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Ditching anti-skate?

Had some issues with the anti-skate settings on my Clearaudio TT. No matter how the weight was adjusted, the arm was always swinging back to the periphery of the record when I used the arm riser. So, I asked my dealer, who sent me to his distributor....what he said surprised me. Basically, he said that anti-skate is useless. A myth propogated by customers feeling that no anti-skate adjustment will make customers thing that the design is "incomplete." He says that anti-skate actually causes the stylus to "wobble" in the grooves, increasing wear to both record and stylus, as well as robbing the TT of bass, since most of the bass in records is at the bottom of the grooves. So, I bagged the anti-skate completely. Right or wrong?
afc
gadfly's avatar
gadfly
194 posts
 
i have to ask this: if it sounds better without anti-skate, then isn't that better? no matter the technical details. pragmatics apply.
stefanl
296 posts
 
It seems to me that it is necessary to always adjust VTF in relation to anti-skate firstly.Now a lot of people here seem to be the "set and forget" types.I found that I wanted to investigate anti-skate more after reaching the point a lot of you are at now,where the use of it was worse sounding than none at all.So aided by the use of the "on-the-fly" TWL weight mod and the ability of my "tweaked" Rega arm to be "voiced" with the plinth by adjusting the fixing nut tension (tonearm also bearing),I discovered the glories of correct anti-skate and weight for each single record I play.The VTA set correctly as well.Anti-Skate set right,is the correct parameter to adjust for everything to snap into focus.Pragmatically speaking, this is the route I had to go and I will not go back now,it is very good.Some of you may well be limited by how much and finely you can adjust your tonearm.It took me a lot of iteration to discover anti-skate.I can state that categorically that it is worse without correct anti-skate all other things being equal.
mickeyf
153 posts
 
sounds like 40 minutes to play a 19 minute side. no fun, it's not about enjoying the music if you have to go that far.....
stefanl
296 posts
 
Lloyd Walker of Walker Tables has a set-up faq on his site that recommends playing an album to first warm-up your system(there's the 40 minutes)before you fine-tune.That's what's considered normal in his regime.Plan on spending some time listening.You get used to doing it and it's actually fun!
mfsoa
76 posts
 
I ditched it on my ProJect Perspective Carbon and it sounds much better w out that dangly thing attached to the tonearm. Makes me think that there must be a better way...
-Mike
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