Stylus skipping at beginning of record

@rvpiano glad to help!

@tooblue shooting in a dark…why’s that?

I set up my cartridge using Dr. Feichert’s latest protractor. Overhang, VTA and VTF were all set based on instructions and then slightly fine tuned by ear. In solving the lead in groove skipping I had conversations with Upscale Audio, where I purchased my cartridge (excellent support by the way, kudos to Kat and Bill from their analog department), as well as with Musical surroundings (the USA distributor for Hana). I followed their recommendations to troubleshoot this issue and eventually minimized it to an extremely occasional occurrence which isn’t a big deal.
@rvpiano and I have the same cartridge, Hana ML and I shared my experience here with him. Are you making assumptions that no one here knows what they’re doing?

@audphile1 , sounds like you are the one making the assumptions. Enjoy the music

Even zero AS ought not to cause your problem although I’ve never used your particular tonearm. One has to wonder why your “technician” left you with zero AS, however. Usually zero AS causes noticeable distortion especially in the R channel. I adjust AS up from zero until that distortion is ameliorated. There’s no such thing as a perfect AS setting because the skating force is constantly changing across the surface of the LP. I favor the “raised lip” hypothesis, and to cure that I would just mute the output until the cartridge visibly hits the outermost groove of an LP. Finally, I repeat what I said before and others have said too, it’s unwise to exceed the recommended VTF.

If sibilance is OK then please proceed. Otherwise, azimuth and anti-skate would be my path for a styli misbehaving at a record’s edge guard lead-in.

Also worth note - If cueing via the tonearm’s cueing lever, it really helps to have that interface between the lever’s platform and the underside of the tonearm sterile and clean for maximum friction.

@tooblue thanks…and you as well.