Troubleshoot tracking issue

Any problems with the previous cart?
First make sure everything is level.
Did you set the anti skate visually or did you just set it to correspond to the tracking weight. It sounds like there is too much pull towards the center so you could try backing off the anti skate. This might allow you to back the tracking force down a bit also. Get a shitty record and play around with the TF

Its nice to have a blank record/side to set anti skate visually (so the cant is dead plumb as opposed to a slight angle forward or back)

What is your "new" cartridge for God's sake!? You should have mentioned that first I think ;-)

You should level your platter first (yes with the record and record clamp, if any, in place). Then level the arm by placing a tiny spirit level laterally across the headshell (just in front of the cartridge mounting bolts.) You may need to shim the main arm base because there is no azimuth adjustment on an SME V armwand.

Remove all anti skate compensation and withdraw the fluid damping paddle/bolt. Adjust the VTF for no more than 2g.

Visually check (from the front of the cartridge) that the stylus is roughly vertical (precise azimuth measurments have to be made using in/out of phase test recordings.) And with an SME, if your stylus ain't vertical, you can't fix it by messing with the tonearm base (which you already levelled to match the platter anyway. You have to shim the cartridge/headshell interface.

There might be other issues but without knowing the cartridge, I can't address them.

BTW, you cannot set ANTI-skating force using a blank record, since skating force only develops with the stylus in a modulating groove. Most MC carts that track a around 2g shouldn't require more than .5 to .75 gm of anti-skating.

Lateral (silicone) damping of (almost all) MC cartridges in an SME V is unnecessary due the (usually) low compliance of MC cartridges. A tiny bit, with the bottom of the paddle/bolt just touching the surface of the silicone is usually more than enough.

Thanks guys for brainstorming. I purposely left out the name of the cartridge because it's from an unknown cartridge maker (an 86-year old gentleman who has been making MC carts for 30+ years) from Taiwan. The story of the cartridge itself and how I ended up with it are very intriguing. I'll post the story some other time. To say the least, the cartridge is good and it can take on most of sub US$2000 cartridges. Best part, it's darn cheap! But unless you have friends in Taiwan, you can't buy one.

I took down the cartridge last night, and reinstalled it step by step incorporating all your suggestions. What I found out was that at the time the stylus touches the vinyl, the lift underneath the arm tube had not gone down completely, and that's the cause of the problem. I was able to just use my fingers to lower the cartridge without any issues. But this makes me nervous. This did not happened when I was using the Shelter 901.

So my conclusion was either:
1/ this cartridge may have a shorter height than most other cartridges, so it is hitting the vinyl earlier (before the lift is completely down)
2/ The lift is sticking, not lowering fast enough to "get out of the way" before the stylus hits the vinyl.

Will continue to investigate and check with SME. Again, thanks all for help brainstorming!

FrankC