Problem solved - always trust your ears (backed up by a stylus pressure gauge)

[Oldpinkman]

Fantastic. I'll get myself one from deal extreme. I think I'd need to go into the gemstone business to be worried about that degree of accuracy. For stylus force I just need something a bit closer than regas half brick accuracy to put me in the zone. It was sounding really good again last night.
I think the "clipping bursts" I had experienced and questioned were extreme mistracking as it just let go of the road

[Beobloke]

Bloody Rega RB300 calibration appears to be accurate to the nearest half-brick only.

Arfur will be able to confirm this or tell me I'm talking guff (wouldn't be the first time...) but I suspect what you're experiencing here is as a result of the change in mass of the arm tube due to the FXR-ing of the arm. Rega will most likely have calibrated the spring/scale to the original armtube's mass.

[YNWaN]

So, Richard, if I understand you correctly, you have misinterpreted severe mistracking as amplifier clipping? If that is the case, I wouldn't trust your ears too much...(as this threads title suggests).

[Oldpinkman]

So, Richard, if I understand you correctly, you have misinterpreted severe mistracking as amplifier clipping? If that is the case, I wouldn't trust your ears too much...(as this threads title suggests).

Probably right on the first score - without checking with himself it has the ring of truth. Jury's out on the 2nd one. Whilst generally not happy (but only slightly) I had a couple of bursts of heavy distortion best described as like a valve amplifier playing while switching on, and on records where I had no reason to suppose record damage was the problem - which didn't last long enough for me to investigate them. (The classic intermittent fault problem - hard to test anything when its not faulting). Having seen Arthur at high speed with tiny delicate wires and a soldering iron - and realising we hadn't tested, and having had a previous arm with an earth fault, and deluding myself the tracking force was ok , my description of the sound was "extreme clipping"

I was about to say it wouldn't have taken me long to conclude tracking force - and then realised it didn't take me long. It's that classic diversionary thing - you believe that something is true (the tracking force was correct - because I checked the settings on the arm - and they started with a setting Arthur had set up) so you assume the fault has to be something else. All good clean fun.

And of course if it comes back ...

[Stratmangler]

The Shure gauge is good and easy to use.
Doesn't need batteries either.

The tail does look to be up a touch on the piccies you've posted.

[Macca]

I'm a bit shocked that you play your records with the lid still on the turntable. Get rid of it!

[Stratmangler]

I'm a bit shocked that you play your records with the lid still on the turntable. Get rid of it!

+1

[Oldpinkman]

I'm a bit shocked that you play your records with the lid still on the turntable. Get rid of it!

Is that because of the static lift myth? I subscribe to the music is made by creating waves in air which in addition to wobbling eardrums wobble anything they encounter like a record being played myth. I suspect neither myth matters very much. I can promise you in 25 years plus of shutting the lid that I get no tracking or other distortion issues of any sort, and have yet to see the arm rise up from the record and hover mysteriously. And check out the mains cables I use.

However, the original conundrum that got me doodling on this thread has returned. Which is "WTF is going on with these arms?". At this rate, at the very least, you could persuade me of the onset of premature senility, but after a glass of wine I suspect you could convince me of alien abductions and fairies holding meetings on the toadstools Sue found in the garden. Bit more listening needed I feel Watson.

But having made a tit of myself already, has anybody else noted quite large changes in sonic character from quite small changes in tracking pressure with cartridges? This "bass" issue is making me wonder what Sue has been putting in my tea. Either that or the pritt sticks I use are of an altogether more potent strain than formerly. Very odd.

The short version is that we expected F5 to FXR to mean "beautiful but where's the bass"? First it was "Wow what bass - why so coarse"? At (ortofon balance) 1.4g tracking we got "ah bisto" but Mrs S asked whether I was sure the bass was still there. After a typical male arogant rude reply, I checked secretly in private, and blow me she was right. Narrower sound stage too - but great cymbals. Provisional listen at (ortofon balance) 1.25 gm seems to offer the best of all worlds, until I get another "fart" of the "tube warm-up" / "severe clipping" variety.

Once I get back from the psychiatric ward I'll let you know.

[YNWaN]

Yeah, they also wobble thin unsupported areas like the surface of the lid and that is connected to the deck. I believe the 1200 lid is injection moulded styrene.

[Gordon Steadman]

I now have a lid on my TT for the first time in about twenty years.

As it was there, I used it and am totally unable to hear any difference. This with the sound turned right up with the speakers or with headphones.

I would, naturally, hate to suggest that this is another of those jolly fun hi-fi urban myths