Thanks to those who replied to my oringinal post. I have learned some more.
The first thing I did was remove the cartridge (MMC3) and closely inspect and clean the stylus tip. At first I thought everything looked pretty good. However I happened to be watching the arm/cartridge come down on the record and noticed that the stylus seemed to be at a fairly sharp downward angle and that the cartridge seemed pretty far from the record. I gave the cartridge just a slight downward bump with the tip of my finger and the cartridge suddenly dropped downward quite a bit (maybe as much as 1/16 inch) and the stylus seemed at a more correct angle - and what I heard coming out of the speakers sounded much, much better. What I have described, repeats itself every time I try it. - Is it normal for the cantilever to shift upward as it sits down on the record?
- Could my problem be in the tone arm (maybe hanging up)? How would I fix that?
- As I said, the playback sounded pretty good with the cartridge in the "down" position. Would you think it is performing optimally in this situation?
I want to digitize some fairly rare records I have and can not afford one of the new cartridges right now so any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks very much.
Ron