I just got a used deck (1200mk2) with Ortofon Concorde cartridge. I spin cds so this is my first technics table. I wasn't quite sure how to set up the tone arm and got advice from other trance addicts about how to do it. I followed the directions given by t addicts but I am having this huge issue where the tone arm goes skating off to the outside of the platter whenever I drop the needle. Some t addicts are speculating that the anti skate is broken. When I rotate the anti skate knob nothing seems to happen, i.e. I don't see any visible movement in the tone arm.


Main questions:

1 Should I see movement in the tone arm when I mess with the anti skate knob?

2 Does this problem of the tone arm skating dramatically to the outside sound like an anti skate problem?

3 I am nowhere near a technics repair person and I am wondering if it is super difficult to fix this myself?

The settings I have the deck at are 2.5 for the weight, 5 for height, and 0 for anti skate.

Ok on my table, when i have tonearm weight set to zero and the cartridge is floating in the air perfectly balanced,
1. Antiskate set to zero
The tonearm will not move at all. The tonearm sits there motionless.

2. Antiskate set to max at 3
The arm will move by itself towards the outside. The purpose of antiskate is to provide a counterforce that balances out the force exerted on the needle by the record to balanace and stabilize the tonearm.

www.1200s.com has information and u mite be able to get some help there. There is definitely something wrong with your antiskate adjustment knob and you will need to have it checked out by someone who knows whut they are doing.

Or you could just bite the bullet and purchase a new tonearm that mite be a little bit of money.

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Breaks/Prog Mix 3-15-04

Last edited by vhx1 on Apr-12-2004 at 05:04

Try not to use the antiskate ...

If your antiskate is set too high , you're going to have exactly what's happening to you : the needle "sliding" to the outside.

Now if you set it to Zero and it's still doing that; it might be something else improperly adjusted, or who knows maybe the antiskate is really busted.

If you just use your turntable for listening to music, you set your anti-skate to the weight setting on your tonearm. If you DJ, or do any sort of cueing/scratching at all, set the anti-skate to zero. But it sounds like you're doing all of that right.

If it's set at zero, and it moves, that's bad. My best bet is that it is busted. I don't really know what fixing it would entail.

quote:

Originally posted by TwoPlow If you just use your turntable for listening to music, you set your anti-skate to the weight setting on your tonearm. If you DJ, or do any sort of cueing/scratching at all, set the anti-skate to zero. But it sounds like you're doing all of that right. If it's set at zero, and it moves, that's bad. My best bet is that it is busted. I don't really know what fixing it would entail.

totaly corect.

fixing anti skate is a bugger! if your quite sure it is this ie skate is set to zero and its floating out. then your gonna have to take it to someone to get fixed.

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So I should see some movement in the tonearm when the anti-skate is set to max. There is none. Nothing happens when I adjust the knob. Sounds like the thing is broken. The bummer is that the guy listed it on ebay as "excellent" condition and said everything worked perfect. He is saying that it must've been busted during shipping. Could the anti skate get totally messed up from shipping?

Update. A repair man at Technics said it probably wasn't an antiskate problem. He said he has rarely seen a broken anti skate. What he thought is that it was an issue with tone arm torque. He said the torque was probably thrown out of whack during shipping and mishandling. So I am wondering if any of you out there know how to adjust tone arm torque?

wtf is tonearm torque supposed to be?

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Breaks/Prog Mix 3-15-04

I had some problems with the tonearm torque on mine after shipping. Here is the easiest thing. I set my antiskate to 0 and then messed around with the two screws (there is a screw inside of a screw). I first tightened the outside screw totally. Then, I messed with the inside screw until the tonearm didn't move on its own. I hope this makes sense. I am sure I can do better explaining this but my journalism skills are evading me today.
Let me know if you understand what I am talking about with the torque adjustment.

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Helping girls make bad decisions since 1979

Thanks for the info Dirk. Yea, it made sense and the tonearm is totally working now! All the speculation that my tonearm was broken had me really scared that I made a $300 mistake on ebay.

Be careful with the screw that Dirk told you to adjust, if you over tighten it, you can damage the bearings of the tonearm.
Read more here:

http://www.djforums.com/tutorials/t....php?Print=true