Phonoland

I have a Shure M44MR in my Rockola 442 right now, tracking at 4.5g. I notice the body of the cartridge often catches on records during play. This only causes skipping with badly warped records, however it's highly annoying. At the end if tracks as the needle enters the lead out section, you can hear it quite noticeably.

Any ideas what may cause this? I've just had a new stylus but this seemed to happen with the other one too! Anybody else see this?

Depending on the particular stylus, they can track anywhere from 1.5 to 5 grams.
The vendor you bought stylus from could be selling aftermarket stuff, and that can vary wildly too.

The vendor states it's 3-5g. I think they're all made by various "3rd parties" these days. To my knowledge the only one shure produce is the M44-7 stylus, which I've found too compliant for this arm - skips all over the place at 2-3g

Originally I had the M44-7 cart with an M44c stylus, that also dragged which I put down to the fact the mounting was different. It didn't sit in the arm like the m44mr and therefore made its angle during play different. I'd hoped the m44mr would resolve this

I thought that this was solved when you put counterweight on. You said it tracked with just slight stylus wobble at 2-3 gram.

Anyway, if the stylus you bought is a "copy" chances are it is too compliant for the arm. That should not be a problem -but sounds as though it is here. I use floppy-copies in two Rowe machines on-location and have no problems at 2 g. Have you checked to be sure that vertical movement of the arm is free of friction and the bearing is not too tight?

Rob

Yeah I thought so too. But after testing it I found the n44-7 stylus did skip on many tracks, enough for me to realise it wasn't suitable as the other stylus tracked them all fine. I figured the counterweight still a worthy mod as the spring wouldn't track lower than 6g! Stretched I suppose. Strangely it seems on these arms higher spring tension equals lower tracking weight

In terms of the arm, the bearings seem fine, it moves up and down freely enough. I did notice some of the faux leather trim peeling off the turntable on one side, I'll glue this back down, I wonder whether this May have simulated warps or made them worse