If it truly is skipping , and not the tone arm binding , there are generally three causes , one of which you've eliminated . With a new needle , the other two possibilities are bad records , or the "tracking force" of the tone arm is too light . If you can freely move the tone arm from it's "parked" position to where the end of the record would cause the next record to be automatically selected my bet would be on the tracking force being too light . But if there is ANY binding of the tone arm during it's sweep across the record that of course must be addressed before any tracking force adjustments are considered . Remember , the heavier the tracking force the less inclined even bad records will be to skip , but the heavier it is the more wear each record will suffer with each play . The right tracking force is a delicate adjustment between having a good condition record not skip VS shaving out huge chunks of the record's grooves with each play .

PS , an old trick to see if it's too light is to balance a coin on top of the tone arm and see if the skipping stops . If it does , your tracking force is light . If not , your arm is binding in it's sweep .....

Once the table is turned on, the arm goes freely from side to side for a bit, and then it has some resistance. I have the pressure fairly heavy. So there is a bind somewhere, or something is not timed correctly in the sweep.


I tried what someone else has recommended, and place the balance arm all the way to the right, over the tone arm, then turned the platter on so it spins, then I used my hand to stop the motion, and reverse the direction until I felt a hard spot of resistance. That was supposed to realign the auto feature. I had hoped that was it, but after doing that, it still skips after a little while of tracking freely.