Snap crackle and pop

By Mitch Harrison



Here’s some rare audiophileish talk. I got the chance recently to inexpensively upgrade the cartridge on the tone arm of my turntable. The cartridge is at the end of the tone arm and holds the stylus (needle). The head shell sits on top of the cartridge. And with this upgrade, there was more weight at the end of my tone arm so the counterbalance and anti skate had to be tweaked. The process took a while, with record testing involved. I was baffled by some clean looking records crackling excessively. Must be grime deep in the grooves right? No, cleaning made no difference. The culprit was excessive pressure from the stylus. Further tweaks fixed it and the Justin Townes Earle record sounded sweeter than ever. My audio tip to you.