Ahhhhh, the stylus jumps!!!!!!

**Masdefi** · August 25th, 2002, 04:12 PM

I just would like to know what's happening to me: I get a vinyl record yesterday (used record) and I played as soon as I got it.
I played the last track and at the first playing the song was played all up to the end without jump. Then I took my special brush to carry off the dust, then I passed a special anti-static cloth... Then I played the same track again, and.... stylus jumps! Does anybody knows why? I looked in deep in the grooves, it seems to me that no dust particle is inside...
- Could it be the tracking weight? Now it is 3 grams and I cannot put more
- Could it be the quite used styli?
- Could it be the spherical styli I use?

And a question:
do you have any experience with "washing records" ? What results are?

The track title is "Come together" from Kool & the Gang album "Love & understanding". There is another guy I know claims the same the track "Come together" JUMPS!!!!!!!
Does anybody has this album and wants to check?

**BrunoRepublic** · August 25th, 2002, 05:28 PM

On 2002-08-25 17:12, Masdefi wrote:
Then I took my special brush to carry off the dust, then I passed a special anti-static cloth... Then I played the same track again, and.... stylus jumps! Does anybody knows why? I looked in deep in the grooves, it seems to me that no dust particle is inside...

Well, you can't always see the ground-in dust, but...

- Could it be the tracking weight? Now it is 3 grams and I cannot put more

Yes, but also the anti-skating. If it's jumping forward, try decreasing the tracking force and increasing the anti-skate. If it's jumping backwards, do the opposite.

- Could it be the quite used styli?

Possibly. If your stylus has been used a lot, I suggest you replace it as soon as possible. A damaged stylus can ruin records just by playing them once (I learned that the hard way!). A major warning sign is that if a new record sounds scratchy and/or skips. A half-decent stylus/cartridge can be bought for the cost of a few new records... there are surprisingly good ones for less than $100 US, and DJ ones are usually even cheaper than that. And it's always a good idea to have a spare one.

- Could it be the spherical styli I use?

Possibly; I don't have a lot of experience with DJ cartridges...

And a question:
do you have any experience with "washing records" ? What results are?

Many of the used records that I get are covered in 20 year-old fingerprints, dust, grime, etc. Cleaning can often make a major difference on these. I plan on buying a proper record-cleaning machine someday, but these are very expensive -- the only place in my city that sells them wants $1,000 Cnd for one, roughly $650 US or Euro. Until then, I've found a very inexpensive way that gives reasonable results: distilled water and a small amount of ordinary dish detergent. I have one of those clunky old felt record brushes that I use to gently scrub along the grooves. Then I rinse it with distilled water. The key is to rinse well, and use a soft cotton cloth to absorb -- not wipe -- whatever water remains.

Once in a while, I get a record that has such deeply ground-in dirt that I can only get decent sound by "wet-playing" it... but that's another discussion entirely.

**Nano** · August 25th, 2002, 06:12 PM

On 2002-08-25 18:28, Graham Start wrote:
Once in a while, I get a record that has such deeply ground-in dirt that I can only get decent sound by "wet-playing" it... but that's another discussion entirely.

Graham, you made me remember what I saw once in an FM radio booth, back in the day when playing vinyl was the law. Remember those "cleaner fluid" spray bottles for anti-static and such? Well, I'd seen people cleaning their records with this BEFORE playing them. But in the operator booth that afternoon, as soon as the DJ perceived the record was very scratchy and the stylus could jump at any moment, the guy sprayed the record heavily while it was being played on the air! And certainly it did not jump even once.
Have you done this?

**BrunoRepublic** · August 25th, 2002, 07:24 PM

That's the downside of "wet-playing". Once you play a record wet, it will sound horrible when played dry. I guess this is because all of the dirt that gets lifted out sinks even deeper into the grooves once the liquid dries. There is a way to fix this, though -- after wet-playing, rinse the record with distilled water before the original liquid evaporates.

