Technics SL 1700 mistracking problems

I finally found what I think is a pretty decent condition SL-1700. I'm having some problems aligning a cartridge on it though. On my old turntable, an SL-B2, I used the Baerwald alignment protractor from vinyl engine and had very little mistracking. I've got a Shure audio obstacle course I use to get an idea of how well I've got the cart aligned and with the B2, I never got any skipping, and only a touch of distortion on the higher level tests. With this 1700, I did the same procedure and it skips on the higher level tests almost every time. What gives? What do you guys use to align cartridges in this line of tables? And why might this better turntable be tracking worse than the inferior one? Could this new turntable have some issues that my old one did not? Also, I tried the arc Baerwald protractor from vinyl engine and cannot get it to print out with both measurements being accurate and I don't want to keep wasting printer ink. The closest I got it, one of the measurements was about a mm off and the other was 2-3 mm off. I could not get the cart to follow the arc unless I had it twisted around in the headshell and that just seems incorrect to me. Should the cart be dead straight?

 

I'm not sure why you would use Baerwald with any Technics turntable. These were built to use a proprietary alignment that is based on Stevenson. So either use that alignment with a jig, ruler, calipers, etc. (it's 52mm) or find a Stevenson protractor. If you need to print a protractor properly take it a copy shop and have them print it for you to scale on thicker paper or laminate it for you.

RE: the cart, what are you using and how many hours are on the stylus? If it's a poor tracking cart, or simply worn, all bets are off.

In less common cases, a turntable like this will have worn tonearm bearings. We can run a simple test to determine that. Unplug the turntable and the remove the stylus from the cartridge. Free float the arm until it does not move at all, set anti-skate to zero. Now take a q-tip and very lightly tap it up and down and horizontally. It should move freely in the vertical and horizontal planes. If it does not, something is wrong.

 

AH, THIS old chestnut.
I set one up for someone( no, it was the
Sl 1200)
Buy i think i know the problem.
Technics specify a measurement from
Rear of headshell to stylus tip.
So i tried this and all was well.
Now .......
I used Bearwaldt, and Stevenson.
AFTER setting the reccommended
Technics way.
It made no sense at all.
BUT...

It performed faultlessly.
I will dig out relevant data and report back.

 

Seems that I have it pretty near perfect on the stevenson paper protractor. I did check the bearings and they seem to be fine. This stylus is not even 2 months old so it’s definitely not a wear problem cart is the AT VM95e. It seems that the stevenson does get rid of a bit of the mistracking and it’s not skipping now, so I’m getting close. Still not as good as I had it dialed in on the old deck, I’ll keep tweaking bit by bit with this alignment to see if I can get even less distortion.

 

Did you check your VTF with a digital scale? The "E" stylus in this case is just a bonded elliptical. It will have performance limitations.

 

Yeah, I almost upgraded to the microline stylus for this a while back but decided not to do to cost, I may decide to finally get that stylus next time I’m needing to replace it. I’ve got it almost back to how it sounded on my B2 as far as distortion goes. The sweet spot on my B2 was 1.95 grams vtf and about 1.5 antiskate. Seems like this TT likes a bit less antiskate and vtf.

 

The ML version of the cart is much better, but I wouldn't recommend it if you have a lot of records in rough condition or a lot of dirty, filthy records. If you don't have a real cleaning system I would forget about it.

 

I recommend to use the "Technics Alignment Gauge", available on the auction site or the usual stylus sellers. Then - Set It And Forget It. If there is a problem, it is something else. Your already mounted and aligned B2 headshell/cart should be completely interchangeable to the 1700.

After all this time the antiskate scale is probably not accurate. It probably still works but antiskate should be set by some other method, of which there are many, and there are many above normal temperature threads here about that so I won't say more.

 

Yup, lots of VG or low VG+ condition LPs in my collection, not much NM stuff. All my cleaning is done with a simple spin clean.

 

Well, a Spin Clean is better than nothing. You can reassess what to do when your current stylus wears out.

 

I might still end up with the ML, I absolutely hate distortion, but can deal with surface noise.

 

You might consider checking these 2 videos out and follow up by reading the comments because he answers some excellent questions.

Anti skating part 2 of 2 - Soundsmith - Peter Ledermann

 

So it seems part of the problem with the mistracking was maybe due to the headshell being a bit skewed. I’ve been playing with the azimuth set screws this morning on the bottom if the tonearm and visually there’s quite a difference. This turntable though in good physical condition seems to have been messed with a lot. I couldn’t even find the auto return set screw because someone had put the motor cover plate on upside down, concealing the screw. So far I’ve fixed those 2 issues, next will be refilling the cueing damper, it drops a bit fast right now. I’ll try the test disk again after I get these 2 set screws how I want them. Gotta say I’m quite happy with the build quality of this table. Definitely a step up from my mostly plastic SL-B2.