Cueing issue

[Tea24]

I have a minor cueing issue with my Nottingham Analogue Interspace tonearm.

When lowered it tends to drift towards the edge of the disc, making accurate cueing very difficult and needing careful attention at the beginning so as to not have a disaster.

It was worse before I tweaked the verticality of the counterweight, but I was wondering if there was anything else I could do?

Would altering the antiskate help? This is notoriously difficult to get right with these arms.

All help gratefully received

[YNWaN]

Clean the curved rubber cuing support arm with some Isopropyl alcohol and a cotton bud - over time dust makes them a bit slippery. If this doesn't do the job then your tracking force and/or bias (anti-skate) need adjusting.

[Rare Bird]

I'd go with the Anti-Skate, increase Bias, your arm has a tendency to move towards the outside edge, dropping Bias will have the opposide effect moving towards the label

in your case maybe your Bias is too low!

[YNWaN]

He says that it drifts towards the outside edge of the disk when lowering - so, if anything, the bias is already set too high. Any way, I wouldn't use the arms behaviour during cuing to decide on the amount of bias to apply.

[hifi_dave]

First, the counterweight should be pretty well vertical so that the arm is upright with the cartridge in the groove.

Then, push the weight/s on the bias closer to the arm tube to lessen the bias. Then adjust for the correct tracking weight and adjust bias in the run in groove.

Should take all of five minutes and not difficult at all.

[YNWaN]

Don't you set the tracking weight with the bias disconnected - I always do?

[Tea24]

Thanks for the replies. YNWaN, there is no rubber on the cueing support arm, though there is a rubber button on the underneath of the arm, so will clean that, also on these arms you cannot accurately set the bias to zero really as there are no markings to show where that is.

Hifi Dave being the guru on all things Notts Analogue I shall also try his plan too, but am not sure how to adjust bias in run in groove?

[DSJR]

I check mine in the run-out groove. If the arm runs inwards, there's usually too little in my experience. Many arms like Regas have far too much bias correction in the run-out section of a disc and it's here where the most need is for careful geometry and bias IME.

[Beechwoods]

The ungrooved / empty part of the runout area? If you don't have an ungrooved disc it's what I'd use.

[YNWaN]

I wouldn't use either method. Running the stylus on a blank disk (or the runout at the end of a normal record) does not give an accurate representation of the forces acting on the stylus/cartridge suspension when tracing an actual groove.