What does being a good "tracker" mean?

karma said:

HI All,
I don't think I am going to say anything that has not already been alluded to by others. But they did not address the problem directly which is what I think the OP wanted. I'll give it a shot.

Tracking is an easy idea. It is the ability of the stylus to maintain contact with the groove under all conditions and groove modulation levels. If the stylus looses contact with the groove it is either bouncing around making occasional contact with the groove or floating in free space, thus known as mistracking. In either case, distortion increases rapidly. The sound of classic inner groove distortion is a prime example of mistracking.

A properly set up system should NEVER mistrack. Many things feed into the proper set up. VTF, VTA, tone arm/cartridge mass mismatches, skating force, stylus overhang, stylus wear, and more can cause the groove to stylus alignment to be out of a perfect relationship. This is why the set up is something of an art form and requires experience and experimentation to get right.

I can tell you that I have not heard mistracking in my system since the early 1970's. The are a couple of reasons for this. First, the quality level of my system has constantly improved over the years. Next, I learned a lot during the process. The quality of cartridges in general have improved to permit tracking higher groove velocities. I believe this technical challenge has been won except for the low end cartridges. Any cartridge that costs over $300 should never mistrack if all the other conditions are met.

One should not tolerate mistracking ever. A stylus that is bouncing around in the groove functions much like a jack hammer and will destroy the vinyl thus your record. And the damage is permanent. I would think that any audiophile that hangs out in this forum has long passed mistracking as a problem simply because of the experience level and quality of the equipment that these forum members have.

As for records that can unmask tracking problems, I have a few. The best are the Sheffield Track and Drum records. If your system can track these records flawlessly, it can track anything.

One last thing. As I'm sure most of you know, buying used records can be fraught with difficulties. One of the most frustrating is an otherwise good record that has been damaged by a previous owner who played the record with a worn or damaged stylus. This will cause a damaged groove. Then when you play the record with a perfectly good set up and stylus, you will hear the groove damage. Don't be too fast to judge that your system has a problem. It could easily be the new record. This is a pretty common problem.

Sparky

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karma said:

HI Myles,
I have not heard this. I do think you have a much broader exposure than I have. But, ANY mistracking poses a danger to your records. Rather than permit mistracking, I would increase VTF to maximum to eliminate it. Then back off the VTF as break in proceeds.

Sparky

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MylesBAstor said:

I just break the cartridge in with a junkie record. You know them. The ones that use a needle

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karma said:

HI Myles,
How do you know the mistracking was not already present on your junk record as a result of previous groove damage? I'm pressing this point because I have never heard mistracking on a new cartridge.

Sparky

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