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RS-3 owners: Seeking anti-skate help

Hello - I recently acquired the RS-3 headshell and attached it to my SME 3009 series II (unimproved). I followed the directions from the dealer to the letter and the sound, to date, is nothing shy of riveting, honestly. I am curious, however, if anyone with a similar set-up can comment on whether or not you are using the anti-skate rig. It is not 100% clear that the headshell completely compensates for the table's wanton tendency to pull the arm inwards, so I have set it up currently with the anti-skate weight in place, yet was wondering about the protocol of others, or if there is an official word on this?

Thank you for your help
nycwine1
dopogue
1,773 posts
 
All well and good, Quiddity, but you seem to have misunderstood the wonders of the RS arm :-)

I can't blame anyone for doing this. You have to use the silly thing. I wouldn't have believed it either. Dave
johnbrown
195 posts
 
'Nycewine1', did your dealer mention anything about the RS-3 being designed only for straight tonearms? I only mention it because a poster on another thread claimed it to be true.

I'd love to try one myself-btw, on what table, and with which cart, are you using it?
quiddity
119 posts
 
Hey Dave, I'm TRYING to understand the wonders of the RS labs approach to design, but so far I've had no joy as no-one has been able to explain how they work. Several explanations have been advanced but so far they've all been proven wrong.

For me "just listen to it" doesn't cut it, if a device produces good results I want to know why. By that I mean why the designer dreamt it up and how he made the decisions he made.
dopogue
1,773 posts
 
Good luck in your quest. I had something of the same feelings, as I read the impenetrable installation and operating instructions on this arm, plus Art Dudley's rather mystified review in the old Listener magazine, finally decided they were never going to make any sense and just relaxed and enjoyed its musicality and sonics.

But not its ergonomics. You need a lot steadier hand and better eye-hand coordination than I have to subdue this thing. Dave
lewm
13,421 posts
 
I should add here that I heard the RS-A1 at Dave's house and was similarly impressed, since I was familiar with the sound of Dave's system as a baseline. Very lively and therefore life-like is the best way I can sum it up. To paraphrase what Dorothy Parker once wrote about the emotional range of the young Katherine Hepburn, the RS-A1 runs the gamut of sound tonearm engineering, from A to B. But the darn thing works.
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