Noise in right channel from Pioneer PLX-1000

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Noise in right channel from Pioneer PLX-1000

Hi guys,

I’m new to turntables and I just picked up a Pioneer PLX-1000 and a Shure M44-7 this week.

I set up the cartridge according to the instructions and the overhang measuring tool in the manuals. I balanced the tonearm until it was horizontal, zero’d out the counterweight, then turned it to 3 grams and turned anti-skate to 3.

Sound quality is great except the right channel is experiencing intermittent noise / static / crackling, only playing new records. Note that the noise is ONLY on the right channel.

Currently my theories are:

  1. I damaged the stylus of the cartridge somehow

  2. I have the tonearm / cartridge set up improperly

If anyone can help me resolve this, I will be eternally grateful.

2

Swap needles, and them the carts over (left deck to right deck, and vice versa).

Then you can rule out/isolate it as a cart problem.

If it IS a cart problem, just strip it down and re-assemble it.

If it’s only in the right channel, though, I suspect it IS a cart wiring issue. Make sure no bare wires behind the cart are frayed or touching, and check the connection between the wires and the pins on the cart and the tonearm are good and tight.

3

this is bad advice BUT, you can also try licking the contacts on the rear of the cartridge before screwing it onto the tone arm. your saliva is corrosive so you dont want to do it alot, but it can vastly improve the connection to moisten it a little.

4

Thanks guys. Currently only have one turntable but I’ll see if I can accomplish anything with disassembly and if that fails I’ll pick up a new cartridge.

Will post back if I make any progress

5

Update:

Disassembled and rebuilt the cartridge earlier. Attempted to swap the wires in the pioneer headshell with the shorter wires that came with the Shure M44-7, but managed to break one of the the little connectors off with my ham fists.

Reassembled with the pioneer wires, gracefully forgetting which side was on the left and the right on the pins on the headshell.

I looked online and saw a picture of a similar headshell and just imitated the wiring, and now the crackling / static noise APPEARS to be coming from the left channel.

Any suggestions? It’s possible that I damaged the cartridge or something considering that I’m about as dexterous a large gorilla.

Would replacing the stylus be worthwhile? Maybe I bumped it on something without realizing?

Or should I just buy a new cartridge altogether and write it off to costs of learning something new?

6

If it’s a new cartridge, and seeing as it’s a new turntable, it can really only be a couple of things.

As mentioned the wiring on the headshell may need re-doing
It could be the RCA cable (Try swapping to a different one)

Try these things before you buy anything

7

Update:

I’ve tried redoing the wiring once to no avail.

I also noticed that several of the new records I recently received are warped. I’m not sure how much warping is acceptable on records, but it definitely noticeable when the platter is spinning. I’m assuming this is from heat during shipping. :thinking:

I notice that the noise happens approximately 1 time every revolution.

So what do you guys think? Warped records? Damaged needle?

8

yes if you are ever having records shipped it is a good idea to request the sender to remove all shrink wrap prior to shipping. as the records pass through different environments the shrink wrap can tighten on the sleeves and warp them terribly.

if you are not noticing the record moving up and down much it likely wont be very audibly noticible, some side to side movement will cause drift tho and youll have to ride the heck out of the spindle while mixing.

does the noise happen with just one record or group of records you suspect of being warped, or can you replicate it with all records? can you change the noise at all by twisting the rca ends or fiddling with the cables at all while the record plays?