SL-20 - Ortofon Red

[barbarian]

I have been enjoying my 2M Red Ortofon for almost 2 years now on my Technics SL-20. I recently changed a squeaky belt on my TT but I have 3 questions:

1) After changing the belt I noticed that the 45RPM records were playing a bit slow. How do I accurately adjust the speed on my TT? I see the adjustment dials, but is there an accurate way to do this?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2992265/Message%20Boards/photo.JPG

2) I notice that some of my records are not as loud as others; recently I have come to realize that when I am lifiting my tone arm with the lever, if I do it slowly enough: right before the stylus completely comes off the record the volume dramatically increases. Does this mean that my tone arm is coming down to heavily on my records? How should I adjust this? My counter weight is set at 1.8 and anti skating is set at 1.8 as well.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2992265/Message%20Boards/Screen%20shot%202012-05-28%20at%205.13.02%20PM.jpg

3) When I am increasing the volume on my Marantz 2230b, once i go past the mid-level, the volume incredible increases to a point where it seems too loud and a bit distorted. Any suggestions? Or is this normal?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2992265/Message%20Boards/photo-1.JPG

Any member reading this local in Philadelphia? Maybe you can help me out sometime this Summer. Thanks!

[02audionoob]

The thing with your volume knob sounds somewhat normal. I have an old Marantz receiver and I never turn it up beyond around the 11:00 position. I've tried it...no good.

On the tracking force - Are you experienced with the process of balancing the tonearm with the counterweight and then setting the dial to zero before setting the tracking force? I've seen many people ask in forums and it turns out they're not setting the dial correctly beforehand.

With the speed, you can download and print a strobe disk that you put on the platter. When viewed under light from a standard AC source, the dots on the strobe disk will look stationary if they're spinning at the right speed.

Tools | Vinyl Engine (http://www.vinylengine.com/tools.shtml)

[barbarian]

The thing with your volume knob sounds somewhat normal. I have an old Marantz receiver and I never turn it up beyond around the 11:00 position. I've tried it...no good.

On the tracking force - Are you experienced with the process of balancing the tonearm with the counterweight and then setting the dial to zero before setting the tracking force? I've seen many people ask in forums and it turns out they're not setting the dial correctly beforehand.

With the speed, you can download and print a strobe disk that you put on the platter. When viewed under light from a standard AC source, the dots on the strobe disk will look stationary if they're spinning at the right speed.

Tools | Vinyl Engine (http://www.vinylengine.com/tools.shtml)

I followed these instructions from user BASTIE:

"then turn the anti skating device to zero (it's the small wheel right of your tonearm).
do not place the cart on the record yet. hold the arm between the arm rest and the platter, and turn the counterweight. Balance the arm, so it doesn't point upward nor downward, it should be horizontal. then turn the black wheel on the counterweight to zero.
now your cart has no tracking force. It should have 1,8 grammes, according to the specs, so turn the weight forward, until the 1,8grammes position on the black wheel.
the tracking force is now correct.

set the anti skating device (the small wheel right of your tonearm) to 1,8 grammes"

Thank you for the VinylEngine suggestion.

[02audionoob]

You got good instructions on the the tracking force, so you're probably good there. As an experiment, listen closely to the high frequencies on a familiar record. Then reduce the tracking force to 1.6 grams without going through the balancing process again. If it sounds better when you listen again, you probably need to correct something in your setup.