I'm wondering if someone could help with a cartridge setup.
I've had a MusicHall MMF-5 for a couple of years now. When I purchased it I ran through the steps of setting up the cartridge, partially as a learning experience (this is my first tt), and partially a fine tuning of the factory setup. Everything went well, and I enjoyed listening to the table.
I recently had a month or so of not listening to the tt and when I went to play an album, I noticed that the sound was awful. Upon closer inspection I realized that the stylus was bent back in the wrong direction and just about to fall off. (I'm guessing rambunctious cats, tho' it's still a mystery...) I couldn't afford a new stylus for the Goldring 1022, so I bought a new Goldring Elektra cartridge. I ran through the steps of installing it, levelled the tonearm, zeroed the tracking force scale, dialled it in to 1.75 (about the same as the previous cart), and reattached the anti-skating weight. Okay so far.
I cued up the first disc and when I lowered the tonearm, it stayed floating above the record and pulled right back to the rest position. Even moving the anti-skate weight to the lightest position was too much force. Only by dialling the tracking force to 2.5 allowed me to start to play a record, and even then it only went a few revolutions before wanting to pull back toward the tonearm. In addition, the sound was distorted in both channels. I've read and reread the instructions and a couple of other setup instructions, and I've started over balancing the tonearm, etc. I keep ending up with the same problem. Am I missing something? Or is something really wrong here? Can anyone kindly offer me any suggestions?
Many Thanks!