Stylus wear always on the same side

[himynameisjacob]

Guy/girls. I have ongoing problem with VR that I can't trace for years...

My diamond stylus always breaks on the same side (e.g I have hiss on the same side when it starts to wear). And what is also related with this - when doing a loop, e.g. ending loop - the pop/click/crackle also is heard on that side, always! Recently I went thorugh: leveling lathe table, leveling SL1200 and its platter, tried different angles to cutting head (backwards, forward, left, right), different angle for stylus housing (L/R), then again - those ch combinations with stylus housing angles - I even re-did suction valves to the other side because I thought it might be affecting ch movement. It's also not the record player (which I tested with pressed records and they click/pop in the center).

I'm kind of out of ideas here...?

[PMST]

Did you re-calibrate the travel to the center of the disc? Maybe if the overhead isn't travelling exactly straight to the center of the spindle it could do this. It's a guess, but worth checking.

[himynameisjacob]

Did you re-calibrate the travel to the center of the disc? Maybe if the overhead isn't travelling exactly straight to the center of the spindle it could do this. It's a guess, but worth checking.

Yep.. It is exactly on the center... That's why I run out of ideas here...

[farmersplow]

I'm just an amateur, but I like to think.
If it's nothing mechanical, then maybe it's the signal path? I think that if the stylus is permanently affected by faulty frequencies on one channel, that can cause damage (but you can't hear them because they are outside the 20Hz to 15kHz range - acoustical feedback, very low beats...)?

[himynameisjacob]

I'm just an amateur, but I like to think.
If it's nothing mechanical, then maybe it's the signal path? I think that if the stylus is permanently affected by faulty frequencies on one channel, that can cause damage (but you can't hear them because they are outside the 20Hz to 15kHz range - acoustical feedback, very low beats...)?

I thought about it for years... But if you have new stylus, and run everything withour power amp/electronics on, and still loop "click" is on the same side - it's not that... not the signal
I am after few days now, trying different configurations of stylus angles, weights, cutting head poistioning, cutting arm skew/positioning, it's all still the same

[farmersplow]

So if it's also without a signal, then of course it can't come from the signal path.
Mechanically it could be a problem with the fit of the stylus in the torque tube?! (flozki recently talked about the problem: "black anodized shanks.. a long term problem for your heads" - maybe that applies to you? (I had the problem once)
Question: When you hear "the pop/click/crackle," does the sound repeat itself regularly? In the rhythm of the plate rotation or the feed spindle? (Although the spindle is not moving in the loop).

[tragwag]

it could be the internal linkage of the head is slightly favoring one side, or the head mount naturally settles a little to one side.
VR owners know that the head to lathe mount doesn't have a detent or anything to indicate or guarantee exact head positioning.

[PMST]

it could be the internal linkage of the head is slightly favoring one side, or the head mount naturally settles a little to one side.
VR owners know that the head to lathe mount doesn't have a detent or anything to indicate or guarantee exact head positioning.

To add to this, on some VR heads the stylus holder is not always totally center, so the head might even need adjusting a few mm left or right, one way or the other.

[Ben]

Hey there,
Same for me, always the right side until i found out that the stylus holder and the the head were not super symmetrical…

Drop your needle on wasted blanks…. And look at the reflection of your stylus in the blanks… that really helped me.

Now my head is always kink on one side and stylus last longer. There’s a millions things like that with the VR, gotta love solving stuff

Cheers
Ben