead-in grooves, it at least grabs the very beginning of the song and not skate way into it. Is this bound to happen some of the time, or does everyone only have this happen very infrequently?

Out of curiosity, do you think the needle sliding across part of the first song is damaging the record? It isn't a forceful screech as if I bumped the tonearm, but it definitely isn't the nicest sound.

 

First thought: Get a level and make sure the table is level. It might be higher on one end and gravity is causing that skip
.

 

Another thought—is the anti-skating being used?

 

Thid is my guess.

 

I had the same problems with Ortofon. Some records has a bigger thickness on the first 2-3mm of the outer edge. If you put down the needle to close to the outer edge the cart housing will hit the vinyl (Ortofon is a low rider) and be thrown into track 1. You will solve this by lowering the arm more close to where the song starts and avoid dropping it down to close to the outer edge.

I went from having this problem a lot to never have it just by changing my handling

 

I'll aways remember this simple bit of advice: "How do you know that your tracking force and anti-skating is set up right? When you put a needle on a record and it rides down into the groove." Source: Steve Hoffman.

My thought is he has too much weight on his cart.

 

Good thought.

 

Check you antiskating!

 

Oddly, I have a similar problem with just the records from my Beatles blue box - Ortofon Blue on Debut Carbon.

Largely cured by slowly dropping closer to the track start.

 

First thought: antiskating.

 

Thanks for all the suggestion!

I forgot to mention that I have the antiskate correctly set up, and i've tried more, less, and no antiskate and it doesn't seem to fix it.

I think I just need to try to be more careful cueing and cueing closer to the track start.

 

Agreed - not enough antiskate. And the tracking force should always be at the manufacturer's recommended maximum, unless you're certain you know better.

 

Double check:

• if turntable is perfectly level
• tracking force
• anti skate

Good luck.