To be more specific in regards to the sound: you could barely hear the music, but then there would be leaps into the high register accompanied by outbursts of static(again, not sure if you have ever mistakenly plugged a cd player into the phono pre-amp of a receiver, but this was the exact effect). Like I said the cartridge is a technics sl-dd24 that is 30 or so years old which I presume to be MM. The sony table she tried briefly came with its own cartridge, but had the same result, so I rule out the possibility of it being a cartridge issue specifically. Could it be that the phono pre-amp on the receiver went bad? I thought initially that this TT has not been used in a long time, but apparently it worked fine a few months before the sound distortion started showing up. The records looked clean to me, but I am hardly an expert--I hope this expounds on the issue enough
Analog playback issues
The other week my mom got out some of her records she had not played for several years. When she put one on it sounded garbled(like when you plug a cd player into the phono pre-amp on a receiver) the turntable is a technics sl dd24 from the mid or late 70's, and she assumed that it was just time to replace it with some budget table from Sony. When she set the new table up the same result occurred and she wound up returning the item. I'm fairly certain she had both the old and new turntable set up correctly. What could be the issue? Component info: Onkyo TX-8511 receiver, Technics sl dd24, Cartridge Technics P338