another question
how high should my tone arm be with the ortofon rondo red cartridge. if I make it perfectly level with the platter when tone arm is lower, the botton of the cartridge is seriously too low that when it changes tracks on a record (the silent bit before the next track) you can hear a thud...which must be from the bottom of the cartridge body...any help please would be appreciated
No sorry, should have made myself clearer...parallel to the record
Is the record you're having a problem with particularly warped? Because obvously that will give you issues you may not be able to resolve without making the tonearm a bit higher...
Not really, its a new record...I think I have found a happy medium now after fiddling with it a bit. Thanks for responding and helping 
Oooer this sounds to me like you have the cart way too a**e heavy gb. Thing is , if you raise it too much you will highlight the 'highs' and your next post will be 'my cart is a paint stripper'. Are you absolutely sure that the bottom of the cart is running parallel ??. Forget the arm thats way to easy to be out with, especially if you wear vari-focals ?. Do yourself a favour. Pop over to the online auction site and buy a tonearm spirit bubble . They weigh next to nowt and dont cost all that much. Plop it on top of the headshell and away you go for a good start point, then you can tweak from then in. Need a foatie or link for your cart cos if the bottom is an odd shape then its better to look to see if the bottom of the headshell (top of cart) is level to the record.
It really does sound as though you have too much tracking force. I would check this and also check the VTA, the base of the cartridge should be parallel with the record when playing.
It needs to be parallel to a record, not the platter; is that what you've done?
CA StreamMagic 6 (pre-prod) | CA 751BD | CA 651A | PMC DB1i
Moderator. mail: john.duncan.whf at the mail of g dot com