Arm levelling and counterweight issues.

[admin_exported]

Hi,

I have just aquired the following turntable from a friend. It's in good condition, but think that something is not right.

I don't want to throw it away or put it in a cupboard, but I also don't want it scratching or wearing out my records faster than they otherwise might do.

The turntable is a Pink triangle little pink thing. Years ago I seem to remember it would have gone up against the Linn Axis. The arm is a Rega 250, and the cartridge is one, off my other turntable, a Ortofon 2M Red.

Getting the arm to hang level, whilst twisting the counterweight, is quite tricky. This is done with the arm lift in the down position.

However, when the arm is moved in to the centre of the record, not only does it only just miss the record surface, but the arm slowly swings back to the arm rest.

There is a sliding device in a green colour, that I have been told to set to zero when doing this.

I am also informed that 1.7 grammes is the weight that needs to be applied. I have followed Rega instructions, in so far as one half a turn clockwise, equalls 1 gramme of tracking force. So I guess, just over 3/4 of a turn should be correct. What the green slider should be set to after all of this I don't know, although I have messed around with placement and it seems to make no visible difference.

After all of this, the arm still wanders back to the arm rest position, and years ago, when I had a Rega 2, this never happened.

Also the distance between the needle and the record, when the arm lift is in the up position was far greater back in the Rega 2 day as well.

I don't want to shove this nice turntable aside, and although it has cost me nothing, I would still like it to work without damaging my records.

Sorry for the long explanation, and hope that it can be easily rectified with your thoughts.

 

[DIB]

Have you tried the Vinyl Engine website? There's lots of information and tips there about setting up specific arms and cartridges etc. I've just set up my new secondhand Systemdek TT with RB250 arm and got all the info I needed from that site. I think the green slider is supposed to be set finally the same as the counterweight.

With regards the arm wandering back, I found that happening initially on some LP's but I checked the platter with a spirit level and found it was quite a bit out, so after 10 minutes tinkering with the levelling screws I got it set dead level and that coupled with setting up the arm from scratch with a different cartidge got rid of that particular problem.

Good luck.

.

 

[fatboyslimfast]

The RB250s use a magnetic anti-skate, which is quite powerful and never really has an "off" setting. I found with mine to line the top of the green dot with the require force, rather than the centre of it.

Secondly - I always adjusted the counterweight with the arm clipped into it's rest to avoid it moving about too much.

With regards to the stylus "height", the only thing to worry about is whether the arm tube is parallel-ish to the record when playing. As long as it's not hugely out it shouldn't be an issue.