Vinyl Junkies …

Cheers. Couldn't hear a difference though. I kind of learned that anything fancier than a basic elliptical will be wasted on my setup and my ears. :)
As long as I can play the music I like at the volume I like, I'll be golden!

Interesting to hear the ML and SH compared. I'm on my second SH so very biased but the ML sounds good too, I quite like the high end on it although the SH seems a tiny bit subdued in that area I still find it works best for me.

I think, in a nutshell - get the AT-VM95ML if it's within your budget (and if you're comfortable with setting up a cartridge / headshell yourself), that's quite a lot value for money and people listening to all kinds of genres are very happy with it for a while now.

Do I just go for cheapest spherical or would I appreciate an elliptic?

Quite often you can upgrade a conical stylus to elliptical, so you could start with the cheaper conical then when it's time to replace the stylus upgrade then if you feel it's worth it.

The Ortofon red is commonly upgraded to the blue, same with the Goldring E3, there are even upgrades to the AT 3600. Also if your just looking for something to play your records the AT3600 isn't bad, and it's pretty much the cheapest cartridge.

Anyone have any idea why Ready to Die is 85 quid? There is precious little info on Juno and I cannot find much out anywhere else. It seems ridiculous.

https://www.juno.co.uk/artists/Notorious+Big/

..maybe the "gold vinyl" is made with real gold 🙃

It'll be some sort of special edition with some outtakes, remasters and few postcards. I bought it recently for less than £30, and you can still do so from a load of places. For £85, it'd need to be signed by his ghost yesterday.

I bought it years ago in a second hand record shop for less than a fiver!

Crate-digging happening next Saturday (June 17th) at Pop Brixton.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pop-muzik-pop-brixton-vinyl-records-cds-fair-tickets-639183323527

Gonna try to flatten a record today. Has anyone used the method shown below with success?

Also I only have painted 6mm steel plates, will these work instead of glass or will they store too much heat?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwHZZe3aOh0&t=360s&ab_channel=JaidonRymer

I've got a vinyl flat flattening system, with the heated pouch. I've used it with very gentle heat over a few cycles and managed to reduce warps less pronounced that the warp in that video.

Also had good results just leaving the disk in for a few months.

I don't use it often but I had a few high value items from the 90's that I wanted to try it on so bought it second hand.

In summary I think it can work but it's also quite easy to overdo it with the heat.

If it is new see if you can get it replaced. I have had two recently that were badly warped and they were replaced no quibbles.

Less of a warp, more of a kink maybe.

Just not sure if steel plates will effect the temperature adversely as everyone seems to use glass plates.

Sorry for the feet!

That's the type of edge warp I've had little success with. I've got one from unplayable to playable but still warped. The vinyl flat heats the steel plates to 60-70 degrees and they can stay in for hours.

There are quite a few horror stories where the temp is too high, not sure what you would need to compensate with steel vs glass though. Start low and build up or stay low and go for a long time.

I’ve just got home with my newly acquired SL1200G and fitted my SME headshell and ATVM95 cartridge but I can’t get a tracking force greater than 1.35g and I’m aiming for 2g. There was an ancillary counterweight fitted by the previous owner which I’ve removed but is there something I’ve missed? Is it just too lightweight a combo? The penny is not an ideal solution. Cheers.

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Don’t know how this deck differs from a regular 1210/1200mk2 but you should be an able to get a significant bit of weight on that as it’s primarily for dj use.

Does it have height adjust on the arm like the mk2 and have you tried it? Not sure if it would make a difference but it’s worth a try. Take the rubber mat off and see if anything changes with that first, as that will adjust the angle

Thanks for that. I did try with and without the mat but the difference was negligible. I did adjust the height to be perfectly level but I’ll give it a go with the rear up a bit.

It’s odd because I’ve tried this same headshell / cartridge combo on a SL100C and there was no problem.

Are you sure there's not something else going on with the counterweights? If the previous owner had been experimenting in that department.

Hopefully not I’ll have a butchers when I get home!

Excitedly waiting for Arab Strap to take the stage in Brum just now.

Nice, enjoy. Sure they'll be backstage getting wasted for a while 🙂

The counter weight is on the right way around? And don’t they have a bit on the end that unscrews? I haven’t had this turntable for 10+ years but mucked around with one of mine a lot at one stage for scratching and you need a fair amount of weight on the needle for scratching. Vaguely remember them having an extra weight at the end that can be removed.

Yeah, the extra counterweight was screwed into the end because the previous owner had been using a heavy MC cartridge and I’ve removed it. Everything else looks totally as it should, just not getting enough force on the needle. I have calibrated the scale too. I’m going to give a factory Technics headshell a go and see what that does.

I'm guessing then that you've got too light a headshell & cart. The Technics compatible ones are quite weighty.

You can get the original artwork black vinyl for less then £30 or spoil yourself with gold for £50 at RT. Interesting that the gold version uses the artwork i have but my (old and battered) copy is listed as not official on discogs.

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/the-notorious-big/ready-to-die#vinyl-lp-black-x2