Are some tracks impossible to track?

Qdrone...Antiskating force is caused by drag of the stylus and the geometry of the arm. The drag varies with groove modulation, and is always more than what occurs with a blank disc. A test record with a heavily modulated pure tone (so that you can hear any mistracking) and an arm that allows you to vary VTF and antiskating force while playing is the best method. Actually, I long ago gave up on pivoting arms because of all the critical adjustments, and use a linear tracker.

Eldartford,

If I read one more post suggesting that antiskate can be adjusted by scaping a blank surface with the point of a stylus I'll..., I'll...

... I'll start believing that Saddam really did have WMD's!

Where do these ideas come from? Why are they propagated despite the clear evidence against them?

There must be a hidden agenda. I think there's a secret cabal of people who own vinyl record pressing equipment but no cutting lathes. They're trying to build up a market for ungrooved LP's and make their fortunes. Of course now that we've outed them, they'll have to kill us!

Dougdeacon...Just to be fair, a blank disc is good for demonstrating that a significant skating force exists. It is no good for setting accurate antiskating compensation.

Actually I've heard the blank surface thing - and I think as a rough guesstimate of where your antiskate is set, it should work, if you have it set way too high or about right, but tone disks are always best. Most of my post concerns not having one, but in the original post he sites high frequency wobble or tizzyness, which is usually symptomatic of not having enough weight set on the cart, however I think the blackbid exhibits some of this anyway, and the rest of the set up may just be that good, that it's getting picked up overall.

i have a scoutmaster/jmw9 combo. i've used a sumiko celebration and benz glider with it previously, and now im using a dynavector 20 x-l. i've had no problems tracking anything. my normal vtf is in the upper range per the suggestion of vpi, so the dyna i'm at 2.2 . the comment that the jmw9 is not a good tonearm is rubbish. it's very good, and is not the reason that you're mistracking. and you should not have to set vtf as high as you are. i would make certain that you're set up is spot on, particulary if somebody else did the initial set up for you. if you've never done this before, it isn't hard. i assume you have the vpi jig that comes with the table? there's loads of information on proper alignment here and on the vinyl area of audioasylum.com . also, make certain that your table is absolutely level. and make sure that azimuth is on as well, although this shouldn't have that big of influence on tracking. the bottom line is if all these things are checked and double checked and are perfect, then it's a cart issue and you may need to think about trying something else, although i too have heard that the blackbird is a good match for the jmw9.

good luck.