2. analog
  3. 173613-20248

Rega planar 8 : Tracking force and Anti-skate settings

Hi,

I set my Planar 8/Apheta 3 to what I found to be sweet spot of exactly 1.81 gr of vertical tracking force. I measured it with a very accurate and calibrated 5gr scale.
I set anti skating according to what gave me the best sonic result and the reading (see attached picture) seems to correlate to the 1.81 gr tracking force.
Sound wise everything is perfect. The only issue I have is when the Apheta stylus reaches a deep crack. In this case the tonearm would jump and land 15 seconds prior to the point on the record where it jumped from. So sound wise settings are at the best spot for me but when the stylus reaches a crack it seems as if there is not enough weight on the stylus and as if tracking force pulls the tonearm towards the beginning of the record.
The problem occurs on records that were properly cleaned and sound completely quiet.
I never had such problem with my planar 3 on these points on my records .

triskadecaphobic
lewm
13,518 posts
 

Dear 13,

your findings for setting AS make no sense. Since skating force is always changing as you play an LP, it cannot be true that +/-.01g of AS makes any real difference. There is NO single correct amount of AS. Moreover, even 50% of VTF seems high for AS, but it depends on how your AS device is calibrated. Have you tried setting the antiskate to zero, playing a typical LP, and then gradually increasing antiskate from zero until your ears tell you there is no distortion in the right channel. The condition of zero antiskate usually causes audible distortion in the right channel.

triskadecaphobic OP
82 posts
 

"Have you tried setting the antiskate to zero, playing a typical LP, and then gradually increasing antiskate from zero until your ears tell you there is no distortion in the right channel"

I went ahead and followed your advice. I found that 0.5 gave the best result. I now have way better sound stage and accuracy than I had at 0.9 (which was much better than the 1.8 suggested by the manual). Thank you so much for the excellent tip :-)

lewm
13,518 posts
 

Glad to hear that helped.

triskadecaphobic OP
82 posts
 

The question is though why doesn't Rega recommend this 0.5 anti skate value or a value close to that when it's obvious that a value similar to VTF as they recommend  produces poor sound ? The sweet spot of 0.5 is so far from their recommendation that I did not dare trying it...

lewm
13,518 posts
 

You’d have to ask them. No one else recommends that much AS for a given VTF. Plus I don’t know how their AS device is calibrated.

More to discover