A new way of adjusting anti skate!

Cant believe all the negative Nancy's on this thread.

The OP provided an interesting methodology to measure antiskate force.

The methodology can be used for whatever you believe antiskate should be 10%, 20% or whatever. 

Van den hul specifies a recommended antiskate value for his cartridges.

Furthermore one of the most positive aspects of this methodology is that you can use it to verify how accurate your antiskate mechanism is on your tonearm.

From my discussions years ago with the like of Van Den Hul and John Garrott of the Garrott Bros, uneven stylus wear from incorrect level of antiskate is a common problem. 

Any suggestions on how to get it right should be a positive.

I was re-reading this thread, just because I have recently been wrestling with setting AS for a very low VTF, recommended 1.0g, for my B&O MMC1. Mounted on my Triplanar. To Mijostyn: I would like to measure AS by your method, but just from reading your description of the method in the OP, I am not sure how you did it. What does it mean to set the fingerlift "in the crosshairs"? My VTF gauge has no crosshairs; nor does it have any other sort of optical sights. Can you post some photos?  Right now I am using two nuts from my tool stash, each weighing about 1g, tucked up as close as possible against the vertical arm of the AS mechanism on the TP.  The weight that comes with the TP weighs 5g, and that seemed to be too much AS. (We are talking about AS weights mounted near the pivot; as Mijo rightly pointed out, what counts is the AS force at the stylus tip, which is near to the fingerlift on the headshell.)

Also, in November, 2020, Crustycoot wrote: "Isn’t the aim of anti-skate to prevent the mistracking that would occur if unequal groove-wall contact was applied during highly modulated passages? Isn’t this solvable by a small increase in downforce such that the “weak side” never fell below the trackability needed to negotiate the passage? That was the opinion of Edgar Vilchur of ARXA fame."

Vilchur may belong on any Mount Rushmore of historically important audio personages, but if he said what CC says he said, he was very wrong and probably trying to wiggle around why the tonearm on the ARXA has no antiskate adjustment. The root cause of the skating force is friction between the stylus tip and the groove. That force is most dependent upon VTF, given that in all cases the stylus is diamond and the groove is vinyl. (The materials determine the coefficient of friction which is also in the equation for friction.) The more VTF, the more friction, the greater the skating force. Any attempt to ameliorate the skating force effect by increasing VTF would only make the problem worse. So I hope no one out there took Crusty’s (or Vilchur’s) advice seriously.

@lewm

I read it that all you do is balance the arm vertically to zero so that it floats.

Use your scales at 90degree hold out at the edge of the platter with the scale just above, and then if you apply antiskate the arm will pull towards the scale.

Using the finger lift hitting the scale is close enough to the stylus tip to get a good idea of how much antiskate to use.

If your weight is too heavy just use a small nut for testing ( weigh it on scales ).

Then I would suggest ordering a small one from Triplanar once you have worked out the optimum weight.

 I am curious about something that I have witnessed with some TT/cartridge setups. When the needle is raised, I just barely see it flick to one direction. Would this possibly be an anti-skating issue?

Dover, no pun intended, I’m using two small nuts that each weigh ~1g, tucked as close to the crotch of the TP AS mechanism as possible, for the MMC1. The OEM AS weight weighs 5g.Thanks for the clear explanation of what Mijo probably does. I’ll give it a go.