twelvebears
24-03-2009, 09:52
OK, that was reasonably horrible.
So, following Marco's sage advice (thank you), I purchased a handy little set of digital scales in order to correctly set the tracking force for my DL304, as it's mounted on a Sumiko headshell and with the extra screw-in counter weight, the standard Technics scale was bound to be inaccurate.
They arrived this morning and carefully set about measuring the tracking force having got the scales in a suitable position, level, zeroed out etc...
I gently lower the stylus down and the suspension just compresses until the cartridge body is resting in the scale!!
I should point out that had I played a record this morning, the ensuing panic wouldn't have happened.
'It's broken!! The suspension has disintegrated!! The cat's knocked the arm of the rest and knackered it!!' :steam:
Generally panic and chaos reign for about 10mins until I try playing a record, which works fine and I try something else and measure the weight not by resting the stylus on the scale, but the tip of the finger lift (which is fortunately parallel to the stylus tip) and I am able to correctly measure and set the tracking force.
Can anyone else work out what had happened??? :confused:
Well I suddenly remembered some words from the DL304 instructions 'the cartridge contains an extraordinarily strong magnet, therefore care should be taken to keep steel tools away from the cartridge body'....:doh:
Yes, that's right, there was obviously some metallic content in the construction of the scales which was sufficient attracted by the magnetic filed of the fixed magnet in the cartridge to increase the down force and compress the cantilever suspension. :lolsign:
Fortunately, all this was done with great care and very slowly so no harm was done and it's happily playing as I type. :)
Oh and interestingly enough, the standard scale on the counterweight was only 0.1grams out....
So, following Marco's sage advice (thank you), I purchased a handy little set of digital scales in order to correctly set the tracking force for my DL304, as it's mounted on a Sumiko headshell and with the extra screw-in counter weight, the standard Technics scale was bound to be inaccurate.
They arrived this morning and carefully set about measuring the tracking force having got the scales in a suitable position, level, zeroed out etc...
I gently lower the stylus down and the suspension just compresses until the cartridge body is resting in the scale!!
I should point out that had I played a record this morning, the ensuing panic wouldn't have happened.
'It's broken!! The suspension has disintegrated!! The cat's knocked the arm of the rest and knackered it!!' :steam:
Generally panic and chaos reign for about 10mins until I try playing a record, which works fine and I try something else and measure the weight not by resting the stylus on the scale, but the tip of the finger lift (which is fortunately parallel to the stylus tip) and I am able to correctly measure and set the tracking force.
Can anyone else work out what had happened??? :confused:
Well I suddenly remembered some words from the DL304 instructions 'the cartridge contains an extraordinarily strong magnet, therefore care should be taken to keep steel tools away from the cartridge body'....:doh:
Yes, that's right, there was obviously some metallic content in the construction of the scales which was sufficient attracted by the magnetic filed of the fixed magnet in the cartridge to increase the down force and compress the cantilever suspension. :lolsign:
Fortunately, all this was done with great care and very slowly so no harm was done and it's happily playing as I type. :)
Oh and interestingly enough, the standard scale on the counterweight was only 0.1grams out....