Record player adjustment

[Helge A. Bentsen]

I have a SL1200 record player that has a bit of distortion on some LPs at the end(inner) part.
Someone told me that I have to adjust the tonearm to fix this, but I have no idea how to.
Googling it gave me tons of hits on hifi-forums, but a lot of it didn't make sense.

So, anyone her know how to do it?

 

[Milt Hathaway]

Re: Record player adjustment

Have you made all of the suggested tonearm adjustments from the manual? https://www.kabusa.com/SL1200MK5.pdf

I'm betting it's the anti-skate adjustment, since that's the only thing whose affect changes depending upon the stylus position on the record.

Don't worry if yours isn't the MK5, by the way. These adjustments haven't changed since the MK2 at least.

 

[Helge A. Bentsen]

Re: Record player adjustment

Thanks for the manual.

The Stylus pressure control was way off, resetting it to zero and setting the anti-skate to the same number as the stylus weight helped a lot

 

[John Roberts]

Re: Record player adjustment

Yup.. anti-skating...

IIRC records have more distortion on the inner grooves even with proper set up. Not a very linear medium.

JR

 

[Ivan Beaver]

Re: Record player adjustment

Yup.. anti-skating...

IIRC records have more distortion on the inner grooves even with proper set up. Not a very linear medium.

JR

And the outer grooves can handle more bass than the inner grooves.

This is because the tone arm is less likely to skip when traveling in a "straighter" line.

So the smart producers would put the tracks with the most bass on the outer grooves.

 

[Helge A. Bentsen]

Re: Record player adjustment

FWIW: LPs has an interesting stereo imaging and distortion character compared to Tidal that I do most of my music playback from. There are some obvious sonical differences between the same tracks played on both mediums, but without knowung the mastering process/signal processing chain in detail, it's hard to say whats "better" or "correct".


Sent from my iPhone

 

[John Roberts]

Re: Record player adjustment

FWIW: LPs has an interesting stereo imaging and distortion character compared to Tidal that I do most of my music playback from. There are some obvious sonical differences between the same tracks played on both mediums, but without knowung the mastering process/signal processing chain in detail, it's hard to say whats "better" or "correct".


Sent from my iPhone

Vinyl playback is a mature technology so the flaws are fairly well inspected.

A significant difference is lack of stereo separation (due to cartridge technology) that can dramatically impact stereo imaging.

Another characteristic (not really a flaw) is the need to mix most deep bass to mono to reduce cartridge mistracking.

There a shopping list of deviations from ideal but ranking them for audibility is subjective, so I won't.

JR

 

[Helge A. Bentsen]

Re: Record player adjustment

I'd say that both Tidal and LPs have a future in my living room. Bit reduced MP3s not so much