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Help! Antiskate with only a weight...no dial, and she's skating away!

I have a project rpm 10 carbon with 10cc evolution tonearm that has a weight on a string for antiskate. There are three notches on which to attach the string based upon the tracking force range of the cartridge. I currently have an ortofon cadenza bronze tracking at 2.5g and have the antiskate weight in the appropriate notch (according to the Pro-ject manual) from which it hangs. The table is level--checked and adjusted to ensure. The tracking force is at 2.514g (the range for the cadenza is 2.2-2.7 with 2.5 suggested by ortofon) checked with a digital scale (Riverstone Audio digital scale). The soundstage sounds great, vocals are centered, other instruments are placed in space according to the recording... Also the alignment was carefully set up using the WallyTractor and is spot on. 

But sometimes when I lower the stylus to the lead in groove, it will slide very quickly towards the spindle as though no antiskate were present (it doesn’t skip over the record, it falls into the first song groove--and yes I have confirmed that the stylus is present). But it’s a big jump vs just sliding into the groove.

So I found a blank side of an album and lowered the stylus onto the surface and it immediately slid all the way across the surface towards the spindle as though no antiskate were in play. I then disengaged the antiskate weight and experienced the same (expectedly so). But there seemed to be little or no difference between antiskate being engaged/disengaged.

So I engaged the weight again and lowered the stylus, but this time I placed a little extra force on the weight with my finger and was able to get the tonearm to stay in position--applicable antiskate force in play with this extra force. Of course, I have no way of measuring how much extra weight I applied.

The help I need:
Why is the recommended antiskate parameters set by pro-ject seemingly having no effect?
Is something else wrong?
The table and tonearm are obviously manufactured to handle this level of VTF, no?
The tonearm wires don’t appear to be impeding the arm movement.
What can I do to remedy this?
Do I need to do something to remedy this?
I wonder if I’m causing harm to the cantilever with what appears to be no antiskate, yet the music sounds great and the Analogue productions test LP record antiskate tracks "sound" equal to my ears. (But my ears aren’t young anymore, so I don’t think I can place full confidence in that audible test).

Any thoughts, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
cabalaska
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Nothing is ever just one thing. Especially not on records. You cannot have any anti-skate of any kind without some sort of mechanism. That mechanism whatever it is necessarily becomes an integral part of the whole cartridge/tone arm/turntable component. The whole shebang is oscillating and vibrating every which way.  

Sometimes I think they put anti-skate on there just because so many people expect it. It does make a difference you can hear. But whether or not you do hear it, or your rig is even capable of letting you hear it, is another question. Meanwhile VTA, which definitely is a big deal and makes a huge difference, a lot of arms don't have it and even on some very not-cheap tables like yours they make it a PITA. Go figure. 

Don't waste your time weighing and calculating. Total waste of time. The lever arm on that anti-skate device, if you know anything about leverage just look, it is crazy short. They make it short partly to save money, partly to avoid vibration issues (longer vibrates more) and partly to look good. Vast majority of guys want things to look a certain way. Not saying this is you, saying this is the manufacturer mentality. And yes I know what I'm talking about, I'm an advisor and consultant. Just so you know. 

Your blank record thing is a common idea and trope. Yes you should probably have enough anti-skate that it stays put, or even moves slowly outwards. Skating forces are a combination of factors, one of which is groove drag. It should be obvious there's a lot less drag on a flat surface than in a groove. Also more drag in a heavily modulated groove than a silent one. The more you think about it the more you realize what a total tradeoff the whole thing is- and then knowing this hopefully lose a lot less sleep over it. 
bkeske's avatar
bkeske
5,597 posts
 
MC, you are contradicting almost everything Peter Lederman states about anti-skating. I think I’ll follow Peter’s advice given his particular knowledge regarding such things.
edcyn
1,876 posts
 
I adjust my anti-skating by putting on a test LP that I got along with my Shure V15 cartridge sometime in the previous century. There's a decent-sized "track" on it where there are literally no grooves, just un-grooved vinyl. You put the needle onto the middle of the track and watch as the tonearm either drifts inward or outward. When it doesn't drift at all, that supposedly is the proper amount of anti-skate.


stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,470 posts
 
MillerCarbon may have something here.   What I hear is that with a/s, the spaces around the instruments are  more filled in.....it may be resonance with the a/s device.  (I have one of those VPI arms with 2nd pivot).  Once you hear the effect, its hard not to recognize it.  Looking at the stylus from directly in front of the cartridge, the stylus sits in the middle of the mounting....no deflection that one is likely to suspect w/o a/s. The system tracks anything that I have on LP without distortion on the left or right. I used MINT, and fozgometer to set up the system.
lewm
13,108 posts
 
What strikes me is that the thing is behaving in a surprising way for the problem to be just lack of any AS.  Any of us can null out his AS and play an LP; the stylus does not go skipping across the surface of the LP toward the spindle, as a result of applying zero AS. At worst, you will hear some distortion in the right channel with zero AS, but the cartridge should track OK.  So, what else could this be?  Is the internal tonearm wiring somehow putting a drag on the tonearm wand, pulling it inward?  I dunno, but something like that is what I would look for.  Step back and take a fresh look at the situation.
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