LP Nerds--Help Adjusting Tonearm on new Rekkid Player

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I have purchased a blue Pro-ject Debut III, which should be the new love of my life, but I have this creeping sense of nervousness that I've balanced the tonearm incorrectly. Here's what I did, you tell me what I'm missing:

Turned the counterweight until it was way on there, weighing down the arm. Turned it back until the arm rested in balance just off the little "shelf" that's part of the whole arm construct. This seems to make sense.

NOW, I put on the little anti-skating weight. Per the instructions, it sits on the middle one of three notches behind the counterweight. This causes the arm to pull away from the platter wildly into the air. I turn down the counterweight just enough so that the needle will stay stable above the platter, but I feel like I've ruined the previous counterweight adjustment. This is the order they tell you to do it in.....

Finally, records play fine except for a little bit of distortion I can hear, particularly on sparse and delicate recordings (think solo guitar). Could this be a result of an improperly adjusted needle? Or is it a connection somewhere? My receiver is cheap....could be adding to the problem. Thanks for help.

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 00:28 (eighteen years ago)

I just got this very same turntable for my birthday last month, and the instructions for this part of the set-up was ludicrously vague. I called the dealer and they walked me through it.
Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly how it's to be done. If you call Music Direct they ought to be able to help you get sut up.

― Mike Dixn, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 15:06 (eighteen years ago)

*set up.
Also, if I remember correctly, the instructions about how to hang the counterweight were kind of WRONG. If any other components or the radio sound okay, it is probably the overweighted needle that's causing the distortion.

― Mike Dixn, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 15:09 (eighteen years ago)

I set up a friend's Debut III just after Xmas and I had a bit of trouble with the directions too - a couple of steps seemed to be presented in the wrong order. Or perhaps I wasn't paying attention. We got there eventually but I can't really remember how.

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 15:39 (eighteen years ago)

What kind of distortion?

― Mark Rich@rdson, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

i too couldn't figure this out.
thankfully, i just dropped the weight over the metal loop thing, and records play just fine, i can't hear distortion - but then i probably dont listen that closely.

― mark e, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 16:36 (eighteen years ago)

I seem to recall the instructions saying to turn the adjustment clockwise but you're actually supposed to turn it counter-clockwise or vice versa.

― Poffdl0, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 16:39 (eighteen years ago)

The anti-skate on my turntable is a sliding ring on the tone-arm hinge - trouble is it's popped off and now I can't play records. Anything I can do about this or do I just have to get it repaired?

― Colonel Poo, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 16:51 (eighteen years ago)

lots of other people on other forums have the same trouble it seems. one answer:
http://forum.ecoustics.com/cgi-bin/bbs/show.pl?tpc=1&post=591833#POST591833

― koogs, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 17:14 (eighteen years ago)

Hey thanks for that link....the manual instructions don't tell you to adjust down after balancing the arm, at least not in my reading. I thought that would be fucking it up but chances are I actually don't have it set down enough.

As for the distortion, it's a bit of electronic fuzz that accompanies certain passages....I was listening to Sir Richard Bishop's Fingering the Devil last night and on some of the slower passages I could hear noise accompanying each pick attack.

I'm going to try to re-weight tonight, we'll see what happens.

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, 13 March 2007 18:35 (eighteen years ago)

that record is so insanely fucking good.

I have a Music Hall MMF-5, very similar, and rereading your description above it sounds like you didn't adjust the weight to 1.5 or 1.75 or whatever after you zeroed the tonearm. Maybe that part got left out, but if not that could be your problem - just not enough weight.

― sleeve, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 01:49 (eighteen years ago)

Yup sleeve, you got it. Sounds perfect now.

And this record is seriously ridiculous. I think my mom likes it as much as I do, which in itself justifies the 40 dollars I paid to buy it from Europe. The devil of limited editions strikes again.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 02:17 (eighteen years ago)

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