Antiskating .... The last analog secret

That is interesting because Sumiko recommend a setting of about 1/3 of the tracking force in the manual for the Blue Point No.2 cartridge and I wonder if there is a connection.Anyway it was Bob Fulton who proposed that the "art" stylii were producing incorrect results because the shaping of them caused minute "catching" in the groove making the cantilever vibrate unnecessarily,thus there was more distortion than with a conical shape.He had Entre in Japan mod an MC with a conical stylus and even produced one of his own at one time I believe.I had a communication with a fellow in Minnesota who swears by Fulton's discovery and will not let an "art" stylus in the house.You can tell by the violins he says.I am not that dedicated but do use a DL-103.Anyway I hope people read that article and some more research is done in this area.

The close up of the cartridge looks as if it was used/ abused by some dance club dj.
Is that vinyl residue on the front of the body?!

The old cartridges did not of course have the R&D of today's science behind them and you could not really compare.I did not mean the Sumiko was some kind of killer cartridge,but where do you engage anti-skate if at all.That's something that needs some good science behind it now.The article bucked the trend even then I guess of saying you set tracking weight and bias about the same,by saying 30% of weight was the most you could need.

Here's the deal on styli and friction: line contact (or micro ridge, etc) styli spread the tracking force of the tonearm over the entire length of their (line) contact with the groove (two lines actually) whereas a conical or elliptical stylus only contacts the record groove at two points. So even at the (relatively) light tracking force of MM cartridges (1 gm +/-) versus the much heavier VTF of MC cartridges (2+ gm) the actual pounds per square inch applied to the vinyl by a line contact stylus, even at 2+ gms VTF is far less than the psi of an elliptical stylus on the vinyl (to say nothing of the fact that the elliptical stylus doesn't fit the groove very well.)

With that in mind, it's easy to see why modern line contact styli don't produce much friction in the groove and so require much less (if any) AS force.

Although some modern MM cartridges use line contact styli, most are found on MC cartridges. The relatively stiff suspensions of MC cartridges are unlikely to deform sideways (enough to matter) from the little bit of skating force produced.

Or you can just go to a 12" transcription arm and forget the whole thing!
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