OK, I'm going slightly mad here.

A couple of weeks ago I ripped an LP which sounded unusually 'noisy' and jumped in a couple of places. I then tried ripping the Martin Carthy LP and found it unplayable.

One pressure gauge, readjusted tone-arm and new stylus later... what I can hear of the Carthy LP sounds a lot better (the new stylus was worth getting) but it's still crackling and skipping a lot, despite the vinyl appearing to be in good nick.

I've just tried the 'noisy' album, and found it even worse than it was with the old stylus / unadjusted tone-arm. The sound has improved (new stylus), but the needle's regularly skipping & even skating. And this is after setting the tracking weight!

I have tried increasing the anti-skating weight (although it was already on the recommended value); it helped a bit but not enough.

What on earth is going on?