**Masdefi** · August 26th, 2002, 07:28 AM

Graham,
thank you for your reply :grin: You're very kind, I have immedeately made as you suggested, I used some distilled water but without dish detergent as first approach... then I absorbes very kindly and finally I played. Now it seeems it goes without jumping! :grin: :grin:
After washing in that way I have also passed with a lot of care my home vacuum cleaner at about 1 mm from the record surface in order to aspire all the dust particles and.... now it's fine. But I'll try playing again this night, never know....

A second question, Graham: I went to my preferred hi-fi shop and the guy told me not to buy elliptical styli and not spherical too, but conical: he said all dj's used the conical. He recommended for me to buy the STANTON 500 CRAZY...... do you know that one? How do you feel about?
Thanks
Masdefi

**BrunoRepublic** · August 26th, 2002, 09:25 AM

"Conical" is the same thing is spherical. As for whether it's better or not, it depends on what you're doing.

If you do a lot of backcueing and/or scratch effects, spherical/conical is the way to go. These are cheaper, more durable, and will do less damage to the records when backcueing.

If you do mostly standard playing, go with elliptical. They will sound better, particularly on loud high frequencies.

I did a bit of searching on the web, and I found that all of Shure's DJ carts use spherical styli, whereas their Hi-Fi ones use elliptical or micro-line.

Stanton makes both elliptical and spherical styli... they have several carts aimed at DJs into scratching. Some are elliptical, which kind of surprises me, but then I'm not a DJ.

Ortofon lets you have it both ways: most of their DJ carts are available in both spherical and elliptical, and the styli are interchangeable. So, you could buy one cartridge and use both types of styli depending on your need of the moment.

Ortofon and Stanton make the highest-output cartridges, if that matters to you...

If you're using a Technics 1200, Ortofon's "Concorde" and Stanton's "Trackmaster" series carts replace the headshell on the tonearm, so you just have to screw it on and you're set. No need for a protractor to align the cartridge, and no fiddling with those tiny wires.

**Masdefi** · August 26th, 2002, 10:03 AM

Thanks again! I supposed the spherical styli more sensitive to jumping than the elliptical... that's why I thought to buy elliptical...
Is it true? And conical is placed as spherical for jumping :???: ?

Now the record jumps again!
But I have made a DOE:
- tracking force 2 gr & side force 2 gr: it jumps
- tracking force 1.5 gr & side force 1.5 gr: it does not jump
- tracking force 1.5 gr & side force 2.0 gr: it does not jump
- tracking force 2.0 gr & side force 1.5 gr: it jumps
So it seems the tracking force allows the styli to jump :???: Why????
The cartridge I use is a standard spherical, tracking force between 1.5 and 2 gr.
Bye!

_________________
People all over the world, It's time for love & understanding, Come together!!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: masdefi on 2002-08-26 11:19 ]</font>

**BrunoRepublic** · August 26th, 2002, 01:19 PM

Here's how it works:

When you play a record with a standard tonearm, there always a force that pushes the arm towards the center of the record. Here's an easy way to see this in action: find a one-sided 12" singles with no groove on the blank side. If you have a large collection, this shouldn't be too hard to find... some, but not all Casablanca promos are like this. Play the blank side, and you see the arm zoom right towards the center.

The anti-skate provides a counter-force to this action, so that the arm will have an even force in either direction. This is usually close to the ideal setting.

However, the higher the tracking force, the higher you need to set the anti-skate to compensate. Again, with a blank record, you can easily experiment and see this.

Now, for an important note: As is often the case, ideal settings for listening may not be the ideal settings for DJing. If you do backcueing, you don't want the anti-skate set as high as you would have it for normal playing. This is because when you are playing the groove backwards, the effect of the anti-skate doubles, and it will be more likely to skip.

Now about your skipping record... one other thing that it may not be the shape of the stylus, but the size. DJ cartridges have much bigger styli than Hi-Fi ones... they need to, for the high output and durability that a DJ requires. But a bigger stylus might not sit as deep in the groove as a smaller one. So if the grooves on a record overlap slightly at the top of the groove wall, a bigger stylus might jump whereas a smaller one would not.