Hey guys, before I throw myself at the mercy of the Steve Hoffman forums I thought I'd ask here first. I bought a U-turn Orbit turntable last month and it was working great but now I'm starting to have issues with it. When I cue the needle on the record, it often wants to go backwards instead of in the right direction and I need to reset it, and the last track on a side is starting to skip a bit. I'm guessing it has something to do with the anti-skating setting? So do I need to adjust that, and which way, I need to add more weight I think? The turntable came calibrated, but I'm thinking it must be off now. I believe there is something I can get that shows how much weight is involved, so I can accurately adjust the arm? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Send them an email. I have one of their turntables - I spent about $400 for it - they have great service, so they should help you out in terms of calibration. My U-Turn is ony 1.5 years old now.

Also, make sure you dust the top of the case and its surroundings. Get a can of compressed air and sweep that dust out of the way.

Thanks man, I was thinking I would try that next. Yeah, mine was 300 and change (needed to add the pre-amp and cue lever to my order) but from what I had read it was the best bang for my buck. And I do try to be careful about dust, I have a can of compressed air and a brush for my vinyl.

I got a RED but I bought the pre-amp separately. It's phenomenal. I paid about $70 for the pre-amp and I attached it to my Onkyo 705.

That definitely sounds like an anti-skate issue.

Assuming adjustment is available, your turntable should have instructions. Often there will be an anti-skate scale which matches the tracking force of your cartridge.

I also wouldn't be hesitant to ask at the SH forums. They're generally a helpful bunch.

For tracking force, I just use a cheap stylus force gauge. I'm sure there are better ones, but mine has sufficed.

I agree with emailing u-turn, I have a few times and they have always been great. They are quick to respond and helpful!

I bought this a while back...


But they make cheaper digital ones too.

Thanks guys, I'll be emailing them this weekend, everyone says that U-turn Audio has great customer service so we shall see. And thanks for the info about the gauges, I knew that someone could measure this but I didn't know what they were called.

In the meantime I went on their website and learned how to do adjustments, I adjusted the VTF a bit to increase it and bam, the problems stopped. I'm still going to buy a gauge to make sure I didn't increase the VTF too much (don't want to ruin my records!) but I believe I found the issue, thanks for everyone's help!

Glad u got it to work, u-turn does indeed have great ret customer service..

The Orbit looks sharp, but I’m not a fan of the external belt drive. It looks like it could be problemeatic, but at least it would be easy to change.

I’m guessing that, in order to go from 33 to 45 that you actually have to slip the belt onto a different gear?

^That's how it is on my Rega, and I have to say it annoys me more than I had expected. It takes no time to do, but it's not as convenient as a button or lever.

Yea, I don't mind the belt, I do miss the automatic return more than anything else with my Orbit Special (the Walnut model)...

Good point. My Rega is also manual, and it's a pain that you can't just let a side finish without having to get up.

Correct, you need to move the belt to a different groove on the motor spindle to change the speed and it is a bit of a PITA. I guess the big thing with belt drive turntables is that there isn't a chance of motor noise making its way into the sound of the music.

Yeah, I do miss that as well, but I guess I can live with it.

UTurn Orbit is a solid player. Good choice

My only 'thing' lately is that I try to remove the belt when it's not in use. I found that, after extended periods of time of not using it, it developed a bit of a "bend" in it, so when using it again, there was a tiny but noticeable (to me) 'dip' in the RPM speed until the bend worked itself out (usually after a few minutes of play... which isn't a big deal at all, honestly...)
It was especially noticeable when I left it in the 45 RPM groove for too long, not in use.

edit: and yeah, check that tracking force with a meter, just to be safe. You're not putting coins on there, so at least you have that going for you!

Heh, coins, I remember those days.

Interesting about the belt, but I had a hell of a time putting the damn thing on when I first got the turntable, so I really don't want to go through that again until it eventually needs to be replaced.

I'm ordering a meter today, don't want to risk ruining any records.

^ I may be the only one with that belt problem, honestly. I don't know. It's just something that irks me when I turn it on after not using it for awhile.

And honestly, installing the belt DOES get easier after you've done it 100 times

My belt did that once too. I was also pretty bad at switching speeds and stretched the belt a little so I replaced it. Gotten better at that and have been using it pretty much everyday and haven't noticed another kink form.

I could use some advice. I have a Dual 604 with a Sure stylus. I hadn’t used it in a few years, but decided to add it to my office. After setting it up I notice the left channel is quite a bit louder than the right channel. I pulled the whole thing apart twice, checked all connections, added additional grounding, but only got a minor improvement. My amp is a tube amp without balance control. Other devices play fine.
Any thoughts on how to fix it?

What's the cart?

I had a Shure M97xe, and it kept losing the right channel. Apparently that was a defect on later versions of that cartridge. I replaced it with an Ortofon 2M Red, which I love. No right channel drops, and it sounds incredible.

Other things to check out: headshell wires and cartridge alignment. I don't have time to go into it here, but if you Google those things, you'll find plenty of info.

thanks for the quick response. I did google all of those things. I lost 3 hours of my life LOL.
I have the Sam Sure cartridge. Not cheap. I was really hoping it was something else.
thanks again.

If that's what it is, it did you a favor; that Shure sure sounded like shit even when it worked. I noticed a massive improvement with the Ortofon Red. $99 on Amazon, and worth every penny.

I just checked to make sure it was that Sure. It is.
Thanks for the recommendation. Give me week, and I’ll let you know how I make out.

My U-turn Orbit is still working well but I've been thinking of upgrading the cart (it currently has an Audio-Technica AT91B that came standard with this turntable). Is the Ortofon Red one of the better ones in that price range? (I could have upgraded my unit with that cart for an extra $75 when I first bought it, maybe I should have). I'm kind of nervous about properly installing a new cart though.