Anti skate and tonearm damping query

Great posts that are spot on!

Agree with all the above.

With regard to your question, on most unipivots that offer fluid damping in the bearing well, the fluid must actually touch the upper (movable) portion of the bearing to have much audible effect. Just damping the well isn't going to do much. I haven't played with the damping on a JMW, but if your well is tall enough to allow it, that's the right idea.

That said, I'd heed Nsgarch's sage analysis regarding damping with this particular cartridge/arm combo. Your bass and dynamics response are borderline now. Even a little damping might impair them noticeably.

Of course you could try it and hear for yourself. Just remember, once you've added enough fluid to touch the upper (free) part of the bearing, adjust in TINY amounts. Dertonarm's suggestion to use thinner fluid than what's considered normal makes excellent sense (again, because of your arm/cart combo).

When you lift your arm off the well you should see a string of oil coming off the tonearm base. That is if you want damping. I would suggest using the damping oil that came with your Scout. Again if you want damping. Use a syringe to suck out any extra.

Anti-skate is arm/cart dependent- try it with your set up to see what is best. With my VPI 9 arm twisting the wire was perfect, with the VPI 9 Mem arm it is not.

Hi,
The lemo connector has a small amount of anti-skate bias, even when not twisted. Twisting it (counter-clockwise, I think?) will increase the anti-skate force.
I experimented with the anti-skate on this arm, both via the lemo connector and the anti-skate assembly. The difference I heard was minimal. I only heard a noticeable difference when way too much anti-skate was applied. The soundstage moved off-center and the sound became smeared.
I currently use the optional anti-skate with no weights on it. It makes no difference that I've ever been able to hear consistently, but it tracks the test record better and so I would assume it's probably better in terms of groove wear.
The great improvements I've made with this arm were the result of a) dialing in VTF/VTA, and b) nailing the alignment with a Mint LP protractor.
I've never tried using the damping fluid. Just seems too messy.
Regarding Srwooten's post, if you don't have a syringe handy, a Q-tip works too.
Cheers.

Tom

Skating force is a 'twisting torque'. It occurs only in tonearms that have an angular offset built into them to help minimize tracking error - making it zero at two points across the record instead of one point (which would result if there were no offset.) The amount of the skating force is the result of the friction force (or drag) of the stylus in the groove times a lever arm. The length of this lever arm is the length of a line drawn from the stylus, pependicular to the axis of the cartridge, to the point where it intersects at 90 degrees with a line drawn through the pivot of the tonearm. Since this relationship remains constant, regardless of the stylus' position on the record, the skating force remains essentially constant across the record. I say 'essentially' because there is some very minor variation in the force-of-friction as the velocity of the stylus-in-the-groove slows down toward the center of the record. ANTI skating force, when applied with a spring, can be made to compensate for this (VERY slight) variation, as in SME arms. However, the weight-on-a string method or the twisted-cartridge-leads method will work just fine. Whether AS has an effect (or not) depends on the design of the cartridge. Stiffer suspension material and/or lower VTF reduce the need for AS. Further, the larger the size and strength of the magnetic field in which the coil is immersed, the less AS will make a difference/improvement.

Increasing the VTF will ALWAYS increase the skating force/torque because increasing the VTF increases the friction of the stylus in the groove. The fact that line contact styli produce so much less friction (compared to conical and elliptcal styli) is why moving coil cartridge makers (using line-contact styli) are able to use higher VTF's and stiffer suspensions necessary for the generally superior performance of MC cartridges.

With MM cartridges the situation is reversed. True they customarily track at 1/2 the VTF of MC cartidges, and many of them now employ line contact styli. However, because of their extremely compliant suspensions, it's easy for just a little skating force/torque to pull their tiny magnets out of alignment with the field coils.
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