Well, I thank you both, Raul and Nandric.
Some more visual checking today - now with a USB microscope. Very interesting, although so far, I haven’t been able to stabilize the setup enough to get sharp close up images of the diamond. It seems to be OK, on my lower scale images.
Since, from visual testing, the azimuth seems good, I did more listening, trying to get the antiskating optimal. The flute in the first Alpha Centauri track works well, and also my Lotta Lenya mono. I listen for how well the voice or instrument is pictured at the front even with large background dynamics (the "guru method" of listening).
I find that the arm behaves very good with the anti-skating a bit relaxed from the weight, perhaps 1.4 ot 1.5. Listening to female vocal, going lower to 1.1 makes the sound more relaxed and open in a way, but also made the voice "crack up" a bit, as if she had smoked all her life. I tried to correct this with a bit more weight, but that did not help, so I went back to standard weight (1.72 g).
In my system, if the antiskating is set too high, the whole soundstage sounds more controlled, but also restricted, tensioned. So it is a good idea to relax it a bit, but not too far from the setting equal to the weight, since then the sound will crack up, become too loose; it can sound like using too little weight.
Perhaps the best way to set antiskate by ear - after listening to mono recordings for rough adjustments - could be to select the best-sounding stereo recordings. With this in mind we listened to Shelby Lynne, Just a little lovin. It sounded very good at ca 1.5.
Some more visual checking today - now with a USB microscope. Very interesting, although so far, I haven’t been able to stabilize the setup enough to get sharp close up images of the diamond. It seems to be OK, on my lower scale images.
Since, from visual testing, the azimuth seems good, I did more listening, trying to get the antiskating optimal. The flute in the first Alpha Centauri track works well, and also my Lotta Lenya mono. I listen for how well the voice or instrument is pictured at the front even with large background dynamics (the "guru method" of listening).
I find that the arm behaves very good with the anti-skating a bit relaxed from the weight, perhaps 1.4 ot 1.5. Listening to female vocal, going lower to 1.1 makes the sound more relaxed and open in a way, but also made the voice "crack up" a bit, as if she had smoked all her life. I tried to correct this with a bit more weight, but that did not help, so I went back to standard weight (1.72 g).
In my system, if the antiskating is set too high, the whole soundstage sounds more controlled, but also restricted, tensioned. So it is a good idea to relax it a bit, but not too far from the setting equal to the weight, since then the sound will crack up, become too loose; it can sound like using too little weight.
Perhaps the best way to set antiskate by ear - after listening to mono recordings for rough adjustments - could be to select the best-sounding stereo recordings. With this in mind we listened to Shelby Lynne, Just a little lovin. It sounded very good at ca 1.5.