EMT 948 w/ 929 tonearm.

I’ve done that. I’ll check tonight again. Not that I'm an expert, by any means, mind you. I have 47 years in audio, I just couldn't get it rite. 😉

Hi @danmar123 ,

Don't worry. I had a similar issue.

I had used this turntable without any troubles for 5 years. Then I moved to another home and setted-up EMT again. I started to recognize there is something wrong with tracking. At first I blamed room temperature then I blamed conditions of a cartridge. I even sent the cartridge to Dusch for repair. After the repair it played better but still there was bad tracking and surface noise. I checked VTF many times with electronic weights but it didn't work. In the end after a year! I checked zero balance and saw that the stylus tip was about 1cm over the plane of record. I fixed it with a counterweight. So stylus tip become even to the plane of record. Then I put tracking force adjustment to proper 2.5g on electronic weights. After that the turntable played very clear without any tracking issues with much less noise and better sound balance.
I don't know why it happened. Maybe I set-up it incorrectly at first or the counterweight was moved during usage.
But it took me too much time to detect this issue.

@alexberger, I’ve read that sometimes the VTA gauge is off on the arm. After I reset the arm to your instructions, that’s what solved my issue. Still  not using the tracking force... I can’t thank you enough. Dan M.

What's the internal wire on the EMT arms like?

Sorry but IDK.