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Ancient AR Turntable with NO anti skate

A friend had me over to listen to his restored late 60's Acoustic Research turntable.  While listening, I noticed that the somewhat awkward looking tonearm had no anti skate.  Looking closely at the stylus assembly, it wasn't drifting or pulling toward the center spindle.  It seemed to track clean and true through the entire LP.  The arm is the original stock AR arm and couldn't be more that 8.5" or 9" in length.  I am just curious how AR pulls that off with such a short arm?  I have seen several 12" arms (Audio Technica for example) that dispense with anti skate completely but never a smaller one.  By the way, the table sounded wonderful and the cartridge was a Denon 103R.

Thanks,

Norman

 
normansizemore
54 responses Add your response
normansizemore OP
601 posts
 
I have a Grace 747 on my Dual 1229 and a SME 3009 on the Garrard 301.  It doesn't work.  I played with them both all night.  I will say though, to my surprise that leaving the antiskate off sounds really good.  I can see however that the stylus is gravitating to the center spindle and that can't be good for the cartridge assembly.
I also tried it using the same cartridge and still wasn't able to get it to track like the AR.

I have always used antiskate but I can now see an argument for leaving it off.

N.


randy-11
1,913 posts
 
sure, you can try but be careful 

use the adj. anti-skate if you have it
normansizemore OP
601 posts
 
Randy,

Yes, that's the arm. The sound was really clean. I'm wondering if I can try that with a couple of my tonearms?

Thanks. 
Norman
randy-11
1,913 posts
 
The one with the simple machined block at the pivot and the brass counter-weight?

not sure if AR ever put adjustable anti-skate on - even for the XA

one trick is to twist the arm wires (!)

another is to just use a vintage cartridge with low compliance


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