Hi all,
Have some PDX-3000 MK2s. Great condition, no damage.
They seem to skip a fair amount, and I can't work out why. They don't skip a ton, but they skip. On scratch records I'll be out of the "unskippable" repeating sound after a minute or two.
I am an intermediate scrath DJ – I can crab, flare, etc. so I'm hardly a noob, and while I admit I can be a little heavy handed with the decks, I used to have those vertical Vestax PDX-A2s and I recall them hardly EVER jumping. So I really don't think this problem is down to the typical troubleshooting.
I use Ortofon Q-Bert concords.
I even bought the Active Force Control Mod by So Sharp to emulate the slightly older non ASTS tonearm tech, and it hasn't fixed the problem. In videos where people use this old tech or the mod they are turning the turntable nearly at right angles without skips. If I do that, it will skip fairly easily.
I also bought a Shure M44-7 to make sure it wasn't the needles, same problem.
I do have one of those slightly wobbly DJ tables. But even when I put the turntable on the rock-solid floor, I still get the odd skip.
The Ortofon recommended pressure for the needles is 3 grams. I have a measure, and if I use 3 grams it skips easily. And I mean easily. This is the recommended pressure from the official Ortofon website. So something must be wrong?
If I put a ludicrous amount of pressure on the needle it won't skip, but we are talking a joke here – counterweight pressure, Control Mod max pressure … to the point where a regular vinyl starts distorting because the needle is digging so hard into it.
I also unscrewed and removed the platter to check the motor spindle, and it is not bent. I firmly screwed the platter back in place. So I did an amateur check for "platter wobble" although I don't know how to properly confirm or test such phenomena.
Any ideas?
I don't think a serious scratch DJ can have needles jumping 20% of the time if they're using a real vinyl. Imagine DJ Craze in the DMC final beat juggling a real vinyl (he did this with a drum & bass tune) and it skipping. No bueno.
Would love anyone's thoughts on this.
Cheers.
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