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Anti skate and tonearm damping query

I have read a number of threads relating to both antiskating and tonearm damping on the JMW 9" Sig.arm and find myself a bit confused.......I have been experimenting a little and have reached the conclusion that I must be deaf. I have not used the additional antiskating system, I have tried twisting and not twisting the leno wire and can hear no difference. If the Leno wire is not twisted therefore no antiskate, will this damage the stylus or the album??
I have also filled the damping well above the taper to the base of the point and still cannot hear 'the music being sucked out' or indeed, an improvement. Do I fill the well up to the point!! and then work backwards. Those that finetune using the damping seem to have some sort of epiphany when the 'sweet' spot is reached.

Can someone please shed light on how I should be going about setting the AS and finetuning the damping on the arm. The table is a scoutmaster with super platter and sds, the cartridge is the dynavector Te Kaitora Rua

Thanks
wes4390
nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,524 posts
 
Dertonarm, my explanations are based on the Laws of Mechanics introduced by Sir Isaac Newton July 5, 1687, and which remain true and in use to this day. You can point to all the little nuances which you assert would have an effect on the basic design, but they are so small as to be irrelevant. You seem to want to make things as complex as possible, which makes any useful solution impossible of course. Nonsense!

As I said before, I have no problem with your expressing your ideas, but remember, without any scientific proof or technical underpinnings, that's all they are: thoughts, and whimsy ;-)

Anti skating in it's basic form is a very useful concept, if only to prevent uneven record wear and reduce surface noise in the left channel. To those who think anti-skating is of no value, or just TOO COMPLICATED to implement (dear, dear!), I say, "don't worry, be happy" or better yet, get a 16" tonearm with no offset ;-)
dertonarm
1,042 posts
 
Newton would smile.....
Again Nsgrach - your simplified model does not meet reality.
It is obvious and a simple fact that the skating is altering - ever seen any skating in the zero point ?
The offset is changing - and so is the amount of skating force.
You are calling for simplicity - this is a very simple fact.
Where is your problem ?
syntax's avatar
syntax
2,193 posts
 
HP speaks on Oct. 3, 2009:

A lot of systems don't sound like music," said Harry. "They sound like hi-fi. When I go to Carnegie Hall, I sometimes close my eyes and try to pretend I'm listening to a hi-fi system, so I can see what I'm missing." Some of the great designers continued to issue great gear even as their hearing declined with age, because they were designing to what they heard in the concert hall. Hence the importance of a life reference, the experience of acoustic music performed in an excellent acoustic.

Harry also reminded us that his magazine was the first to hire women reviewers, and that women's hearing is superior in the crucial 4–8 kHz range. One of the very few women present (were there more than two?) then spoke, noting that she had to flee a number of rooms at RMAF because the sound was too bright. I wonder if she saw me asking people to either turn the music down because it was too piercing, or following in her footsteps and making a quick exit

It is always the same:
When you don't understand what you hear...but even HP can't change it anymore.
almarg's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
almarg
9,670 posts
 
NSGarch:With all cartridges except those with the stiffest suspensions, as long as you can see the cantilever from the front of the cartridge, it's quite easy to set AS force visually. I always did it that way with my MM Shure cartridges. You just lower the stylus into the groove while watching the cantilever from the front. If it deflects to the right (relative to the cartridge body) you need to add AS force. If it deflects to the left, AS needs to be reduced. No deflection of the cantilever when the stylus hits the groove means the skating force is balanced out. It could also mean that the skating force (even without AS applied) is not enough to alter the relationships in the cartridge's generator (usually because the suspension is stiff enough to resist the skating forces) and so you would HEAR no difference with or without AS applied. Nevertheless, with no AS applied, the inner groove wall of the record would wear faster than the outer groove wall
Although I don't profess to have anywhere near the expertise in these matters of several of the protagonists in this thread, Neil's statement above seems to me to be the common sense bottom line, regardless of the fact that any anti-skating setting will be a compromise to a degree that will vary with position across the record.
NSGarch: The Grace 707 is a vintage tonearm calibrated for MM cartridges, not MC which require far less AS. The rule of thumb in the MM days was that the AS should equal the VTF, and even at that, how much sideways AS force (in grams) was applied was definitely NOT the same as the actual weight on the string.
FWIW, I have over the years used several MM/MI cartridges on multiple turntables and arms (mainly a Grace F9E Ruby and a high output Grado Reference Sonata on a SOTA Sapphire with Magnepan Unitrac tonearm), and using the visual alignment method I've consistently found that the optimal setting was about 2/3 of the setting recommended by the tonearm manufacturer for the particular vtf.

Regards,
-- Al
nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,524 posts
 
Al, thanks for the reinforcement. You obviously have more insight/experience than you want to claim ;-)

Tonarm, I really have nothing further to say to you ;-(

Neil
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