How to Set Up a Turntable

Setting up a turntable takes about twenty minutes: level it, fit the platter and belt, balance the arm to zero, set tracking force to the cartridge’s published figure, match anti-skate to it, then connect it to the right kind of input. Only two steps have any subtlety, and both come with a number the manufacturer publishes.

Before you start: what your deck actually needs

Not every step applies. A direct-drive deck like the AT-LP120XUSB has no belt. A fully automatic deck like the AT-LP70X still needs its counterweight set. The AT-LP60XBT arrives with tracking force fixed and no adjustment at all — if that is your deck, steps 4 and 5 are not yours to worry about, which is the whole point of buying it.

1. Put it somewhere solid and level

A stylus is reading grooves measured in microns. Anything that shakes the plinth, it reads. Keep it off the same surface as the speakers if you can, and away from a suspended floor if you have the option.

Use a spirit level on the platter, front-to-back and side-to-side. Level matters because an out-of-level deck adds a sideways force to the arm that fights the anti-skate you are about to set in step 5.

2. Fit the platter and the belt

Drop the platter onto the spindle. On a belt-drive deck, loop the belt around the platter’s inner rim and then over the motor pulley — most platters have two access holes to reach through. Make sure the belt is not twisted; a twisted belt is a wow-and-flutter problem you will spend an hour misdiagnosing.

If your deck has an acrylic platter, like the Fluance RT85, there is no mat and none is needed. If it is steel or aluminium, the supplied mat goes on now.

3. Fit the headshell and cartridge

If your deck has a removable headshell — the AT-LP120XUSB and Music Hall Classic do — it slides into the arm and locks with a collar. If the cartridge is pre-installed and pre-aligned, as on the RT85 and the Debut Carbon EVO, leave it alone. The manufacturer has already solved the alignment and, as our matching guide explains, the resonance arithmetic too.

4. Balance the arm to zero, then set tracking force

This is the step people get wrong. Do it in this order:

1. Set anti-skate to 0 for now.
2. Unlock the arm and, holding it clear of the platter, turn the counterweight until the arm floats level — neither falling nor rising. This is zero balance.
3. Without moving the counterweight itself, rotate only the numbered dial on its front to read 0.
4. Now turn the whole counterweight to the tracking force your cartridge specifies.

Use the published figure, not a guess. Audio-Technica specifies 1.8–2.2 g for the AT-VM95E supplied with the AT-LP120XUSB, with 2.0 g standard, and the arm itself adjusts from 0 to 4 g. Ortofon specifies 1.8 g for both the 2M Red and 2M Blue. Set it to what the cartridge maker says.

Too light is worse than slightly heavy. An under-weighted stylus skitters in the groove and can do more damage than a correctly loaded one.

5. Set anti-skate to match

As a record plays, the groove drags the arm inward toward the spindle. Anti-skate applies a small outward force to cancel it. As a starting point, set the anti-skate dial to the same number as your tracking force — 1.8 g of force, 1.8 of anti-skate.

It is a starting point rather than a law: the correct value varies slightly with stylus profile and groove position, and nobody publishes an exact figure. Matching the numbers is the convention, it is close, and it is far better than leaving it at zero.

6. Set the PHONO / LINE switch correctly

If your deck has this switch, it decides whether the built-in phono stage is in circuit. Set it to PHONO if you are plugging into an amplifier’s phono input; set it to LINE if you are plugging into anything else. Getting this wrong in one direction gives you a thin, quiet sound; in the other, a loud distorted one. Both are covered in do I need a phono preamp.

7. Connect the ground wire

If your turntable has a thin separate wire with a spade connector, attach it to the GND screw on your amplifier or phono stage. Skipping it usually produces a steady hum. It is not optional and it takes four seconds.

8. Check the speed

Play a record and confirm it sounds right. If your deck has a strobe — the AT-LP120XUSB does — the dots should appear stationary under mains light. A belt-drive deck that is slightly off may just need the belt seating properly.

9. Leave the dust cover down when you are not playing

Dust in a groove is the single most avoidable source of noise, and a stylus dragging through it wears both the stylus and the record.

What to do next

If the sound is thin and quiet, revisit step 6 — that is almost always the answer. If it hums, revisit step 7. If the bass makes your woofers visibly pump on warped records, you want a phono stage with a subsonic filter. And if you are still choosing what to plug it into, start with the best speakers for a turntable.