Antiskating .... The last analog secret

Belated Merry Holidays to all. Just catching up on this fun and fascinating thread.

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Hevac and Dgad both suggested - correctly - that the damage to Thomasheisig's cartridge could have resulted from sticky tonearm bearings. Most of the discussion is taking place amongst those with tonearms having very high quality bearings (JMW, Phantom, TriPlanar, Vector, etc.), but the danger of poor, dirty or poorly adjusted arm bearings should not be overlooked. That was a good alternative explanation.

Bearing drag on my OL Silver was notably higher than on my TriPlanar. The difference was easy to feel and the Silver, while a great performer at its price point, did not track or play nearly as well.

So we've developed another reason NOT to put very costly cartridges on lesser tonearms: besides not hearing all the cartridge is capable of, an inadequate arm may actually shorten the cartridge's lifespan. More support for Linn's original upgrade hierarchy: table, tonearm, cartridge.

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Bearing drag and arm effective mass always provide some resistance to inward movement, so even arms lacking *any* AS device still apply "some" AS force. We can never actually get to zero AS.

This is true even of linear trackers, whose lateral effective mass resists the slow, inward spiralling of the groove. Those Mapleknoll/Walker/Rockport/Air Tangent guys need to add a PRO-skating device! Hah!

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Based on suggestions above I took the next obvious step, which Dan apparently also just did: I removed the TriPlanar's AS mechanism altogether.

It isn't difficult and it's reversible. Just be careful when removing the little C-clip that it doesn't fly off somewhere. Once you slide the dogleg off, the post it rides on unthreads pretty easily.

The sonic improvements from removing the AS mechanism were about what we'd all predict: an increase in very low level information, soundstage deeper and improved in the back corners, etc. Not huge or even major, but audible.

As for tracking, most LP's played perfectly. On one stereo LP with powerful operatic vocals I got a tiny amount of L channel mistracking at one tough spot, then an equally tiny amount of R channel mistracking at another. ("Tiny" means a trace of HF fuzziness, not static-like bursts.)

Conclusion: my average AS setting (now as close to zero as possible) is okay but a trace more VTF was needed for those two passages on that LP, given that day's weather, etc. We need remote-controlled, adjustable, VTF-on-the-fly! ;-)

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Yikes! No fluid damping trough. No AS mechanism. No arm rest/lock (in some cases). Our tonearms are disappearing!

I also considered removing the entire cueing mechanism. It's probably a significant resonator with all those fiddly bits and it looks like just two screws. This would be viable if you're comfortable cueing every LP by hand, which Paul isn't, so I didn't do it. Thom likes hand cueing so maybe he'll try. :-)

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Playing just above minimal VTF and setting VTA/SRA for each record demonstrates the truth behind those notional charts in the white paper: that the sweet spot for these parameters is extremely tiny and the curve surrounding them can be very steep. I thought the paper and its charts offered a perspective that could be helpful/useful.

So, the final conclusion is: set the AS as low as possible? Could you give an example? I have the SPU 85 Anniversary at 3.7 gr tracking force in a Fidelity Research FR-66S, the AS should be half of that or less?

Chris

Dazz, if this thread has any point to make at all, it's that there ARE parameters for setting AS -- no the sky is NOT the limit (in either direction;-)

In the case of your SPU-85, an elliptical stylus + high VTF (3.5 g) = lots of friction! The compliance of the suspension is 8x (medium) so I'd be inclined to say that you could BEGIN (in this rare instance) by using the old "AS = VTF" standard. And then slowly reduce the AS until you begin to get some high frequency fuzz as Doug just described. Where you wind up will have to be your decision, of course. Patience is mandatory (patience, and a little self-confidence ;-)

I agree with Doug. I tried nearly every setting from AS to no AS. Yes, no AS is definitely different, but in my opinion only "better in the first minute". I am back with AS, but as little as possible in combination with looking what movement the needle is going to do.
To the bearing:
Yes, of course this can happen, when the bearing is too stiff, but this is rare. Another idea is, that the manufacturer delivered a cartridge which was not aligned properly (that is not common, but possible), but in general - and this is the reason why I started this thread - is to realize or to start a discussion about Antiskating. It can be a serious factor in the personal set up

Dear Thomasheisig: +++++ " What do you think? " +++++

that's what you asked on the subject. Well I already posted my experiences about along that in theory we need AS.

The AS subject is so complex that almost any " think " is valid.
There are to many parameters involve on the AS subject that makes so complicated to have the right scientific answer.

In our ( my self ) today tonearm design we are trying about and we don't have the right answer yet and maybe we can't have it.
From my point of view the AS subject is a whole/big complicated project ( a scietific one ) by itself and I'm not sure if it is worth to go seriously in deep about even that I'm a " perfectionist " on the sound reproduction targets.

I don't want to go inside of the different " roads " ( posted here ) to set-up the AS because IMHO no one is perfect and no one is even near the " target ", almost all are to " simple " for say the least.

In the AS subject we have to take in count between other parameters/things that affects it: eccentricity of the LP that it is different on each LP, deformation/waves on the LP that is/are different on each LP, the recording velocity on each track and the different " velocities " on each track!!!!!!, the differences on 33rpm, 45rpm and 78rpm that affects in different way to the AS subject, each cartridge suspension/compliance/stylus design, each tonearm whole design, VTA/SRA, VTF level, Azymuth, temperature that affects the cartridge compliance suspension, AS tonearm method, etc, etc.

Due to that complexity and over the time I go from full AS to 50%, to 30% to 20% to none.

Am I satisfied?, certainly not, so what to do?.
I make/take a " reference "/status: to set-up/mantain with almost CERO tolerance all cartridge/tonearm/TT set-up standards ( VTA/SRA/VTF (near the high limit )/overhang/etc, etc ) and try 50-30-20-none AS values trying to hear degradations or improvements on the quality performance and after many testings TODAY I choose not to worry ( in my system )
on AS or maybe 20% to stay on " mind-calm ".

Now, there are two important things on the whole AS subject: the cartridge quality control and the tonearm quality control on each cartridge/tonearm out there, IMHO the necessity of more/less AS ( other that the whole set-up ) depends on that high/low cartridge/tonearm build quality control.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.