2. analog
  3. 182547-128706

Is my stylus miss-tracking?

I’m experiencing a slightly fuzzy or static sound in the right channel at high volumes on some records when the passage is complex and loud. It seems to happen when high frequencies are playing. I swapped the speakers and it stayed on the right side so it’s not a blown tweeter. Could this be an antisate problem? I’d like to say I’ve played with adjusting the antiskate but to be honest I’m afraid of breaking my tonearm again. I have the Clearaudio Magnify tonearm and the antiskate adjustment is a dial that you turn to tighten/loosen a tension cable. Not even sure which direction to turn it to make adjustments anyway. The manual is a bit unclear to me. I broke the tension cable the last time I messed with it. Any ideas on troubleshooting this is appreciated. Thank you!

paulgardner
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 

I forgot to mention, once a record has been mistracked it may be damaged permanently so you have to use other records that are highly modulated to check.

paulgardner OP
183 posts
 

@mijostyn 

@viridian 

@elliottbnewcombjr 

thank you for the ideas. Everyone else too. I will make sure everything is level, VTF, VTA, Azimuth, and antiskate are correct. If I can’t figure it out I’ll track out to my dealer. Appreciate all your thoughts! 

elliottbnewcombjr
5,654 posts
 

A final thought:

Perhaps the tracking force is too little, and the stylus is jumping about in the groove only at high frequencies with the incredible amount of rapid movement high frequencies have.

IF you set anti-skate, or have anti-skate active in any amount, other than zero, and then set the tracking force, that is incorrect, and the tracking force will not be accurate when playing.

Always reduce anti-skate to zero. Then set downward tracking force, then ’add’ anti-skate’ outward pull visually as described above.

If the cartridge has a range of tracking force, try the highest amount of that range, any difference?

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