Well temp, arm drifts from away from center of rec


I have just tried to set my vintage Well Tempered classic with square motor for the first time with a grado Sonata cartridge. If I place the tonearm in the middle of the record the arm drifts back toward the beginning of the record as it descends down toward the grooves. I have the anti-skating completely closed and I used a level to make sure that my platform was not causing this. This seems to be very odd. I hope a veteran Well tempered user can help me. Bob
128x128baranyi
Thank you both for the responses. At least I know that I am not alone having the tonearm having this drifting. I also seems that it can be reduced with someone who really knows the setup. My concern is that it cannot be a good situation for the best sonics. Does anyone know the trick to eliminating this? Bob
I certainly cannot dispute Chashas1's experience, but the arm design has some level of AS force present even at its minimal setting when setup as the manufacturer recommends. Since the arm doesn't have a cueing platform to hold the arm's position as it drops, some outward travel is to be expected. Drift can be minimized or possibly eliminated by orienting the arm alignment in the mounting hole to minimize twist in the line, but this will result in less than the recommended AS force (which may still work fine in many situations.)
Baranyi,

I owned the Well Tempered Record Player arm, which is similar to the Classic but lacks the anti-skate adjustment. Having observed a Classic arm, though, my opinion is that even at the minimum setting the Well Tempered design applies too much anti-skating force. My solution was to add an extra half twist to the tonearm suspension lines. This effectively eliminates all but the smallest amount of anti-skating force, while still allowing for azimuth adjustment. I never really had cueing drift after I applied this tweak, except for my lousy eye-hand coordination. :-)

If you need more details, contact me outside the forums. I'll be happy to provide more detail.

David
David,
I have emailed you hoping to understand the tweak you mentioned above. Bob
David,
It was amazing that we happened to only be a couple of miles from each other at the time of my post. It was wonderful meeting you and your wife yesterday. I can hardly wait to try the tweak that you mentioned on this thread. I am certainly not a techy but it seemed that even I could handle the tweak that you mentioned. I wish that we were meeting under more favorable circumstances. Bob