Why Is My Record Skipping?

The short answer: in most cases the tracking force is too light, and setting it to the figure your cartridge maker publishes fixes it for nothing. But before you touch anything, answer one question, because it halves the work: does it skip in the same place every time? A repeatable skip at one groove is a problem with that copy or with debris in it. A skip that moves around, or that happens on several records, is a problem with the deck, the setup or the room.

The split, and why it matters

Check 1: tracking force (free, and usually the answer)

A stylus stays in a groove because a small, precisely specified downward force holds it there. Too little and it rides up the groove wall and jumps out, especially where the groove is heavily modulated — which is why skipping so often happens on the loudest part of a side.

Every cartridge maker publishes the range. Audio-Technica publishes 1.8 to 2.2 g with 2.0 g standard for the AT-VM95E; Ortofon publishes 1.6 to 2.0 g for the 2M Red and the 2M Blue; Nagaoka publishes 1.5 to 2.0 g for the MP-110. Set the figure with the counterweight, in the middle of the range rather than at the bottom of it, and confirm it with a gauge sitting on the platter. Riverstone’s gauge publishes 0.005 g resolution and measures 2 to 3 mm above the mat, which is record level — the reason that matters is geometric: a stylus measured 6 to 8 mm up sits at a different vertical angle than one on a record.

What not to do: tape a coin to the headshell. It is the most-repeated bad advice in the hobby. Overloading the arm past the published range increases wear on the record and the stylus, and it hides whatever was actually wrong. Our tonearm balancing guide covers doing it properly in about ten minutes.

Check 2: the record and the stylus, cleaned

Dust is not cosmetic. A stylus tip is a few tens of microns across; a compacted lump of dust at the tip, or a wad of debris in a groove, is a physical obstacle big enough to lift the diamond out of the wall. Two cleans are involved, and they are different jobs: the record, dry-brushed before every play and wet-cleaned when it has never been cleaned or has come out of storage, and the stylus, which collects a grey collar at the tip that you can see with a phone camera and a light.

If the skip is in the same place every time, do this before concluding the record is damaged. Compacted debris in one groove looks exactly like a defect and comes out completely. Our record cleaning guide covers the method and stylus cleaning covers the part most people never touch; the picks above are the starter kit we rank for both.

Check 3: level

An out-of-level deck adds a constant sideways force on the stylus toward the low side, for the whole side of the record. It is the second free check: put a small spirit level on the platter, read it left-to-right, then turn it ninety degrees and read it front-to-back. Correct with the deck’s feet if it has adjustable ones, with thin firm shims if it does not, or by leveling the furniture when the surface itself slopes. Our leveling guide is the five-minute version.

Check 4: anti-skate

A pivoted tonearm tracking an arc across a record generates an inward pull. Anti- skate — a dial, a weight on a thread, or a magnet, depending on the deck — cancels it. Most manuals direct you to set the anti-skate value to match the tracking force, so if you have just changed the force, change this too.

The diagnostic signature is directional: if the stylus consistently skates inward across the record, there is too little anti-skate; if it consistently pushes outward, too much. Decks with no anti-skate control at all — most fixed-arm automatics — take this decision out of your hands, which is one of the things you are buying when you buy an adjustable deck. Our cartridge setup guide covers both controls together.

Check 5: the stylus itself, and the room

If force, cleanliness, level and anti-skate are all right and a record still mistracks on loud passages, suspect the tip. Published stylus lives are in the hundreds of hours — roughly 300 to 500 for a conical, about 300 for an elliptical, in Audio-Technica’s figures for its own replacement styli — and a worn or chipped diamond cannot track properly at any force. A damaged cantilever is visible: sight along the arm and check the stylus is perpendicular rather than leaning. Our stylus replacement guide covers the hour figures, and the replacement stylus picks cover the part.

Two room-shaped causes remain, and both are easy to confirm. If it only skips when someone walks past, that is footfall: the fix is to decouple the deck or to get it off the floor entirely with a wall shelf — Pangea publishes a 40 lb load rating for its Premier SE MKII, mounted into studs 16 in on center. If it only skips when the volume is up, that is acoustic feedback: sound from the speakers is driving the plinth, so move the speakers off the same furniture, and if that is impossible, isolate the deck — Hudson publishes 37.5 lb per pad for the Firm IsoBlock, which is the version it assigns to turntables. Our isolation picks rank the class on published load ratings, and troubleshooting covers the rest of the symptom list.