Doug, I didn't mention the possibility of the cart. being attracted to something in the body of the scale so as not to confuse the issue. The problem as stated was a negative reading before the stylus touched the weigh pan of the scale. This can only be caused by a magnetic attraction to the weigh pan. Any attraction to something in the body of the scale will affect the measured weight only after the weight of the cart. is resting on the weigh pan, not before. The advise to not use the tare button to zero out the negative reading is correct. If anyone is worried about this other issue that you brought up they can adjust the counter weight on their tone arm so that the arm is in balance (zero VTF) and position over the scale. If there is an attraction, the scale will read what it is and this value can be used to correct further readings. IMO what is important here is the repeatability of the scale, not its ultimate accuracy. Since one will set the VTF by ear and having the ability to make small, repeatable changes is what matters.