A new way of adjusting anti skate!


I was looking at the Wallyskater, a $250 or so contraption used to set anti skate. https://www.wallyanalog.com/wallyskater  It is reputedly the most accurate way to set anti skate. Talking about fiddly. 

The appropriate figure is 9 to 11 percent of VTF. So if you are tracking at 2 grams you want 0.2 grams of anti skate.
My Charisma tracks at 2.4 grams so I should set the anti skate for 0.24 grams..................................Bright light!.
I readjusted the Syrinx PU3 to zero so that it was floating horizontally. I set up a digital VTF gauge on it's side at the edge of the platter so that the finger lift would be in the cross hairs, activated the anti skate and was easily able to adjust it to 0.24 grams. I started at 0.18 grams and just added a little more. Whatever you measure the anti skate from it has to be at the same radius as the stylus. If you do not have a finger lift at the right location you can tack a toothpick to the head shell and measure from that. As long as you have the whole affair balanced at zero you will be fine. Added cost $0.00 as long as you have a digital VTF gauge. 

I would not buy stock in Wallyskater.
128x128mijostyn
No thanks. If obsession drove me to buy something like that, I would hope  family and friends would hold an intervention. 


Its crap like this that turns people off records. Reality is, the correct amount of anti-skate varies tremendously across a record and from record to record for the simple fact that groove modulation is the single biggest factor in anti-skate, and its constantly changing. Fortunately the sonic effect is so inaudible no one ever notices! Anti-skate is such a nothing burger VPI has been getting away with their hokey twisted wire trick since like forever. Only every once in a while someone has it so extremely far off they get tracking problems. For this we're supposed to spend $250??!

But lots of guys without much experience look at this kind of stuff, and it all looks so necessary, and so they decide who needs a format that requires $1500 worth of stuff and a degree in engineering? Or they get a rig and then sit there all helpless begging for someone "professional" to please come set it up. 

But I guess there is no money in free alignment pdf downloads, and no limit to the money some guys have to burn, so we can look forward to many more years of ever increasing uselessness from this Wally guy, whether Mike buys stock in it or not.
I partly agree with MC, in that there IS no "correct" amount of anti-skate, because the skating force is a constantly varying quantity, as the stylus traverses the LP.  However, "some" amount of anti-skate is advisable, because all pivoted tonearms that are mounted such that the stylus overhangs the spindle will generate a skating force.  So, if you ought to have some anti-skate, and since anti-skate cannot be adjusted during play, we all take a wild guess.  Without knowing for sure, I would guess that the amount of anti-skate I use is about 10% of VTF, as Mijostyn so meticulously measured and applied.  But what I do to determine the amount of AS is listen to the lead-in grooves with zero AS.  This will usually generate some obvious R channel distortion.  (The skating force is at or near maximum at the outermost and innermost grooves.) I then add AS little by little until the R channel settles in and sounds like the L channel.  Then I light up a doobie.  The idea that I would spend $250 for an AS gauge is laughable, not because I don't like expensive gadgets but because there is no such thing as "correct" AS, except, if your lucky, for brief moments across the surface of the LP.
The accepted value is 9 to 11 percent of VTF at the start of the record decreasing slightly towards the center. The biggest variable is velocity (modulation.) The higher the velocity the higher the friction. You can only shoot for an average value.
Millercarbon is prone to extremes, "varies tremendously across the record." This makes him difficult to believe. 9 to 11 % is not tremendous. 
Lewm, anti skate can be adjusted to an extent during play. The geometry of many antiskating devises automatically lowers the anti skating force slightly as the arm traverses toward the center.  I used the same method by listening. It takes some fiddling to get it right. This method puts you where you want to be easily while setting up the arm. Psychologically it is nice to work to a number. But whatever. The main point is that you can do exactly what the Wallyskater does without spending $250. It is a product without a market. Rube Goldberg could not have done better.