New VPI purchase

I know @fsonicsmith stated that the twist in the wire is no good. But I have found that if you use the Soundsmith method of checking anti-skate, that a little twist does the trick. The stylus will slightly pause at the lead out groove, then slowly drift towards the spindle. At least that's my experience with it.

On a gimbaled arm I have no problem with it. With a unipivot, twisting the lemo wire tends to cause the tonearm and head shell to cant to one side, usually the outboard side up IIRC. A counterintuitive is meant to offer fine and repeatable adjustment of VTF and azimuth in an otherwise "clean slate" scenario, not to offset the cant caused by twisting the lemo wire, at least afaik. I would never deny a thing that Peter Lederman recommends. There is no denying that HW and MW don't accept AS as an important design parameter. 

Speaking of Peter Lederman and his knowledge (and sorry for thread drift) but why does a guy who can build a strain gauge cartridge not design a phono stage meant to tackle the state of the art? He is clearly capable. Instead he offers fairly entry-level phono stages that are incidentally all business to the point of being butt-ugly. Double-bagger ugly. 

@boxcarman,

When not using the clamp, do you also go without the rubber washer?  My Scout 2 does sound livelier without the clamp.

I bought one of the last VPI HW-40's earlier this year and what a difference it made. I use the Ortofon Cadenza Black. VPI did the initial setup and I just tweaked it after I placed the table where it was going. I use a Stillpoints weight. I have not used the supplied ring and probable will not. FWIW

@emarcano   I have a first run Scout and it did not come with a rubber washer.  So no.  I did replace the platter matt with a cork matt.

Though I have only owned the Scout in the past, I still regret ever selling it. For its price, the performance was wonderful. The fact that you have a much upgraded model and tonearm, makes me think how wonderful it all must be.

I remember the twist in the tonearm cable to be the recommended response to skating, but would have liked to see something a bit more definitive, especially when using a uni-pivot tonearm.