Anti skate. I think something's wrong

Years ago ('80s) part of my job was checking for stylus wear.  Ever see a tip well worn only on one side?   Think skating might have something to do with that?

The purpose of anti skating is to keep the cart moving assembly centered in the groove, putting relatively even pressure on each groove wall and consequently having appropriate deflections from said groove walls.

If your image is consistently off to one side or the other, perhaps it reflects uneven cantilever/tip centering as a result of incorrect AS applied to a pivoting arm. This is a type of distortion.  The information on the record is not being reproduced with correct amplitude, channel to channel.  Some information will tend to get buried in the mix, and other info. might be more prominent than intended.

Why are heavy trackers more immune to the affects of skating?  The down force (VTF) is great enough to overcome most of the skating force
mis-centering.

If your goal is to reduce torsional forces on the cantilever, then look to arms with no offset.

fleib

Any tone arm with a headshell that is angled to provide best overhang performance (zenith) creates a substantial skating force - NO EXCEPTIONS. Antiskating IS always therefore required, although it is often applied incorrectly. The force required may seem insignificant to many, but if you were to look at the many thousands of cartridges I have looked at over the past 43 years, you would undnerstand that it is required. The scale of the tone arm does not allow most people to understand that is happening at the scale of the stylus/groove wall interraction. These forces are NOT insignificant.

Almost always, most tables are adjusted incorrectly, and have too much anti-skating, or it is disregarded, and there is none. Sometimes, with some tables, it cannot be turned down enough, OR the range and fine control is terrible.

Usually, most folks use far too much antiskating, as evidenced by the thousands of cartridges I have rebuilt over the last 40+ years ��" THis is by observation of the outer facet edge (right channel) of the diamond to be worn far more than the inner, or left channel.

A properly designed anti-skating device is non-linear, as it should be, as it needs to increase A-S automatically at the inner grooves due to increased stiction.

Frank Schroder and I are of the same opinion about antiskating ��" and that makes MOST records that provide an "anti-skating track" totally in error ��" many are recorded at about 80-90% modulation -OR MORE, or have increasing levels of modulation as the track progresses and expect you to set the A-S force so that there is no distortion at all at any level of modulation (or equal amounts on both channels if the cartridge tracks poorly).

The problem with these tracks is that since the required level of A-S force is a function of the amount of modulation (and of course the VTF), it has you adjust antiskating at far too high a level. This would be OK, if you are listening to music that is constantly recorded at a high level. No music really is. When you adjust for this level, that means that you are very much overcompensated with far too much antiskating as you have adjusted it for where the music does NOT spend most of its time ��" it spends it at about 30-40% modulation levels ��" so adjusting the A-S with these records results in far too much A-S force - too much on the right channel, and far too little on the left.

Since there is no properly recorded track that allows proper setting of A-S (there will be such on our new Soundsmith adjustment record), the method that Frank Schroder crafted through careful reverse engineering works without tools, and without a special record.

If one sets the stylus on a smooth surface of a record (at the end, in-between the run out grooves) ��" the tip of the stylus has a drag on the surface that while not equal to, is "standardized" enough to allow it to be used to adjust the Anti-Skating. This is due to a calculation of “force per unit area” with consideration of the rheology of the material ��" vinyl. Suffice it to say that since it has been reverse engineered and calibrated properly, this method works well. It then becomes an easy matter to set the A-S and observe the movement of the arm. For a given VTF (any amount of VTF) ��" set the A-S so that the arm VERY SLOWLY drifts inwards when placed on the SURFACE (NOT IN A GROOVE) at the end of a record. You will have a moment to do this until the stylus “pops” into the run-out groove.

This works for ANY amount of VTF required, for ANY cartridge. It will set the A-S to EQUAL force per groove wall for 30-40% groove modulation levels, which is the best level for A-S force, as it is a moving target. What one DOES want is anti-skating that is basically correct for where music spends 80-90% of its time.

Peter Ledermann/Soundsmith

Dear Stringreen,

Sorry for misunderstanding you earlier although I did realise that you were also referring to the "source" of the applied A/S force as per Doug Deacon’s frequent eloquence on the subject.

DougDeacon, the principal advocate of the “no-antiskate philosophy” doesn’t appear to be here to speak for himself but what you refer to is the “benefit” of removing an undesirably influential force (i.e. A/S) applied at the “wrong” end of the tonearm such that the cartridge’s suspension is unnecessarily stressed or tensioned by it, and that removal of this force is preferable to the disadvantage of not having skating compensation at all.

This type of “sacrificial” purist approach to LP replay is not new and we see many examples of it in turntable design e.g. designers such as Willie Bauer eschewing more expensive Rega tonearm’s in favour of the cheaper RB250 because it didn’t contain spring-based mechanisms for A/S etc on the grounds that he could hear the negative influence of the springs in dynamically balanced arms. Another example is the adoption of the 3-point fixing by some companies (e.g. Naim) which disregards the “necessity” of alignment flexibility & accuracy in favour of secure fixing on an appropriately equipped tonearm.

Unfortunately, I see this "zero-antiskate" approach as flawed because anti-skate is not the only way that a cartridge’s suspension can be stressed…

One example is that if an LP is drilled off centre (nearly all LPs are), the cart will be forced to ride from side-to-side instead of simply tracing the normal “regular” path of the groove. I would imagine that this sets up forces in the groove which are just as troublesome, in absolute terms, as anti-skate.

It is important to note that cartridges are actually designed to handle these forces.

Under these conditions, if one could “zoom” down to microscopic level and ask the cartridge how it is faring it would probably tell you that there’s not much difference between this and skating force, that it’s "all in a day’s work" for your average phono cartridge.

Second-guessing what DD might say, he would probably argue that LP mis-drilling “forces” are oriented at the “correct” (stylus) end of the tonearm and that the cantilever would be intrinsically less stressed than by A/S.

Not sure I’d agree with that one either because it doesn’t consider inertia. If anything I’d say it’s worse because it is causing periodic de-stabilisation but that’s the reason cartridges have suspensions.

However, variety is the spice of life and if you are happy working without anti-skate then that’s all that matters. It’s an individual choice and we’re not here to press-gang you into accepting conventional methods.

Happy listening ;^)