this won't answer your volume question but, you also need to put anti-skate to 1.5. (to match the weight of the cartridge)

hmm... in the manual for the carts, it said leave the antiskate at 0 unless i was going to be doing a lot of scratching and stuff.

I have Ortofon carts, and the manual says adjust anti-skate same as the tone arm counter-weight. I think the Technics 1200 manual says the same. Personally, I keep the weight and the anti-skate pretty light so as not to wear out my vinyl. But they are definitely set the same.

Make sure your cartridge height is correct. This is very important because if it's too high or low, the stylus will wear out your records faster and may cause an uneven signal (like what you're experiencing).

On my 275, I keep the master at 12 o'clock, and the trims around 12 o'clock as well. (Of course I adjust the trims to match low or high volume records when needed.) Output from my 275 is the same level as a CD player or any other piece of equipment, and it's even for both channels.

Try turning up your master to at least 12 o'clock, and back off the trims.

In regards to the cable, better cable (thicker and better shielded) will give you a clearer sound. Sometimes the cheap cables do short out, especially when stretched or pulled.

What kind of amp are you using? Have you tested it with the output of a CD player using the same cable you use for the mixer?

Hope some of this helped...

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hmm.. i have stanton trackmasters. they are pretty much the same as the ortofon concorde series i think.

now that i look at it the instructions, it does say to set the antiskate to the same as the weight.

however, it also says in big bold letters:

Don't use anti-skating bias if you are backcueing hmm

should i or not? the antiskate makes the needle pull towards the outside right? why would i want to do that? sometimes i already have problems when cueing up the first beat in a song. i let it play, then backcue the record a bit to hold behind that first beat. sometimes when pulling it back, it slips one groove out farther.

then, when i let go, the record goes around a whole revolution, before i hear the first beat, and i've missed the cue!

i set the antiskate to 0 on my decks, and it doesn't do that anymore.

is this wrong?

hmm.. also, my slipmatts are pretty thick, thicker than the technics ones that came with my decks anyway.

i had the height set at 0, i cranked it up to half today. sound i crank it up even more?

I know it should be paralell, but it's pretty damn hard to just look at it sideways and say, yeah, that's parallel.

argh, why am i the only one with the 270a model?

quote:

Originally posted by JohnSmith Don't use anti-skating bias if you are backcueing hmm should i or not? the antiskate makes the needle pull towards the outside right? why would i want to do that? sometimes i already have problems when cueing up the first beat in a song. i let it play, then backcue the record a bit to hold behind that first beat. sometimes when pulling it back, it slips one groove out farther. then, when i let go, the record goes around a whole revolution, before i hear the first beat, and i've missed the cue! i set the antiskate to 0 on my decks, and it doesn't do that anymore. is this wrong?

Ok, this is my understanding, correct me if i'm wrong. When the needle runs along the record, it has a tendancy to be pulled in towards the centre as well, (makes the record push more towards the inside edge of the groove). The anti-skate compensates for this pull by putting a force on the needle pushing it to the outside. When the anti-skate is correctly set, if you put hte needle on a groovless record, it should neither pull in or push away from the centre of the record, but run along a constant circle.

Why is this bad for back-cueing? when you spin the record backwards, instead of having a tendancy to be pulled in towards the centre, the record now has a tendancy to be pushed away from the centre. Since the anti-skate also applies a force towards the outside, this will double the force pushing away from the centre, and will probably cause the record to skip.

I have my anti-skate set to zero, since I do alot of back-cueing.

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jimtran.net

Hmm.. that makes complete and total sense. thanks.

and congrats on being Battle of the Mixers 2 winner.
i remember your mix from the first one was very good!

quote:

Originally posted by JohnSmith Hmm.. that makes complete and total sense. thanks. and congrats on being Battle of the Mixers 2 winner. i remember your mix from the first one was very good!

lies, i didn't compete in the first competition. :P

thanks anyways.

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jimtran.net

hmm.. maybe i am mistaken. i thought i remembered you, guess not.