Koetsu Urushi+SMEV anti skating setting help

If possible, use as little anti-skate as you can. Every cartridge/arm combo will yield a different percentage of your VTF. I have various arms and cartridges and have found a good approximation which falls between 25%-30% of your VTF. Dial it in and go from there.

Anti-skate cannot be accurately set so don't be obsessed with it. Anti-skate at any different point on a record is different. Different records require different amount of anti-skate. IMO, set it up once and leave it unless you're in the camp of tweakers who set it differently on various LP's to maximize sonics. Nothing wrong with this but takes a lot more effort.

What you have to do is just relax and listen.

Many thanks Genesis168
I have found your insight informative the most and with the rest of the opinions I am making my own considering there is an obsessive direction I am not going to follow; there are too many records waiting and time has to be used acordingly...

Agondgd - Setting the 'numbers' on the VTF and antiskating dials does not mean that the forces are equal. I think SME has designed the V so that when set that way, the anti-skating force is a percentage of the VTF, increasing as the arm moves toward the spindle. Good luck.

The Koetsu arm has no anti-skate, because its really a waste of time. It cant be set correctly. It is a dynamic force that increases and decreases with loudness and frequency. VPI too recomends no anti-skate.

Dear David,

Here is what has worked for me- you could use it as a starting point for your musical journey..

VTF= 1.95gr
AS= 1.875 (the'precision' of the AS figure should only be used as an approximation for dialling up the setting- if you look at the SME V AS dial you should be very clear what setting I mean).

I agree in theory with how relative an AS setting is. However I recalibrated my SMEV/Urushi a few times and I come back to the same figures.

A further useful bit of information: Urushi is not a good tracker and there is no way you could clear the third let alone the fourth bias setting tracks of Len Gregory's Analogue Test LP.

The SMEV/Urushi is a nice combo- enjoy!
Kostas